Chapter 56

Rossetti, and his work in general, Five Books of Song (1894), strongly marked by artistic susceptibility, is in a high degree refined and delicate. In the country at large popular success, in England as well as in America, was won by Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903), in Hans Breitmann's Ballads (1871), humorous poems in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect. Born in Philadelphia, he spent the greater part of his mature life abroad and wrote numerous works on diverse topics, but his reputation is chiefly connected with his books on gypsy life and lore. Another foreign resident who deserves mention was Wilham Wetmore Story (1819-1895), the sculptor, of Massachusetts, connected with the Boston group, whose verse and prose gave him the rank of a litterateur. The South again entered into literature with the work of Sidney Lanier (1842-1881), in succession to Henry Timrod (1829-1867) and Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886), who find a place rather by the affection in which they are held at the South than by positive merit. Lanier showed originality and a true poetic gift, but his talents were little effectual. From the West humorous poetry was produced by Francis Bret Harte (1839-1902), born in Albany, in The Heathen Chinee (1870) and similar verse, but he is better remembered as the artistic narrator of western mining life in his numerous stories and novels. Verse of a similar kind also first brought into literary notice John Hay (1838-1905), in Pike County Ballads (1871), who also wrote in prose; but his reputation was rather won as a statesman in the closing years of his life. Minor poets of less distinction but with a vein superior to that of the earlier period, more excellent in workmanship and more coloured with imagination and mood, arose in all parts, of whom the most notable are Julia Ward Howe (born 1819), in Boston, the venerable friend of many good causes, Henry Howard Brownell (1820-1872) of Rhode Island, author of the most vigorous and realistic poetry of the Civil War, War Lyrics (1866), Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887), born in Connecticut but associated with California, Henry Van Dyke (born 1852), in New York, better known by his prose in tale and essay, Silas Weir Mitchell (born 1830), in Philadelphia, whose repute as a novelist has overshadowed his admirable verse, Eugene Field (1850-1895) of Chicago, James Whitcomb Riley (born 1853) of Indiana, both distinguished for their humorous and childhood verse, and Joaquin Miller (born 1841) of Oregon, whose first work, Songs of the Sierras (1871), had in it much of the spirit of the wild land, the colour of the desert, the free, adventurous character of the filibuster, all strangely mixed with pseudo-Byronic passions.

Whitman.

Apart from all these, whether minor or major poets, stands Walt Whitman (1819-1892), whose Leaves of Grass (1855) first appeared before the war, but whose fame is associated rather with its successive editions and its companion volumes, and definitely dated, perhaps, from 1867. He received attention in England, as did Miller, on an assumption that his works expressed the new and original America, the unknown democracy, and he has had some vogue in Germany mainly owing to his naturalism. His own countrymen, however, steadily refuse to accept him as representative of themselves, and his naturalism is uninteresting to them, while on the other hand a group apparently increasing in critical authority treat his work as significant. It is, in general, only by those few fine lyrics which have found a place in all anthologies of American verse that he is well known and highly valued in his own land.

The later novel.

The chief field of literary activity has been found in the novel, and nowhere has the change been so marked as here. The romantic treatment of the novel practically disappeared, and in its place came the realistic or analytic treatment, rendering manners by minute strokes of observation or dissecting motives psychologically. This amounted to a substitution of the French art of fiction, in some of its forms, for the English tradition of broad ideality and historical picturesqueness. The protagonist of the reform was William Dean Howells (born 1837), a cultivated literary scholar, and a various writer of essays, travel sketches, poetry and plays, editor of many magazines and books, whose career in letters has been more laborious and miscellaneous than any other contemporary, but whose main work has been the long series of novels that he has put forth almost annually throughout the period. He not only wrote fiction, but he endeavoured to make known to Americans fiction as it was practised in other lands, Russia, Italy, Spain, and to bring the art that was dearest to him into line with the standard of the European world. He was an apostle of the realistic school, and directed his teaching to the advocacy of the novel of observation, which records life in its conditions and attempts to realize what is in the daily lives and experience of man rather than what belongs to adventure, imagination or the dreaming part of life. Of his works, The Lady of the Aroostook (1879), The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889), are characteristic examples. He won a popular vogue, and if it is now less than it was, it is because after a score of years tastes and fashions change. The conscientiousness of his art continues the tradition of American writers in that respect, and he is master of an affable style. His work, including all its phases, is the most important body of work done in his generation. Henry James (born 1843), who mainly resided abroad, is his compeer, and in a similar way has followed French initiative. He also has been a various writer of criticism and travel and the occasional essay; but his equally long series of novels sustains his reputation. He has developed the psychological treatment of fiction, and of his work The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Princess Casamassima (1886) and The Tragic Muse (1890) are characteristic. He has had less vogue owing to both matter and style, but in certain respects his power, more intellectual than that of Howells, has greater artistic elements, while the society with which he deals is more complex. He is really a cosmopolitan writer and has no other connexion with America than the accident of birth. A third novelist, also a foreign resident, Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909), falls into the same category. A prolific novelist, in the beaten track of story-telling, he has always a story to tell and excellent narrative power. The work regarded as most important from his hand is Saracinesca (1887) and its sequels; but his subjects are cosmopolitan, his talent is personal, and he has no effectual connexion with his own country. The romantic tradition of the older time was continued by Lew Wallace (1827-1905) of Indiana, a distinguished general and diplomat, in his Mexican tale, The Fair God (1873), and his oriental romances, Ben Hur (1880), one of the most widely circulated of American books, and The Prince of India (1893). A mode of the novel which was wholly unique was practised by Francis Richard Stockton (1834-1902) in his droll tales, of which Rudder Grange (1879) is the best known.

The principal minor product of the novel lay in the provincial tale. The new methods easily lent themselves to the portraiture of local conditions, types and colour. Every part of the country had its writers who recorded its traits in this way. For New England Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe described the older life in Old Town Folks (1869), and was succeeded by Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) and Mary Eleanor Wilkins (born 1862). The West was notably treated by Edward Eggleston (1837-1902) in The Hoosier School Master (1871), Mary Hallock Foote (born 1847) in Led-Horse Claim (1883) and Hamlin Garland (born 1860) in Main Travelled Roads (1891). The South was represented by Mary Noailles Murfree ["Charles Egbert Craddock"] (born 1850) in In the Tennessee Mountains (1884) and its successors, by Thomas Nelson Page (born 1853) in Marse Chan (1887) and other tales of the reconstruction in Virginia, and with most literary grace by George Washington Cable (born 1844), whose novels of Louisiana are remarkable for their poetic charm. The list is sufficiently illustrative of the general movement, which made what was called the dialect novel supreme for the season. This was succeeded by a revival of the historical novel in local fields, of which Winston Churchill (born 1871) in Richard Carvel (1899) is the leading exponent, and together with it the sword and dagger tale of the Dumas type, the special contemporary plot invented by Anthony Hope, and romance in its utmost forms of adventure and extravagance, came in like a flood at the close of the Spanish War. There were during the period from 1870 to 1900 many other writers of fiction, who often proceeded in conventional and time-honoured ways to tell their tale, but none of them is especially significant for the general view or as showing any tendencies of an original sort. The pietistic novel, for example, was produced with immense popularity by Edward Payson Roe (1838-1888), who shared the same vogue as Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819-1881), and both fell heir to the same audience which in the earlier period had welcomed The Wide, Wide World with the same broad acceptance.

Essayists.

The essay, and the miscellaneous work which may be classed with it, was cultivated with most distinction by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (born 1823), one of the Boston group, a writer of the greatest versatility, as in his life he followed many employments, from that of preaching in a Unitarian pulpit to that of commanding a negro regiment in the Civil War. He has written good verse and excellent prose, and his familiar style, often brilliant with life and wit, especially becomes the social essay or reminiscent paper in which he excelled, and gives agreeableness to his writings in every form. Atlantic Essays (1871) is a characteristic book; and, in general, in his volumes is to be found a valuable fund of reminiscence about the literature and the times of his long life, not elsewhere so abundant or entertaining. Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) of Hartford, also in close touch in the later years with the Boston group, was more gifted with gentle humour and of a literary temperament that made the social essay his natural expression. He won popularity by My Summer in a Garden (1870), and was the author of many volumes of travel and several novels, but the familiar essay, lighted with humour and touched with a reminiscence of the Irving quality in sentiment, was his distinctive work. The long life of Edward Everett Hale (1822- 1909), minister at Boston, was fruitful in many miscellaneous volumes, including fiction of note, The Man Without a Country (1868), but the most useful writing from his pen falls into prose resembling the essay in its form and manner of address, though cousin, too, to the sermon. John Burroughs (b. 1837) of New York carried on in essay form the nature tradition of Thoreau, touched with Emersonianism in the thought, and after his example books of mingled observation, sentiment and literary quality, with an out-of-door atmosphere, have multiplied.

Humour.

American humour often cultivates a form akin to the essay, but it also falls into the mould of the tale or scene from life. In the period before the Civil War, to sum up the whole subject in this place, it had the traits which it has since maintained, as its local tang, of burlesque, extravaganza, violence, but it recorded better an actual state of manners and scene of life in raw aspects. Its noteworthy writers were Seba Smith (1792-1868) of Maine, author of the Letters of Major Jack Downing, which began to appear in the press in 1830; Augustus Baldwin Longstreet of Georgia in Georgia Scenes (1835); William Tappan Thompson (1812-1882), born in Ohio but associated with the South by descent and residence, in Major Jones' Courtship (1840), a Georgian publication; Joseph G. Baldwin (1815-1864) in Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi (1853); and Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber (1814-1890) in Life and Sayings of Mrs Partington (1854). A fresh form, attended by whimsicality, appears in George Horatio Derby's (1823-1861) Phoenixiana (1855). In the war-times Robert Henry Newell (1836-1901) and David Ross Locke (1833-1888), respectively known as "Orpheus C. Kerr" and "Petroleum V. Nasby" cultivated grotesque orthography in a characteristic vein of wit; and with more quaintness and drollery Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818-1885) and Charles Farrar Browne (1834-1867), known as "Josh Billings" and "Artemus Ward," won immense popularity which extended to England. These latter writers were men of Northern birth, but of Western and wandering journalistic experience as a rule. Their works make up a body of what is known as "American humour," a characteristic native product of social conditions and home talent. One poet, John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) of Vermont, attempted something similar in literary verse after the style of Tom Hood. The heir to this tradition of farce, drollery and joke was Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), known as "Mark Twain," born in Missouri, who raised it to an extraordinary height of success and won world-wide reputation as a great and original humorist. His works, however, include a broader compass of fiction, greater humanity and reality, and ally him to the masters of humorous creation. Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) of Georgia introduced a new variety in Nights with Uncle Remus (1883), which is literary negro folklore, and Finley Peter Dunne (born 1857) of Chicago, the creator of "Mr Dooley," continues the older American style in its original traits.

History.

History was represented in this period with a distinction not inferior to that of the elder group by Francis Parkman (1823-1903) of Boston, who, however, really belongs with the preceding age by his affiliations; his series of histories fell after the Civil War by their dates of publication, but they began with History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851); he was the contemporary of Lowell and differed from the other members of the elder group, who survived, only by the fact of the later maturing of his work. He was not less eminent than Motley and Prescott and his history is of a more modern type. In the next generation the field of American history was cultivated by many scholars, and a large part of local history and of national biography was for the first time recorded. James Ford Rhodes's (1848) History of the United States (1892) holds standard rank; the various writings of John Fiske (1842-1901), distinguished also as a philosophical writer, in the colonial and revolutionary periods are valued both for scholarship and for excellent literary style; and Theodore Roosevelt's (born 1858) The Winning of the West (1889) and his several biographical studies deserve mention by their merit as well as for his eminent position. The historians, however, have seldom sought literary excellence, and their works belong rather to learning than to literature. The same statement is true of the scholarship of the universities in general, where the spirit of literary study has changed. In the department of scholarship little requires mention beyond Horace Howard Furness's (born 1833) lifelong work on his Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, the Shakespearian labours of Henry Norman Hudson (1814-1886) and Richard Grant White (1821-1885), the Chaucerian studies of Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury (born 1838) of Yale, and the translations of Dante (1867, 1892) by Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908) of Harvard.

Modern ideas.

The period has been one of great literary activity, effort and ambition, but it affects one by its mass rather than its details; it presents few eminent names. The romantic motives fixed in early colonizing history as a taking possession of the land by a race of Puritans, pioneers, river-voyagers, backwoodsmen, argonauts, have been exhausted; and no new motives have been found. The national tradition has been absorbed and incorporated, so far as literature was able to accomplish this. The national character on the other hand has been expressed rather in local types, the colour of isolated communities and provincial conditions for their picturesque value and human truth, and in commonplace characters of average life; but no broadly ideal types of the old English tradition have been created, and the great scene of life has not been staged after the manner of the imaginative masters of the past. There has been no product of ideas since Emerson; he was, indeed, the sole author who received and fertilized ideas as such, and he has had no successor. America is, in truth, perhaps intellectually more remote from Europe than in its earlier days. The contact of its romanticism with that of Europe was, as has been seen, imperfect, but its touch with the later developments and reactions of the movement in Europe is far more imperfect. With Tolstoy, Ibsen, d'Annunzio, Zola, Nietzsche, Maeterlinck, Sudermann, the American people can have no effectual touch; their social tradition and culture make them impenetrable to the present ideas of Europe as they are current in literary forms. Nor has anything been developed from within that is fertile in literature. The political unity of the nation is achieved, but it is not an integral people in other respects. It has not the unity of England or France or even of the general European mind; it rather contains such disparate elements as characterize the Roman or the Turkish empire. It is cleft by political tradition and in social moral conviction, north and south, and by intellectual strata of culture east and west; it is still a people in the making. Its literature has been regional, as was said, centred in New England, New York, Philadelphia, contributed to sporadically from the South, growing up in Western districts like Indiana or germinating in Louisville in Kentucky, abundant in California, but always much dependent on the culture of its localities; it blends to some extent in the mind of the national reading public, but not very perfectly. The universities have not, on the whole, been its sources or fosterers, and they are now filled with research, useful for learning but impotent for literature. The intellectual life is now rather to be found in social, political and natural science than elsewhere; the imaginative life is feeble, and when felt is crude; the poetic pulse is imperceptible.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The best general histories of American literature are by Barrett Wendell (1900) and William P. Trent (1903). Histories of particular periods or topics, most serviceable, are M. C. Tyler's History of American Literature during the Colonial Time (2 vols., 1878), Literary History of the American Revolution (2 vols., 1897); J. F. Jameson, History of Historical Writing in America (1891); H. D. Addison, The Clergy in American Life and Letters (1900); W. H. Venable, Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley (1891); M. Nicholson, The Hoosiers (1900); A. H. Smith, Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors, 1741-1850 (1892); W. B. Cairns, Development of American Literature, 1815-1833 (1898); O. B. Frothingham, Transcendentalism in New England (1876); L. Swift, Brook Farm (1900); T. W. Higginson, Old Cambridge (1900). The entire field is covered encyclopaedically by Stedman and Hutchinson, Library of American Literature (11 vols., 1888-1890) and the Duyckincks, Cyclopaedia (3rd ed., 1875), and portions of it in R. W. Griswold's successive collections, Poets and Poetry or America (1842), Prose Writers of America (1847), Female Poets of America (1848); Trent and Wells, Colonial Prose and Poetry (3 vols., 1901); Louise Manly, Southern Literature (1900), and E. C. Stedman, American Anthology (1900). The American Men of Letters series (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston) and the English Men of Letters, American Series (Macmillan, New York), present the biographical and critical view in general, to which may be added E. C. Stedman, Poets of America (1885); W. C. Lawton, The New England Poets (1898), and G. E. Woodberry, America in Literature (1903). Detailed and admirable bibliographies for all aspects of the subject are to be found in Wendell's and Trent's Histories, and abundant and minute biographical detail in Stedman's indexes of authors in his collections. See also the separate bibliographies to the articles in this work on each individual writer. (G. E. W.)

AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE (1775-1781). This war, by which the United States definitely separated themselves from the British connexion, began with the affair of Lexington in Massachusetts, on the 19th of April 1773, and was virtually ended by the capitulation of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, on the l0th of October 1781. In this article the progress of the war itself is alone considered, its political side being treated under UNITED STATES: History. From a military standpoint as well as politically it was a conspicuous and instructive conflict,--conspicuous, or even unique, as being the most famous struggle in history where colonial dependencies defeated their powerful parent state, and instructive as presenting exceptional conditions and consequent errors in the attempt to break down the revolt. The reasons for Great Britain's failure appear in the progress of the war, which assumed two distinct stages, operations in the north followed by operations in the south. In point of time and energy military activity was about equally divided between these two fields. As the naval operations in connexion with the war have a European interest as well, they are dealt with in a separate section.

Land operations.

To strike at the rebellion first in the north was natural and inevitable. To King George and his ministry, Massachusetts was the hotbed of disloyalty, the head and front of opposition to their colonial policy, and there coercion should begin. It was also a convenient point for a prompt display of authority, as the town of Boston was the headquarters of General Gage, recently appointed royal governor of Massachusetts and commander of the king's troops in North America. He had with him four regiments of regulars, the initial force with which to overawe the restless and defiant population in his vicinity. While Gage is to be credited with advising his government that not less than 20,000 men would be necessary for the work in hand, he proceeded at once to suppress demonstrations around Boston. His principal expedition brought about the skirmish of the 19th of April 1775 (see LEXINGTON), in which a detachment sent to seize some military stores collected at Concord suffered heavily at Lexington, Concord and other places, at the hands of the surrounding militia. This encounter roused the New England colonies, and in a few days some 16,000 of their townsmen marched in small bands upon Boston to protest against and resist further similar incursions; and in this irregular body we have the nucleus of the colonial forces which carried the war through. A noteworthy incident of the Concord affair, and characteristic of the attitude which the provincials had maintained and continued to maintain for another year, was the official representation to the king by the Massachusetts people that the regulars were the first to fire upon them, and that they returned the fire and fought through the day in strict defence of their rights and homes as Englishmen. They repeated their professions of loyalty to his majesty and the principles of the English Constitution. Conscious, nevertheless, that a struggle impended, they instantly sent word to all the other colonies, whose whig elements sympathetically responded to the alarm. The war had opened.

Bunker Hill.

The home government extended its precautions and preparations. General (Sir) William Howe, who succeeded Gage in the chief command in October, and Generals (Sir) Henry Clinton and John Burgoyne were sent out at once with reinforcements. Cornwallis followed a year later. These four generals were identified with the conduct of the principal operations on the side of the British. The force at Boston was increased to 10,000 men. The American Congress at Philadelphia, acting for all the thirteen colonies, voted general defensive measures, called out troops and appointed George Washington of Virginia commander-in-chief. Before he reached the camp forming around Boston, a second and more important collision took place. On the 17th of June 1775 occurred the battle of Bunker Hill (q.v.), in which, although victorious, the British suffered heavily, losing one-third of their force in storming the hastily constructed lines of the "rebels." The latter's most serious loss was that of General Joseph Warren, one of the prominent leaders of the revolutionary movement in Massachusetts. In moral effect the battle proved anything but a defeat to the Americans, who now drew a cordon of works around Boston, hemming Howe's army in a contracted, and, as it proved, untenable, position. On the 3rd of July Washington took command of the American army at Cambridge and proceeded with what is known as the "siege of Boston," which was marked by no special incident, and closed with the evacuation of the town by the British on the 17th of March 1776, Howe sailing away to Halifax, Nova Scotia. While the main interest centred at this point, the year 1775 was marked by two enterprises elsewhere. Fort Ticonderoga, the key to the passage of Lakes George and Champlain to Canada, was surprised and taken on the 10th of May by a small band under Colonel Ethan Allen, while Colonel Benedict Arnold headed an expedition through the Maine woods to effect the capture of Quebec, where Sir Guy Carleton commanded. Arnold joined General Richard Montgomery, who was already near the city, and the combined force assaulted Quebec on the 31st of December, only to meet with complete defeat. Montgomery was killed and many of his men taken prisoners. Demonstrations against Canada were soon discontinued, Arnold drawing off the remnant of his army in May 1776.

The events of 1775, though favourable to America, were but a prelude to the real struggle to come. For the campaign of 1776 both sides made extensive preparations. To the home government the purely military problem, although assuming larger dimensions and more difficulties, still seemed to admit of a simple solution, namely, to strike hard where the rebellion was most active and capable of the longest resistance. Defeated there, it would quickly dissipate in all quarters. As much more than one-half of the population and resources of the colonists lay north of Chesapeake Bay--New England alone having an estimated population of over 700,000 persons--it was only a question as to what point in this area should be made the future base of operations. Largely upon the representations of Howe, Burgoyne and others, it was determined to shift the field from Boston to New York city, from there to hold the line of the Hudson river in co-operation with a force to move down from Canada under Carleton and Burgoyne, and thus effectually to isolate New England.

Long Island.

Upon this plan the new campaign opened in June 1776. Howe, heavily reinforced from home, sailed on the 10th from Halifax to New York and on the 5th of July encamped on Staten Island. Washington, anticipating this move, had already marched from Boston and fortified the city. His left flank was thrown across the East river beyond the village of Brooklyn, while his front and right on the harbour and North or Hudson river were open to a combined naval and military attack. The position proved untenable. Howe drove Washington out of it, and forced the abandonment of the whole of Manhattan Island by three well-directed movements upon the American left. On the 22nd of August he crossed the Narrows to the Long Island shore with 15,000 troops, increasing the number to 20,000 on the 25th, and on the 27th surprised the Americans, driving them into their Brooklyn works and inflicting a loss of about 1400 men. Among the prisoners were Generals J. Sullivan and W. Alexander, soi-distant earl of Stirling. (See LONG ISLAND.) Howe has been criticized, rightly or wrongly, for failing to make full use of his victory. Washington skilfully evacuated his Brooklyn lines on the night of the 29th, and in a measure relieved the depression which the defeat had produced in his army. On the 15th of September Howe crossed the East river above the city, captured 300 of the militia defending the lines and occupied the city. Washington had withdrawn his main army to the upper part of the island. A skirmish, fought the next day, opposite the west front of the present Columbia University, and known as the affair of Harlem Heights, cost the British a loss of seventy of their light infantry. Delaying until the 12th of October, Howe again moved forward by water into Westchester county, and marching toward White Plains forced another retreat on Washington. In the fight on Chatterton Hill at the Plains, on the 28th of October, an American brigade was defeated.

Fort Washington.

Instead of pressing Washington further, Howe then returned to Manhattan Island, and on the 16th of November captured Fort Washington with nearly 3000 prisoners. This was the heaviest blow to the Americans throughout the war in the north. The British then pushed down through New Jersey with designs on Philadelphia. Washington, still retreating with a constantly diminishing force, suddenly turned upon Lieutenant-Colonel Rall's advanced corps of Hessians at Trenton on the 26th of December and captured nearly 1000 prisoners. This brilliant exploit was followed by another on the 3rd of January, when Washington, again crossing the Delaware, outmarched Cornwallis at Trenton, and marching to his rear defeated three British regiments and three companies of light cavalry at Princeton, New Jersey. Marching on to Morristown, Washington encamped there on the flank of the British advance in New Jersey, thus ending the first campaign fought on the new issue of American Independence, which had been declared on the 4th of July 1776.

Branywine.

While these closing successes inspirited the Americans, it was undeniable that the campaign had gone heavily against them. Having raised a permanent force for the war called the Continental Line, they awaited further operations of the enemy. Following up the occupation of New York, Howe proceeded in 1777 to capture Philadelphia. Complete success again crowned his movements. Taking his army by sea from New York to the head of the Chesapeake, he marched up into Pennsylvania, whither Washington had repaired to watch him, and on the 26th of September entered the city. The Americans attempted to check the advance of the British at the river Brandywine, where an action occurred on the 11th, resulting in their defeat (see BRANDYWINE); and on the 4th of October Washington directed a well-planned attack upon the enemy's camp at Germantown on the outskirts of the city, but failed of success. (See GERMANTOWN.)

Howe's victorious progress in Pennsylvania was neutralized by disasters farther north. Burgoyne marched from Canada in June 1777, with a strong expeditionary force, to occupy Albany and put himself in touch with Howe at the other end of the Hudson. Driving the Americans under General Arthur St Clair out of Ticonderoga, and making his way through the deep woods with difficulty, he reached the Hudson at Fort Edward on the 30th of July. General Philip Schuyler, commanding the Americans in that quarter, retreated to Stillwater, 30 m. above Albany, barricading the roads and impeding Burgoyne's progress. Dissatisfaction with his conduct led Congress to replace him in command by General Gates. On the 13th of August Burgoyne despatched a force to Bennington, Vermont, under the German colonel Friedrich Baum, to capture stores and overawe the country. On the 16th Baum was attacked by General John Stark with the militia from the surrounding country, and was overwhelmed. Colonel Breyman, marching to his relief, was also routed. The misfortune cost the British 1000 men.

Saratoga.

Equally unfortunate was the fate of an expedition sent under Colonel Barry St Leger to co-operate with Burgoyne by way of the Mohawk Valley. On the 6th of August he was met at Oriskany by General Nicholas Herkimer and forced to retreat. Despite these disasters Burgoyne pushed south to Stillwater, where he was defeated by Gates's improvised army of continentals and militia in two battles on the 19th of September (Freeman's Farm) and the 7th of October (Bemis's Height). On the 17th he was forced to surrender. (See SARATOGA, BATTLE OF.) This disaster was followed by the alliance between America and France in 1778, and later by the addition of Spain to England's enemies--events of far-reaching importance.

A movement of importance, in 1778-79, was the expedition of George Rogers Clark, under the authority of the state of Virginia, against the British posts in the north-west. With a company of volunteers Clark captured Kaskaskia, the chief post in the Illinois country, on the 4th of July 1778, and later secured the submission of Vincennes, which, however, was recaptured by General Henry Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit. In the spring of 1779 Clark raised another force, and recaptured Vincennes from Hamilton. This expedition did much to free the frontier from Indian raids, gave the Americans a hold upon the north-west, of which their diplomats duly took advantage in the peace negotiations, and later, by giving the states a community of interest in the western lands, greatly promoted the idea of union.

In 1778 Sir Henry Clinton succeeded Howe in the chief command in America. With fewer resources than his predecessor had disposed of, he could accomplish practically nothing in the north. In June 1778 he evacuated Philadelphia, with the intention of concentrating his force at New York. Washington, who had passed the winter at Valley Forge, overtook him at Monmouth, N.J., and in an action on the 28th of June both armies suffered about equal loss. Thereafter (except in the winter of 1779, at Morristown) Washington made West Point on the Hudson the headquarters of his army, but Clinton avowed himself too weak to attack him there. In 1779 he attempted to draw Washington out of the Highlands, with the result that in the manoeuvres he lost the garrison at Stony Point, 700 strong, the position being stormed by Wayne with the American light infantry on the 16th of July. During the summer General John Sullivan marched with a large force against the Indians (all the Iroquois tribes except the Oneidas and part of the Tuscaroras siding with the British during the war) and against the Loyalists of western New York, who had been committing great depredations along the frontier; and on the 29th of August he inflicted a crushing defeat upon them at Newtown, on the site of the present Elmira. In addition several Indian villages and the crops of the Indians were destroyed in the lake region of western New York.

Meanwhile the co-operation of the French became active. In July Count Rochambeau arrived at Newport, Rhode Island. That place had been occupied by the British from 1776 to the close of 1779. An unsuccessful attempt was made to drive them out in 1778 by the Americans assisted by the French admiral d'Estaing and a French corps. The year 1780 is also marked by the treason of General Benedict Arnold (q.v.), and the consequent execution of Major Andre. Minor battles and skirmishes occurred until in August 1781 Washington conceived the project of a combined American-French attack on Cornwallis at Yorktown, Va., the success of which was decisive of the war (see below).

Campaign in Georgia.

The inadequate results of the British campaigns against the northern colonies in 1776 and 1777 led the home government to turn its attention to the weaker colonies in the south. Operations in the north were not to cease, but a powerful diversion was now to be undertaken in the south with a view to the complete conquest of that section. Success there would facilitate further movements in the north. An isolated attack on Charleston, South Carolina, had been made by Sir Henry Clinton and Sir Peter Parker as early as June 1776, but this was foiled by the spirited resistance of General William Moultrie; after 1778 the southern attempts, stimulated in part by the activity of the French in the West Indies, were vigorously sustained. On the 29th of December of this year Colonel Archibald Campbell (1739- 1791) with an expeditionary corps of 3500 men from Clinton's army in New York, captured Savannah, Georgia, defeating the American force under General Robert Howe. In the following month he pushed into the interior and occupied Augusta. General Benjamin Lincoln, succeeding Howe, undertook to drive the British out of Georgia, but General Augustine Prevost, who had commanded in Florida, moved up and compelled Lincoln to retire to Charleston. Prevost, making Savannah his headquarters, controlled Georgia. In September 1779 he was besieged by Lincoln in conjunction with a French naval and military force under Admiral d'Estaing, but successfully repelled an assault (October 9), and Lincoln again fell back to Charleston. In this assault Count Casimir Pulaski, on the American side, was mortally wounded.

Charleston.

The prestige thus won by the British in the south in 1779 was immensely increased in the following year, when they victoriously swept up through South and North Carolina. Failing, as stated, to achieve any advantage in the north in 1779, Sir Henry Clinton, under instructions from government, himself headed a combined military and naval expedition southward. He evacuated Newport, R.I. (October 25), left New York in command of the German general Wilhelm von Knyphausen, and in December sailed with 8500 men to join Prevost at Savannah. Cornwallis accompanied him, and later Lord Rawdon joined him with an additional force. Marching upon Charleston, Clinton cut off the city from relief, and after a brief siege, compelled Lincoln to surrender on the 12th of May. (See CHARLESTON.) The loss of this place and of the 3000 troops included in the surrender was a serious blow to the American cause. The apparent submission of South Carolina followed. In June Clinton returned to New York, leaving Cornwallis in command, with instructions to reduce North Carolina also. Meanwhile an active and bitter partisan warfare opened. The British advance had been marked by more than the usual destruction of war; the Loyalists rose to arms; the whig population scattered and without much organization formed groups of riflemen and mounted troopers to harass the enemy. Little mercy was shown on either side. The dashing rider, Colonel Banastre Tarleton, cut to pieces (April 14, 1780) a detachment of Lincoln's cavalry, and followed it up by practically destroying Buford's Virginia regiment near the North Carolina border. On the other hand, daring and skilful leaders such as Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter kept the spirit of resistance alive by their sudden attacks and surprises of British outposts. Hanging Rock, Ninety-Six, Rocky Mount and other affairs brought their prowess and devotion into notice. By the month of August 1780, with the main British force encamped near the North Carolina line, the field seemed clear for the next advance.

Camden.

The threatening situation in the Carolinas alarmed Congress and Washington and measures were taken to protect the distressed section. Before Cornwallis could be brought to bay he was faced successively by four antagonists--Generals Gates, Greene, Lafayette and Washington. They found in him the most capable and dangerous opponent of the war. Greene called him "the modern Hannibal." With Lincoln's surrender of nearly all the continental soldiers in the south, a new force had to be supplied to meet the British veterans. Two thousand men, mainly the Maryland line, were hurried down from Washington's camp under Johann de Kalb; Virginia and North Carolina put new men into the field, and the entire force was placed under command of General Gates. Gates marched towards Camden, S.C., and on the 16th of August encountered Cornwallis near that place. Each army by a night march attempted a surprise of the other, but the British tactics prevailed, and Gates was utterly routed. The reputation he had won at Saratoga was ruined on the occasion by over-confidence and incompetence. De Kalb was killed in the action. General Greene, standing next to Washington as the ablest and most trusted officer of the Revolution, succeeded Gates. Cornwallis marched leisurely into North Carolina, but before meeting Greene some months later he suffered the loss of two detachments sent at intervals to disperse various partisan corps of the Americans. On the 7th of October 1780 a force of 1100 men under Major Patrick Ferguson was surrounded at King's Mountain, S.C., near the North Carolina line, by bands of riflemen under Colonels Isaac Shelby, James Williams, William Campbell and others, and after a desperate fight on the wooded and rocky slopes, surrendered. Ferguson himself was killed. On the 17th of January 1781 General Daniel Morgan was attacked at Cowpens, south-west of King's Mountain, by Colonel Tarleton with his legion. Both were leaders of repute, and a most stirring action occurred in which Morgan, with Colonel William Washington leading his cavalry, practically destroyed Tarleton's corps. Despite the weakening his army suffered by these losses, Cornwallis marched rapidly through North Carolina, giving Greene a hard chase nearly to the Virginia line.

Guilford Court House.

On the 15th of March the two armies met at Guilford Court House (near the present Greensboro, N.C.), and a virtually drawn battle was fought. The British, by holding their ground with their accustomed tenacity when engaged with superior numbers, were tactically victors, but were further weakened by a loss of nearly 600 men. Greene, cautiously avoiding another Camden, retreated with his forces intact. With his small army, less than 2000 strong, Cornwallis declined to follow Greene into the back country, and retiring to Hillsborough, N.C., raised the royal standard, offered protection to the inhabitants, and for the moment appeared to be master of Georgia and the two Carolinas. In a few weeks, however, he abandoned the heart of the state and marched to the coast at Wilmington, N.C., to recruit and refit his command.

At Wilmington the British general faced a serious problem, the solution of which upon his own responsibility unexpectedly led to the close of the war within seven months. Instead of remaining in Carolina he determined to march into Virginia, justifying the move on the ground that until Virginia was reduced he could not firmly hold the more southern states he had just overrun. This decision was subsequently sharply criticized by Clinton as unmilitary, and as having been made contrary to his instructions. To Cornwallis he wrote in May: "Had you intimated the probability of your intention, I should certainly have endeavoured to stop you, as I did then as well as now consider such a move likely to be dangerous to our interests in the Southern Colonies." The danger lay in the suddenly changed situation in that direction; as General Greene, instead of following Cornwallis to the coast, boldly pushed down towards Camden and Charleston, S.C., with a view to drawing his antagonist after him to the points where he was the year before, as well as to driving back Lord Rawdon, whom Cornwallis had left in that field. In his main object, the recovery of the southern states, Greene succeeded by the close of the year; but not without hard fighting and repeated reverses. "We fight, get beaten, and fight again," were his words. On the 25th of April 1781 he was surprised in his camp at Hobkirk's Hill, near Camden, by Lord Rawdon and defeated, both sides suffering about an equal loss.

Eutaw Springs.

On the 22nd of May he attempted to storm the strong British post at Ninety-Six but was repulsed; and finally on the 8th of September he fought the last battle of the war in the lower southern states at Eutaw Springs, S.C. In the first part of the action Greene was successful after a desperate conflict; in the pursuit, however, the Americans failed to dislodge the British from a stone house which they held, and their severe loss in both engagements was over 500 men. The British lost about 1000, one-half of whom were prisoners. Better success attended the American partisan operations directed by Greene and conducted by Marion, Sumter, Andrew Pickens, Henry Lee and William Washington. They fell upon isolated British posts established to protect the Loyalist population, and generally captured or broke them up. Rawdon found himself unable with his diminishing force to cover the country beyond Charleston; and he fell back to that place, leaving the situation in the south as it had been in the early part of 1780. On the American side, Greene was hailed as the deliverer of that section.

Virginia campaign.

Cornwallis, meantime, pursued his Virginia project. Leaving Wilmington, N.C., on the 25th of April 1781, he reached Petersburg on the 20th of May. There he found British detachments, 2000 strong, composed of troops whom Clinton had sent down separately under Generals Benedict Arnold and William Phillips to establish a base in the Chesapeake, as a diversion in favour of the operations of Cornwallis in the Carolinas. Virginia at the moment presented a clear field to the British, and they overran the state as far north as Fredericksburg and west to Charlottesville. At the latter place Jefferson, governor of the state, barely escaped capture by Tarleton's men. A small American force under Lafayette, whom Wayne reinforced during the summer, partially checked the enemy. At Green Spring, near Jamestown Island, Lafayette boldly attacked his antagonist on the 6th of July, but had to save himself by a hasty retreat. Early in August Cornwallis retired to Yorktown to rest and await developments. There he fortified himself, and remained until the American-French military and naval combination, referred to above, appeared and compelled his surrender. (See YORKTOWN.)

With this event war operations ceased. Preliminary articles of peace, signed on the 30th of November 1782, were followed by a definitive treaty concluded on the 3rd of September 1783. Charleston, S.C., was evacuated late in 1782; New York on the 25th of November 1783. The reasons of Great Britain's misfortunes and failure may be summarized as follows:--Misconception by the home government of the temper and reserve strength of her colonists, a population mainly of good English blood and instincts; disbelief at the outset in the probability of a protracted struggle covering the immense territory in America; consequent failure to despatch sufficient forces to the field; the safe and Fabian generalship of Washington; and finally, the French alliance and European combinations by which at the close of the conflict England was without a friend or ally on the continent.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. The most exhaustive reference work for this period is vol. vi. of Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America (Boston, 1887). Its nine chapters, prepared by different writers, give a complete review of the struggle, both military and naval, and each closes with numerous illustrative notes, editorial criticisms and a full list of authorities. The volume is interspersed, far more extensively and richly than any other treatise on the war, with reproductions of contemporary plans, maps, documents, portraits and prints. Supplementing Winsor and bringing the material down to recent date is Prof. C. H. Van Tyne's American Revolution (Harper's "Am. Nation" Series, New York, 1905), chap. xviii., on bibliographical aids and authorities. General histories of the war are mainly of American authorship, such as: George Bancroft's History of the United States (Boston, 1883-1885) which, in spite of minor errors of fact and judgment, will remain standard; J. Fiske's American Revolution (2 vols., Boston, 1891); Carrington's Battles of the American Revolution (New York, 1876) is a critical study by a military officer; L. J. Lossing's Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution (2 vols., New York, 1850-1859), not always accurate, but preserves local traditions and details. Monographs on single events or campaigns abound: Dawson's papers on Ticonderoga, "Storming of Stony Point," &c. (New York, 1866-); Johnston's "Campaign of 1776 around New York" (L. I. Hist. Soc., 1877), "Yorktown Campaign" New York, 1881), &c.; Sargent's Life of Major John Andre (Boston, 1861), one of the best of Revolutionary biographies: Gen. William Stryker's Battles of Trenton and Princeton (Boston, 1898); and others mentioned in Winsor and Van Tyne.

English works of importance are Lord Mahon's History of England, vol. vi.; Sir George O. Trevelyan's American Revolution (New York and London; vol. i., 1899; 4 vols. published, 1908), a new study of cabinet and parliamentary politics of the period, with review of the military events; Hon. J. W. Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. iii. (1902); Stedman's American War (2 vols., 1794); Col. Tarleton's Southern Campaigns, 1780-1781 (London, 1787); the pamphlet controversy between Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis (1783), see Winsor, vi., p. 516, n.; Burgoyne's State of the Expedition from Canada in 1777 (London, 1780). (H. P. J.*)

Effect of sea-power.

The naval operations of the War of Independence divide themselves naturally into two periods. (1) From 1775 till the summer of 1778 the British navy was engaged in co-operating with the troops employed against the insurgents, on the coasts, rivers and lakes of North America, or in endeavouring to protect British commerce against the enterprise of American privateers. (2) During the second period the successive interventions of France, Spain and Holland extended the naval war till it ranged from the West Indies to the Bay of Bengal. This second period lasted from the summer of 1778 to the middle of 1783, and it included both such operations as had already been in progress in America, or for the protection of commerce, and naval campaigns on a great scale carried out by the fleets of the maritime powers.

First Period.--The history of the naval war from 1775 to 1778 was made up of many small operations. The naval force at the disposal of the admirals commanding on the station, who until Lord Howe took up the command on the 12th of July 1776 were Samuel Graves and Molyneux Shuldham, was insufficient to patrol the long line of coast. A large part of such squadrons as there were was necessarily limited to aiding General Gage and Sir W. Howe at Boston, in seeking stores for the army and in supplying naval brigades. At other points of the coast the British navy was employed in punitive expeditions against the coast towns--as for example the burning of Falmouth (now Portland, Maine) in October 1775--which served to exasperate, rather than to weaken the enemy, or the unsuccessful attack on Charleston, S.C., in June 1776. It was wholly unequal to the task of blockading the many towns from which privateers could be fitted out. British commerce therefore suffered severely, even as far off as the Irish coasts, where it was found necessary to supply convoy to the Belfast linen trade. The Americans were not yet in a position to provide a fleet. On the 23rd of March 1776 Congress did indeed issue letters of marque and reprisal, and efforts were made to fit out a national force. But the so-called "continental" vessels which sailed with the commission of the Congress hardly differed in character, or in the nature of their operations, from the privateers. The British navy was able to cover the retreat of the army from Boston to Halifax in April 1776, and to convey it to New York in June. It assisted in the expedition to Philadelphia in July 1777. On the St Lawrence and the Lakes it was able to play a more aggressive part. The relief of Quebec by Captain- -afterwards Sir Charles--Douglas in May 1776 forced the American general Arnold to retreat. The destruction of his squadron on Lake Champlain in October covered the frontier of Canada, and supplied a basis for the march of General Burgoyne in 1777 which ended in the surrender at Saratoga.

Second Period.--The disaster at Saratoga was followed in 1778 by war with France, which had already given much private help to the American privateers and to their forces in the field. The rupture came in March when the British ambassador, Lord Stormont, was recalled from Paris, but as neither fleet was ready for service, actual conflict did not take place till July. The French government was somewhat more ready than the British. On the 13th of April it despatched a squadron of twelve sail of the line and four frigates from Toulon to America under the command of the Count d'Estaing. As no attempt was made to stop him in the Straits of Gibraltar, he passed them on the 16th of May, and though the rawness of his crews and his own error in wasting time in pursuit of prizes delayed his passage, he reached the mouth of the Delaware on the 8th of July unopposed. The French government, which by the fault of the British administration was allowed to take the offensive, had three objects in view--to help the Americans, to expel the British from the West Indies and to occupy the main strength of the naval forces of Great Britain in the Channel. Therefore a second and more powerful fleet was fitted out at Brest under the command of the Count d'Orvilliers. The British government, having neglected to occupy the Straits of Gibraltar in time, despatched Admiral Byron from Plymouth on the 9th of June with thirteen sail of the line to join Admiral (Lord) Howe, Sir William's brother, in America, and collected a strong force at home, called the Western Squadron, under Viscount Keppel. Keppel, after a preliminary cruise in June, brought d'Orvilliers to action off Brest on the 27th of July. The fleets were equal and the action was indecisive,--as the two forces merely passed one another, cannonading. A violent quarrel exacerbated by political differences broke out among the British commands, which led to two courts-martial and to the resignation of Keppel, and did great injury to the discipline of the navy. No further event of note occurred in European waters. On the coast of America the news of the approach of d'Estaing compelled the British commanders to evacuate Philadelphia on the 18th of June. Howe then concentrated his force of nine small line-of-battle ships at Sandy Hook on the 29th of June, and on the 11th of July he learnt that d'Estaing was approaching. The French admiral did not venture to make an attack, and on the 22nd of July sailed to co-operate with the Americans in an endeavour to expel the British garrison from Rhode Island. Howe, who had received a small reinforcement, followed. The French admiral, who had anchored above Newport, R.I., came to sea to meet him, but both fleets were scattered by storms. D'Estaing sailed to Boston on the 21st of August. Howe received no help from Byron, whose badly appointed fleet was damaged and scattered by a gale on the 3rd of July in mid-Atlantic. His ships dropped in by degrees during September. Howe resigned on the 25th of that month, and was succeeded by Byron. The approach of winter made a naval campaign on the coast of North America dangerous. The operations of naval forces in the New World were largely dictated by the facts that from June to October are the hurricane months in the West Indies, while from October to June includes the stormy winter of the northern coast. On the 4th of November d'Estaing sailed for the West Indies, on the very day that Commodore William Hotham was despatched from New York to reinforce the British fleet in those waters. On the 7th of September the French governor of Martinique, the marquis de Bouille, had surprised the British island of Dominica. Admiral Samuel Barrington, the British admiral in the Leeward Islands, had retaliated by seizing Santa Lucia on the 13th and 14th of December after the arrival of Hotham from North America. D'Estaing, who followed Hotham closely, was beaten off in two feeble attacks on Barrington at the Cul-de-Sac of Santa Lucia on the 15th of December. On the 6th of January 1779 Admiral Byron reached the West Indies. During the early part of this year the naval forces in the West Indies were mainly employed in watching one another. But in June, while Byron had gone to Antigua to guard the trade convoy on its way home, d'Estaing first captured St Vincent, and then on the 4th of July Grenada. Admiral Byron, who had returned, sailed in hopes of saving the island, but arrived too late. An indecisive action was fought off Grenada on the 6th of July. The war now died down in the West Indies. Byron returned home in August. D'Estaing, after co-operating unsuccessfully with the Americans in an attack on Savannah, in September also returned to Europe. In European waters the Channel had been invaded by a combined French and Spanish fleet of sixty-six sail of the line, Spain having now joined the coalition against Great Britain. Only thirty-five sail of the line could be collected against them under the command of Sir Charles Hardy. But they came late and did nothing. The allies retired early in September and were not even able to molest the British trade convoys. In the meantime the Spaniards had formed the siege of Gibraltar.

So far the British navy had stood on the defensive, without material loss except in the West Indies, but without triumph. The operations of 1780 went on much the same lines. The British government, not feeling strong enough to blockade Brest and the Spanish ports, was compelled to regulate its movements by those of its opponents. In the Channel it was saved from disaster by the ineptitude of the French and Spanish fleets. The only real success achieved by this numerically imposing force was the capture on the 8th and 9th of August of a large British convoy of ships bound for the East and West Indies carrying troops. But on the American coast and in the West Indies more vigour was displayed. Early in the year Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot was sent to take command in North America. On the French side the count de Guichen was sent with reinforcements to the West Indies to take command of the ships left in the previous year by d'Estaing. He arrived in March, and was able to confine the small British force under Sir Hyde Parker at Gros Islet Bay in Santa Lucia. In May M. d'Arzac de Ternay was sent from Brest with seven line-of-battle ships, and a convoy carrying 6000 French troops to act with the Americans. He had a brush with a small British force under Cornwallis near Bermuda on the 20th of June, and reached Rhode Island on the 11th of July. During the rest of the year, and part of the next, the British and French naval forces in North American waters remained at their respective headquarters, New York and Newport, watching one another. The West Indies was again the scene of the most important operations of the year. In February and March a Spanish force from New Orleans, under Don Bernardo de Galvez, invaded West Florida with success. But the allies made no further progress. At the close of 1779 Sir George Rodney had been appointed to command a large naval force which was to relieve Gibraltar, then closely blockaded, and send stores to Minorca. Rodney was to go on to the West Indies with part of the fleet. He sailed on the 29th of December 1779 with the trade for the West Indies under his protection, captured a Spanish convoy on his way off Finisterre on the 8th of January, defeated a smaller Spanish force near Cape St Vincent on the 16th, relieved Gibraltar on the 19th, and left for the West Indies on the 13th of February. On the 27th of March he joined Sir Hyde Parker at Santa Lucia, and Guichen retired to Fort Royal in Martinique. Until July the fleets of Rodney and Guichen, of equal strength, were engaged in operations round the island of Martinique. The British admiral endeavoured to force on a close engagement. But in the first encounter on the 17th of April to leeward of the island, Rodney's orders were not executed by his captains, and the action was indecisive. He wished to concentrate on the rear of the enemy's line, but his captains scattered themselves along the French formation. In two subsequent actions, on the 15th and 19th of May, to windward of Martinique, the French admiral would not be brought to close action. The arrival of a Spanish squadron of twelve ships of the line in June gave a great numerical superiority to the allies, and Rodney retired to Gros Islet Bay in Santa Lucia. But nothing decisive occurred. The Spanish fleet was in bad health, the French much worn-out. The first went on to Havana, the second to San Domingo. In July, on the approach of the dangerous hurricane season, Rodney sailed for North America, reaching New York on the 14th of September. Guichen returned home with the most worn-out of his ships. On the 6th of December Rodney was back at Barbadoes from the North American station, where he was not able to effect anything against the French in Narragansett Bay.

The rambling operations of the naval war till the close of 1780-- directed by the allies to such secondary objects as the capture of West Indian islands, or of Minorca and Gibraltar, and by Great Britain to defensive movements--began to assume a degree of coherence in 1781. Holland having now joined the allies, the British government was compelled to withdraw part of its fleet from other purposes to protect the North Sea trade. A desperate battle was fought on the Dogger Bank on the 5th of August between Sir Hyde Parker and the Dutch admiral Zoutman, both being engaged in protecting trade; but Holland did not affect the general course of the war. The allies again failed to make a vigorous attack on the British forces in the Channel. They could not even prevent Admiral George Darby from relieving Gibraltar and Minorca in April. The second of these places was closely invested later on, and was compelled to surrender on the 5th of February 1782. But a vigorous policy was carried out by France in the West Indies and America, while she began a most resolute attack on the British position in the East Indies.

In the West Indies Rodney, having received news of the breach with Holland early in the year, took the island of St Eustatius, which had been a great depot of contraband of war, on the 3rd of February. The British admiral was accused of applying himself so entirely to seizing and selling his booty that he would not allow his second in command, Sir Samuel Hood, who had recently joined him, to take proper measures to impede the arrival of French forces known to be on their way to Martinique. The French admiral, the count de Grasse, reached the island with reinforcements in April. Until July he was engaged in a series of skilful operations directed to menacing the British islands while he avoided being brought to battle by Rodney. In July he sailed for the coast of North America, whither he was followed in August by Sir S. Hood, Rodney having been compelled to return home in ill- health.

On the coast of North America the war came to its crisis. In the earlier part of the year the British at New York and the French at Newport continued to watch one another. In April the British admiral Arbuthnot did indeed succeed in baffling an attempt of the French to carry reinforcements to the American cause in Virginia. The action he fought off the capes of Virginia on the 16th of April was ill conducted, but his main purpose was achieved. Washington, who was wisely anxious to concentrate attack on one or other of the centres of British power in Virginia or New York, had to wait till the arrival of Grasse before he could see his ideas applied. The French admiral gave the allies a superiority of naval strength on the coast of Virginia, and Lord Cornwallis, the British commander, was beleaguered in Yorktown. Admiral Thomas Graves, Arbuthnot's successor, who had been joined by Hood from the West Indies, endeavoured to drive off the French fleet. But the feeble battle he fought on the 5th of September failed to shake the French hold on the Chesapeake, and Grasse having been reinforced, Graves sailed away. Yorktown fell on the 19th of October, and the war was settled as far as the coast of North America was concerned.

The French admiral, having rendered this vital service to his ally, now returned to the West Indies, whither he was followed by Hood, and resumed the attacks on the British islands. In January and February 1782 he conquered St Christopher, in spite of the most determined opposition of Hood, who with a much inferior force first drove him from his anchorage at Basseterre, and then repulsed his repeated attacks. The next purpose of the French was to combine with the Spaniards for an attack on Jamaica. Sir George Rodney, having returned to his command with reinforcements, baffled this plan by the series of operations which culminated in the battle of the 12th of April 1782. (See SAINTS, BATTLE OF.) No further operations of note occurred in the West Indies. At home Howe relieved Gibraltar for the last time in September and October 1782.

The war in the East Indies formed a separate series of episodes. In 1778 the British authorities had little difficulty in seizing the French settlement of Pondicherry. A naval engagement of a very feeble kind took place on the 10th of August in the Bay of Bengal, between the British naval officer in command and M. de Tronjoly. But the French were too weak in these seas for offensive movements, and therefore remained quiescent at Bourbon and Mauritius till the beginning of 1782. In the spring of 1781 the bailli de Suffren was sent to the East with a small squadron; on his way he fell upon a British force which had been sent to take the Cape from the Dutch, and which he found in the Portuguese anchorage of Porto Praya, on the 16th of April. Having provided for the security of the Cape, Suffren went on to the French islands. He sailed from them early in 1782 to carry out a vehement attack on the British forces in the Bay of Bengal. From the 17th of February 1782 to the 20th of June 1783 he fought a series of fine actions against Sir Edward Hughes, by which he secured a marked superiority on the water. Though he had no port in which to refit and no ally save Hyder Ali, he kept the sea and did not even return to the French islands during the north-easterly monsoon. Suffren failed in his main purpose, which was to make such a capture as would put his government in a strong position during the negotiations for peace. But his capture of Trincomalee in July 1782 in spite of Sir Edward Hughes, and the heavy loss he inflicted on the British fleet in several of the actions he fought, constitute the most honourable part of the French naval operations in the war.

AUTHORITIES.--The Influence of Sea Power upon History, Captain Mahan, gives the best critical examination of the naval aspects of the war. The French side will be found in the Histoire de la marine francaise pendant la Guerre de l'Independence americaine (Paris, 1877), by Captain Chevalier. For accounts of the American navy see C. O. Paullin, The Navy of the American Revolution (Chicago, 1906); E. S. Maclay, History of the U.S. Navy, vol. i. (New York, 1897): C. H. Lincoln, Naval Records of the American Revolution (Washington, 1906); and Edward Field, Esek Hopkins, Commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy during the American Revolution (Providence, R.I., 1898). For details of actions the reader may be referred to Beatson's Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain from 1727 to 1783 (London, 1804), and to Sir W. Laird Clowes's The Royal Navy: A History (London, 1897, &c.). (D. H.)

AMERICAN WAR OF 1812. The war between the United States and Great Britain, commonly known as "of 1812," began by the American declaration of war on the 18th of June of that year, and lasted till the beginning of 1815. The treaty of peace signed at Ghent on the 24th of December 1814 was ratified by the president of the United States on the 17th of February 1815. These two years and a half of conflict were filled with isolated encounters which can hardly be reduced to coherent and ordered operations. Although the outbreak of war had been preceded by years of angry diplomatic dispute, the United States were absolutely unready, while Great Britain was still hard pressed by the hostility of Napoleon, and was compelled to retain the greater part of her forces and her best crews in European waters, till the ruin of the Grande Armee in Russia and the rising of Germany left her free to send an overwhelming force of ships to American waters.

The forces actually available on the American side when the war began consisted of a small squadron of very fine frigates and sloops in an efficient state. Twenty-two was the extreme limit of the naval force the States were able to commission. The paper strength of the army was 35,000, but the service was voluntary and unpopular, while there was an almost total want of trained and experienced officers. The available strength was a bare third of the nominal. The militia, called in to aid the regulars, proved untrustworthy. They objected to serve beyond the limits of their states, were not amenable to discipline, and behaved as a rule very ill in the presence of the enemy. On the British side, the naval force in American waters under Sir John Borlase Warren, who took up the general command on the 26th of September 1812, consisted of ninety-seven vessels in all, of which eleven were of the line and thirty-four were frigates, a power much greater than the national navy of America, but inadequate to the blockade of the long coast from New Brunswick to Florida. The total number of British troops present in Canada in July 1812 was officially stated to be 5004, consisting in part of Canadians.

The scene of operations naturally divided into three sections:--(1) the ocean; (2) the Canadian frontier, from Lake Huron, by Lakes Erie and Ontario, the course of the St Lawrence and Lake Champlain; (3) the coast of the United States. As the operations on these three fields had little interaction on one another, it will be more convenient to take them separately than to follow the confusing chronological order. Operations on the Ocean.--These cover all cruises of sea-going ships, even when they did not go far from the coast. They again subdivide into the actions of national vessels, and the raids of the privateers. The first gave to the United States the most brilliant successes of the war. When it began two small squadrons were getting ready for sea at New York; the frigate "President" (44) and sloop "Hornet" (18), under Commodore John Rodgers, who had also the general command; and the frigates "United States" (44) and "Congress" (38), with the brig "Argus" (16) to which two guns were afterwards added, under Captain Stephen Decatur. Rodgers would have preferred to keep his command together, and to strike with it at the main course of British commerce, but he was overruled. He sailed on the 21st of June, and after chasing the British frigate "Belvidera" (36), which escaped into Halifax by throwing boats, &c., overboard, stood across the North Atlantic in search of a West Indian convoy, which he failed to sight, returning by the 31st of August to Boston. While he was absent, Captain Isaac Hull, commanding the "Constitution" (44), sailed from the Chesapeake, and after a narrow escape from a British squadron, which pursued him from the 18th to the 20th of July, reached Boston. Going to sea again on the 2nd of August he captured and burned the British frigate "Guerriere," (38). On the 8th of October Rodgers and Decatur sailed--the first on a cruise to the east, the second to the south. Commodore Rodgers met with no marked success, but on the 25th of October Captain Decatur in the "United States" captured the British frigate "Macedonian" (38), which he carried back to port. At the close of the month Captain Bainbridge sailed with the "Constitution," "Essex" (32) and "Hornet" (18) on a southerly cruise. On the 20th of December, when off Bahia, he fell in with the British frigate "Java" (38), which was carrying General Hislop, the governor of Bombay, to India, and took her after a sharp action. The "Essex" and "Hornet" were not in company. The first, under the command of Captain David Porter, went on to the Pacific, where she did great injury to British trade, till she was captured off Valparaiso by the British frigate "Phoebe" (38) and the sloop "Cherub" (24) on the 28th of March 1814. In these actions, except the last, the Americans had the advantage of greater size and a heavier broadside, but they showed excellent seamanship and gunnery. The capture of three British frigates one after another caused a painful impression in Great Britain and stimulated her to greater exertions. Vessels were accumulated on the American sea-board, and the watch became more strict. On the 1st of June 1813 the capture of the U.S. frigate "Chesapeake" (38), by the British frigate "Shannon" (38), a vessel of equal force, counterbalanced the moral effect of previous disasters. The blockade of American ports was already so close that the United States ships found it continually more difficult to get to sea, or to keep the sea without meeting forces of irresistibly superior strength.

The operations of American privateers were too numerous and far- ranging to be told in detail. They continued active till the close of the war, and were only partially baffled by the strict enforcement of convoy by the British authorities. A signal instance of the audacity of the American cruisers was the capture of the U.S. sloop "Argus" (20) by the British sloop "Pelican" (18) so far from home as St David's Head in Wales on the 14th of August 1813. The "Pelican's" guns were heavier than those of the "Argus."

Operations on the Lakes.--The American people, who had expected little from their diminutive navy, had calculated with confidence on being able to overrun Canada. As, however, they had taken no effectual measures to provide a mobile force they were disappointed. The British general, Sir George Prevost, was neither able nor energetic, but his subordinate, Major-General Isaac Brock, was both. In July, before the Americans were ready, Brock seized Mackinac at the head of Lake Huron; and on the 16th of August Detroit in the channel between Huron and Erie was surrendered. Kingston was held at the east end of Ontario. Montreal on the St Lawrence was a strong position on the British side to which, however, the Americans had an easy road of approach by Lake Champlain. Sound reasoning would have led the Americans to direct their chief attacks on Kingston and Montreal, since success at those points would have isolated the British posts on Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron. But they were much influenced by fear of the Indians, who had been won over to the British side by the energy of Brock. They therefore looked more carefully to the lakes than to the course of the St Lawrence, and it may be added that their leaders showed an utter want of capacity for the intelligent conduct of war.

The impracticable character of the communications by land made it absolutely necessary for both parties to obtain control of the water. Neither had made any preparations, and the war largely resolved itself into a race of shipbuilding. The Americans, who had far greater facilities for building than the British, allowed themselves to be forestalled. In the second half of 1812 the British general, Sir Isaac Brock, lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, adopted measures for opposing the Americans on the frontier line, between Huron and Erie. The American brigadier-general William Hull invaded Canada on the 12th of July from Detroit, just below the small Lake of St Clair between Huron and Erie. His army was mainly composed of militiamen, who behaved very badly, and his papers having been captured in a boat, his plans were revealed. General Brock drove him back and forced him to surrender at Detroit on the 16th of August. Brock now promptly transferred himself to the western end of Erie, where the American general Henry Dearborn was attempting another invasion. Brock fell in action on the 13th of October, while repulsing Dearborn's subordinate Van Rensselaer, a politician named to command by favour, and ignorant of a soldier's business. The Americans were driven back. In this field also their militia behaved detestably. The Canadians on the other hand, both the French who were traditionally amenable to authority and those of English descent, who being largely sons of loyalists of the War of Independence had a bitter hatred of the Americans, did excellent service. The discontent of New England with the war both hampered the American generals and also aided the British, who drew their supplies to a great extent from United States territory. On the 22nd of January 1813, at Frenchtown, the American troops under Winchester surrendered to a British and Indian force under Procter.

During the winter both sides were busy in building ships. On Ontario the Americans pushed on their preparations at Sackett's Harbour under Isaac Chauncey; the English were similarly engaged at Kingston. Sir James Lucas Yeo took command on the 15th of May 1813. On Erie the American headquarters were at Presqu' Isle, now the city of Erie; the English at Fort Malden. The American commander was Captain Oliver Perry, the British commander, Captain Robert Barclay. On Lake Ontario Yeo formed a more mobile though less powerful force than Chauncey's, and therefore manoeuvred to avoid being brought to close action. Three engagements, on the 10th of August, 11th of September and 28th of September, led to no decisive result. By the close of the war Yeo had constructed a ship of 102 guns which gave him the superiority, and the British became masters of Lake Ontario. On Lake Erie the energy of Captain Perry, aided by what appears to have been the misjudgment of Barclay, enabled him to get a superior force by the 4th of August, and on the 10th of September he fought a successful action which left the Americans masters of Lake Erie. The military operations were subordinate to the naval. In April 1813 the Americans took York (now Toronto), and in May moved on Fort George; but a counter-attack by Yeo and Prevost on Sackett's Harbour, on the 29th of May, having made the Americans anxious about the safety of their base, naval support failed the American generals, and they were paralysed. A success was gained by them (October 5) at the Thames, where the Indian chief Tecumseh fell, but they made no serious progress. The Americans turned to the east of Ontario, intending to assail Montreal by the St Lawrence in combination with their forces at Lake Champlain. But the combination failed; they were severely harassed on the St Lawrence, and the invasion was given up.

The operations of 1814 bear a close resemblance to those of 1813, with, however, one important difference. The American generals, having by this time brought their troops to order, were able to fight with much better effect. Their attack on the Niagara peninsula led to hot fighting at Chippewa (July 5) and Lundy's Lane (July 25), the first a success for the Americans, the second a drawn battle. The fall of Napoleon having now freed the British government from the obligation to retain its army in Europe, troops from Spain began to pour in. But on the Canadian frontier they made little difference. In August 1814 Sir George Prevost attacked the American forces at Champlain. But his naval support, ill prepared, was hurried into action by him at Plattsburg on the 11th of September, and defeated. Prevost then retired. His management of the war, more especially on Lake Champlain, was severely criticized, and he was threatened with a court-martial, but died before the trial came on. A British occupation of part of the coast of Maine proved to be mere demonstration.

Operations on the American Coast.--When the war began the British naval forces were unequal to the work of blockading the whole coast. They were also much engaged in seeking for the American cruisers under Rodgers, Decatur and Bainbridge. The British government, having need of American foodstuffs for its army in Spain, was willing to benefit by the discontent of the New Englanders. No blockade of New England was at first attempted. The Delaware and Chesapeake were declared in a state of blockade on the 26th of December 1812. This was extended to the whole coast south of Narragansett by November 1813, and to the whole American coast on the 31st of May 1814. In the meantime much illicit trade was carried on by collusive captures arranged between American traders and British officers. American ships were fraudulently transferred to neutral flags. Eventually the United States government was driven to issue orders for the purpose of stopping illicit trading, and the commerce of the country was ruined. The now overpowering strength of the British fleet enabled it to occupy the Chesapeake and to execute innumerable attacks of a destructive character on docks and harbours. The burning by the American general McClure, on the 10th of December 1813, of Newark (Niagara on the Lake), for which severe retaliation was taken at Buffalo, was made the excuse for much destruction. The most famous of these destructive raids was the burning of the public buildings at Washington by Sir Alexander Cochrane, who succeeded Warren in April in the naval command, and General Robert Ross. The expedition was carried out between the 19th and 29th of August 1814, and was well organized and vigorously executed.1 On the 24th the American militia, collected at Bladensburg to protect the capital, fled almost before they were attacked. A subsequent attack on Baltimore, in which General Ross was killed (September 12, 1814), was a failure. The expedition to New Orleans (q.v.) is separately dealt with.

AUTHORITIES.--In his Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 Captain Mahan has given a careful account of the war by land and sea with reference to services. The Naval War of 1812, by Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1882), is lively but somewhat passionate, and not free from prejudice. A vehement statement of the Canadian side will be found in How Canada was held for the Empire, by James Hannay (London, Edinburgh, Toronto, 1903). See also The Canadian War of 1812, by Charles P. Lucas (Oxford, 1906). (D. H.)

1 The burning of Washington was an act of vandalism by no means approved of by many of the British officers who were compelled to take part in it. (See SMITH, Sir HENRY GEORGE WAKELYN.)

AMERICUS, a city and the county-seat of Sumter county, Georgia, U.S.A., about 71 m. S.S.W. of Macon. Pop. (1880) 3635; (1890) 6398; (1900) 7674, of whom 4661 were of negro descent. It is served by the Central of Georgia and the Seaboard Air Line railways, and is the seat of the Third Congressional District Agricultural High School, a branch of the state university of Georgia. The city is in a rich sugar-cane and fruit country, is a large cotton and mule and horse market, and has division shops of the Seaboard Air Line railway. Among the city's manufactures are cotton-seed oil, fertilizers, chemicals, iron, carriages and wagons and harness (especially horse collars). The city owns the waterworks; the water-supply is obtained from artesian wells. Americus was settled in 1832, and was first chartered as a city in 1855.

AMERSFOORT, a town in the province of Utrecht, Holland, on the navigable Eem, and a junction station 14 m. by rail N.E. by E. of Utrecht. Pop. (1900) 19,089. It is situated in the midst of picturesque and undulating country, consisting of wide sandy heaths and woods, and dotted with many fine country houses. One of the most interesting of its few historic monuments is the Koppelpoort, an old gateway situated at the end of a fine avenue of trees bordering the canal. Close by is a lofty Gothic tower (1500), which belonged to the ancient church of St Mary, which was wrecked by an explosion of gunpowder in 1787. The large plain church of St George dates from the first half of the 13th century. There is also a Jansenist church, to which a seminary is attached. Besides these there are a town hall, a court of primary jurisdiction, industrial and other schools. Amersfoort has a large garrison, consisting chiefly of artillery, and manufactures woollen goods, cotton, silk, glass and brandy. It has also a considerable trade in tobacco, grown in the neighbourhood, and in corn and fish.

AMERSHAM, a market town in the Wycombe parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England, 24 m. W.N.W. of London by the Metropolitan railway. Pop. (1901) 2674. It is pleasantly situated in the narrow valley of the Misbourne stream, which is flanked by the well-wooded slopes of the Chiltern Hills. The church of St Mary is almost entirely Perpendicular, and has a beautiful south porch, brasses of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries and numerous monuments, several of which, in a chantry, commemorate members of the family of Drake, lords of the manor. The town hall was built by Sir William Drake in 1642. At Coleshill, near Amersham, Edmund Waller the poet was born in 1606; he sat in parliament for the former borough of Amersham. The town has flour mills and breweries, and some straw-plaiting and lace-making are carried on in the vicinity. The district is one of the most beautiful near London; the village of Chenies, overlooking the valley of the Chess, is especially picturesque.

Amersham (Elmodesham, Agmondesham, Hagmondesham, Aumundesham, Homersham) at the time of the Domesday Survey was divided into no less than six holdings. The manor, or chief of them, was held by Geoffrey de Mandeville. At the time of Edward the Confessor it was held by Queen Edith. The manor afterwards descended to the families of Fitz Piers, Bohun and Stratford, and was granted by Henry VIII. to Sir John Russell, ancestor of the earls of Bedford. In 1638 Francis, earl of Bedford, conveyed it to William Drake, by whose descendants it is still held. The north chapel in the church of St Michael, Chenies, has been the burial-place of the Russell family since its erection in 1556, and contains a number of fine memorials, notably that of Anne, countess of Bedford (d. 1558), who founded the chapel. Amersham was formerly a parliamentary borough by prescription, and returned two members in 1300, 1306, 1307 and 1309. In 1623 this privilege was restored, and was only annulled by the Reform Bill of 1832. The annual fair, in September, is held under a charter secured by Geoffrey Fitz Peter, earl of Essex, in 1200, that on Whit Monday under a charter of 1614, secured by Edward, earl of Bedford, which transferred the Friday market, also granted under the earlier charter, to Tuesday.

AMES, FISHER (1758-1808), American statesman, orator and political writer, son of Nathaniel Ames, a physician, was born at Dedham, Massachusetts, on the 9th of April 1758. He graduated at Harvard College in 1774, and began the practice of the law at Dedham in 1781, but eventually abandoned that profession for the more congenial pursuit of politics. He was a prominent member of the Massachusetts convention which (February 1788) ratified for that state the Federal Constitution, and in the same year, having entered the lower house in the state legislature, he distinguished himself greatly by his eloquence and readiness in debate. During the eight years of Washington's administration (1789-1797) he was a prominent Federalist member of the national House of Representatives. On the 28th of April 1796, when the Republicans, hostile to the Jay Treaty, were on the point of holding up the appropriation necessary for its execution, Ames, who had just arisen from a sick-bed, made what has been considered the greatest speech of his life; before the delivery of his speech his opponents had claimed a majority of six, but the appropriation was finally passed, in the committee of the whole, by the casting vote of the chairman. When Washington retired from the presidency, Congress voted him an address and chose Ames to deliver it. In 1797 he returned to Dedham to resume the practice of the law, which the state of his health after a few years obliged him to relinquish. He published numerous essays, chiefly in relation to the contest between Great Britain and revolutionary France, as it might affect the liberty and prosperity of America. Ames was one of the group of New England ultra-Federalists known as the "Essex Junto," who opposed the French policy of President John Adams in 1798, and were conspicuous for their British sympathies. Four years before his death he was chosen president of Harvard College, an honour which his broken state of health obliged him to decline. He died on the 4th of July 1808.

His writings and speeches, which abound in sparkling passages, displaying great fertility of imagination, were collected and published, with a memoir of the author, in 1809, by the Rev. Dr J. T. Kirkland, in one large octavo volume. A more complete edition in two volumes was published by his son, Seth Ames, at Boston, Mass., in 1854.

AMES, JOSEPH (1689-1759), English author, was born at Yarmouth on the 23rd of January 1689. He wrote an account of printing in England from 1471 to 1600, Typographical Antiquities (1749). Ames sent out circular letters with a list of two hundred and fifteen English printers with whose works he intended to deal, asking for any available information. He earned the gratitude of subsequent bibliographers by disregarding printed lists and consulting the title- pages of the books themselves. An interleaved copy of the work with many notes in the author's hand is now in the British Museum. Editions of his works were published with added information by William Herbert (3 vols., 1785-1790), and T. F. Dibdin (4 vols., 1810-1819). Ames's occupation is variously given. It is uncertain whether he was a ship-chandler, a patten-maker, a plane-iron maker or an ironmonger; but he led a prosperous life at Wapping, and amassed valuable collections of antiquities. He died on the 7th of October 1759. His other works are catalogues of English printers, of the collection of coins which belonged to the earl of Pembroke, of some two thousand English portraits, and Parentalia (1750), a memoir of the Wrens, undertaken in conjunction with Sir Christopher Wren's grandson, Stephen Wren. Part of his correspondence in bibliography is included in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes and Illustrations.

AMES, OAKES (1804-1873), American manufacturer, capitalist and politician, was born in Easton, Massachusetts, on the 10th of January 1804. As a manufacturer of shovels, in association with his father and his brother Oliver (1807-1877), he amassed a large fortune. In 1860 he became a member of the executive council of Massachusetts, and from 1863 to 1873 was a republican member of the national House of Representatives. As a member of the committee on railroads he became interested in the project, greatly aided by the government, to build a trans-continental railway, connecting the eastern states with California. Others having failed, he was induced in 1865 to assume the direction of the work, and to him more than to any other one man the credit for the construction of the Union Pacific railway was due. The execution was effected largely through a construction company, the Credit Mobilier Company of America. In disposing of some of the stock of this company, Ames in 1867-1871 sold a number of shares to members of Congress at a price much below what these shares eventually proved to be worth. This, on becoming known, gave rise in 1872-1873 to a great congressional scandal. After an investigation by a committee of the House, which recommended the expulsion of Ames, a resolution was passed on the 28th of February 1873, "that the House absolutely condemns the conduct of Oakes Ames...in seeking to secure congressional attention to the affairs of a corporation in which he was interested, and whose interest directly depended upon the legislation of Congress, by inducing members of Congress to invest in the stocks of said corporation." Many have since attributed this resolution to partisanship, and the influence of popular clamour, and in 1883 the legislature of Massachusetts passed a resolution vindicating Ames. He died at North Easton, Mass., on the 8th of May 1873. His son, OLIVER AMES (1831-1895), was lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts from 1883 until 1887, and governor from 1887 to 1890.

See CREDIT MOBILIER OF AMERICA and the references there given. For a defence of Oakes Ames, see Oakes Ames, A Memorial Volume (Cambridge, Mass., 1884).

AMES, WILLIAM (1576-1633), English Puritan divine, better known, especially in Europe, as Amesius, was born of an ancient family at Ipswich, Suffolk, in 1576, and was educated at the local grammar school and at Christ's College, Cambridge, where, as throughout his life, he was an omnivorous student. He was considerably influenced by his tutor, the celebrated William Perkins, and by his successor, a man of kindred intellect and fervour, Paul Bayne. He graduated B.A. and M.A. in due course, and was chosen to a fellowship in Christ's College. He was universally beloved in the university. His own college (Christ's) would have chosen him for the mastership; but a party opposition led to the election of Valentine Cary, who had already quarrelled with Ames for disapproving of the surplice and other outward symbols. One of Ames's sermons became historical in the Puritan controversies. It was delivered on St Thomas's day (1609) before the feast of Christ's nativity, and in it he rebuked sharply "lusory lotts" and the "heathenish debauchery" of the students during the twelve days ensuing. The scathing vehemence of his denunciations led to his being summoned before the vice-chancellor, who suspended him "from the exercise of his ecclesiastical function and from all degrees taken or to be taken." After Cary's election he left the university and would have accepted the great church of Colchester, but the bishop of London refused to grant institution and induction. Like persecution awaited him elsewhere, and at last he passed over to Holland, being aided by certain wealthy English merchants who wished him to controvert the supporters of the English church in Leiden. At Rotterdam, clad in the fisherman's habit donned for the passage, he opposed Grevinchovius (Nicholas Grevinckhoven, d. 1632), minister of the Arminian or Remonstrant church, and overwhelmed him with his logical reasoning from Phil. ii. 13, "It is God that worketh in us both to will and to do." The fisherman-controversialist made a great stir, and from that day became known and honoured in the Low Countries. Subsequently Ames entered into a controversy in print with Grevinchovius on universal redemption and election, and cognate problems. He brought together all he had maintained in his Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem--his most masterful book, which figures largely in Dutch church history. At Leiden, Ames became intimate with the venerable Mr Goodyear, pastor of the English church there. While thus resident in comparative privacy he was sent for to the Hague by Sir Horatio Vere, the English governor of Brill, who appointed him a minister in the army of the states-general, and of the English soldiers in their service, a post held by some of the greatest of England's exiled Puritans. He married a daughter of Dr Burgess, who was Vere's chaplain, and, on his father-in-law's return to England, succeeded to his place.

It was at this time he began his memorable controversy with Episcopius, who, in attacking the Coronis, railed against the author as having been "a disturber of the public peace in his native country, so that the English magistrates had banished him thence; and now, by his late printed Coronis, he was raising new disturbances in the peaceable Netherlands." It was a miserable libel and was at once rebutted by Goodyear. The Coronis had been primarily prepared for the synod of Dort, which sat from November 1618 until May 1619. At this celebrated synod the position of Ames was a peculiar one. The High Church party in England had induced Vere to dismiss him from the chaplaincy; but he was still held, deservedly, in such reverence, that it was arranged he should attend the synod, and accordingly he was retained by the Calvinist party at four florins a day to watch the proceedings on their behalf and advise them when necessary. A proposal to make him principal of a theological college at Leiden was frustrated by Archbishop Abbot; and when later invited by the state of Friesland to a professoriate at Franeker, the opposition was renewed, but this time abortively. He was installed at Franeker on the 7th of May 1622, and delivered a most learned discourse on the occasion on "Urim and Thummin." He soon brought renown to Franeker as professor, preacher, pastor and theological writer. He prepared his Medulla Theologiae, a manual of Calvinistic doctrine, for his students. His De Conscientia, ejus Jure et Casibus (1632), an attempt to bring Christian ethics into clear relation with particular cases of conduct and of conscience, was a new thing in Protestantism. Having continued twelve years at Franeker (where he was rector in 1626), his health gave way, and he contemplated removal to New England. But another door was opened for him. He yearned for more frequent opportunities of preaching to his fellow-countrymen, and an invitation to Rotterdam gave him such opportunity. His friends at Franeker were passionately opposed to the transference, but ultimately acquiesced. At Rotterdam he drew all hearts to him by his eloquence and fervour in the pulpit, and his irrepressible activity as a pastor. Home-controversy engaged him again, and he prepared his Fresh Suit against Ceremonies--the book which made Richard Baxter a Nonconformist. It ably sums up the issues between the Puritan school and that of Hooker. It was posthumously published. He did not long survive his removal to Rotterdam. Having caught a cold from a flood which inundated his house, he died in November 1633, at the age of fifty-seven, apparently in needy circumstances. He left, by a second wife, a son and a daughter. His valuable library found a home in New England.

Few Englishmen have exercised so formative and controlling an influence on European thought and opinion as Ames. He was a master in theological controversy, shunning not to cross swords with the formidable Bellarmine. He was a scholar among scholars, being furnished with extraordinary resources of learning. His works, which even the Biographia Britannica (1778) testifies were famous over Europe, were collected at Amsterdam in 5 vols. 4to. Only a very small proportion was translated into his mother tongue. His Lectiones in omnes Psalmos Davidis (1635) is exceedingly suggestive and terse in its style, reminding of Bengel's Gnomon, as does also his Commentarius utriusque Epist. S. Petri. His "Replies" to Bishop Morton and Dr Burgess on "Ceremonies" tell us that even kinship could not prevent him from "contending earnestly for the faith."

See John Quick's MS. Icones Sacrae Anglicanae, which gives the fisherman anecdote on the personal authority of one who was present; Life by Nethenus prefixed to collected edition of Latin works (5 vols., Amsterdam, 1658); Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. pp. 346- 347; Heal's Puritans, i. 532; Fuller's Cambridge (Christ's College); Hanbury's Hist. Memorials, i. 533; Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. vi., fourth series, 1863, pp. 576-577.

AMES, a city of Story county, Iowa, U.S.A., about 35 m. N. of Des Moines, at the intersection of two lines of the Chicago & North- Western railway. Pop. (1890) 1276; (1900) 2422; (1905, state census) 4223. The city is the seat of the state college of agriculture and mechanic arts; this institution, opened in 1869, has for its use about 1175 acres of land, on which the state has erected, at a cost of $1,200,000, thirty-two college buildings, besides dwelling-houses and buildings for farm purposes. On the college campus are beautiful groves containing several hundred varieties of trees, and in a central position stands a campanile with excellent chimes. The college offers four-year courses in agronomy, animal husbandry, dairying, domestic economy, general science, veterinary medicine, and civil, mechanical, electrical and mining engineering. In 1909-1910 it had an enrollment of 2631 students (including 796 in the winter short course) and a library Of 23,000 volumes. The cost of instruction and experimentation is met by the income from national grants (under the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1882) and by state appropriations. Ames has a Carnegie library, and owns and operates its electric-lighting plant and waterworks. It was laid out as a town in 1864 and was named in honour of Oakes Ames, at the time one of the proprietors of the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River railway (now part of the Chicago & North- Western); five years later it was incorporated.

AMESBURY, a small town in the Wilton parliamentary division of Wiltshire, England, 8 m. N. of Salisbury, on the London & South- Western railway. Pop. (1901) 1143. It stands on a wooded upland, amid the chalk downs of Salisbury Plain. The church of St Mary is cruciform, with a low square tower, and is largely Early English, with some richly decorated windows in the chancel. A curious two-storeyed building which adjoins the north transept consists of a chapel with a piscina below and a priest's chamber above. Amesbury Abbey, a beautiful house built by Inigo Jones for the dukes of Queensberry, stands close to the village, in a park watered by the river Avon, here famous for its trout. Stonehenge (q.v.), the greatest surviving megalithic work in the British Isles, is a mile and a half distant; and on a hill near the village is Vespasian's Camp or the Ramparts, a large earthwork, which is undoubtedly of British, not Roman, origin.

At Amesbury (Ambresberia, Aumbresbery) a witenagemot was held in 932, while about 980 AElfthryth (Ethelfrida), queen-dowager of Edgar, erected here a nunnery in expiation of the murder of her stepson. The house afterwards acquired such ill repute that in 1177 the nuns were dispersed and the house was attached to the abbey of Fontevrault, by whom it was re-established. From this date, by a succession of royal charters and private gifts, the nunnery amassed vast wealth and privileges, and became a fashionable retreat for ladies of high rank, among whose number were Eleanor, widow of Henry III., and Mary, daughter of Edward I. After the dissolution in 1540 the site was granted to Edward, earl of Hertford, afterwards duke of Somerset and protector of the kingdom. It subsequently passed to the duke of Queensberry. According to the Domesday, Amesbury was a royal manor and did not pay geld, but was under the obligation of providing one night's entertainment for the king. In 1317 the prioress obtained a Saturday market and a three days' fair at the feast of St Melor (Meliorus). The market was subsequently changed to Friday, and three additional fairs were granted. Pipeclay abounds in the neighbourhood, and in the 17th century Amesbury was famous for the best pipes in England, many of which are preserved in Salisbury museum.

See Victoria County History--Wiltshire; Sir Richard Colt Hoare, History of Modern Wiltshire (1822-1844).

AMESBURY, a township of Essex county, in N.E. Massachusetts, U.S.A., situated on the Merrimac river, about 6 m. above its mouth. Pop. (1890) 9798; (1900) 9473, of whom 2448 were foreign-born; (1905, state census), 8840. Amesbury is served by two divisions of the Boston & Maine railway, and is connected by electric line with Haverhill and Newburyport, Mass., and with Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, and Salisbury Beach, Mass., two summer resorts. The township covers a land area of about 13 sq. m. The surface is hilly. The Powow river, a small stream, passes through the centre of the township. There is a public library. Among Amesbury's manufactures are hats, cotton goods, carriages, automobile bodies, carriage and automobile lamps, thermometers, brass castings and motor boats. In 1905 the factory products were valued at $3,614,692. Amesbury was settled about 1644 as a separate part of Salisbury, and in 1654, by mutual agreement of the old and new "towns," became practically independent, although not legally a township until 1666 (named Amesbury, from the English town in Wilts, in 1667). It suffered repeatedly in the course of the colonial Indian wars. Quakers settled here as early as 1701. Josiah Bartlett (1729-1795), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born here, and is commemorated by a statue (1888) by Karl Gerhardt. Shipbuilding was an important industry in the 18th and especially the first quarter of the 19th century, and the U.S. frigate "Alliance" was built at Salisburypoint in 1778. A nail factory, one of the earliest in the country, was built on the Powow in 1796. The manufacture of iron began about 1710, of hats in 1769, of carriages in 1800 and of cotton goods in 1812. Paul Moody, who with F. C. Lowell constructed in 1814 at Waltham the first successful power-loom in America, was engaged in the manufacture of cotton goods in Amesbury. The township was the home of John G. Whittier from 1836 to 1892; here were written most of the poems of his middle and later life, many of which describe the surrounding country. In 1876 Merrimac township was created out of the territory of Amesbury; in 1886 the west part of the old township of Salisbury was united to Amesbury.

See Joseph Merrill, History of Amesbury (Haverhill, 1880); S. T. Pickard, Whittier-land, A Handbook of North Essex (Boston, New York, 1904).

AMETHYST, a violet or purple variety of quartz used as an ornamental stone. The name is generally said to be derived from the Gr. a, "not," and methbskein, "to intoxicate," expressing the old belief that the stone protected its owner from strong drink. It was held that wine drunk out of a cup of amethyst would not intoxicate. According, however, to the Rev. C. W. King, the word may probably be a corruption of an Eastern name for the stone.

The colour of amethyst is usually attributed to the presence of manganese, but as it is capable of being much altered and even discharged by heat it has been referred by some authorities to an organic source. Ferric thiocyanate has been suggested, and sulphur is said to have been detected in the mineral. On exposure to heat, amethyst generally becomes yellow, and much of the cairngorm or yellow quartz of jewellery is said to be merely "burnt amethyst." Veins of amethystine quartz are apt to lose their colour on the exposed outcrop.

Amethyst is composed of an irregular superposition of alternate lamellae of right-handed and left-handed quartz. (See QUARTZ.) It has been shown by Prof. J. W. Judd that this structure may be due to mechanical stresses. In consequence of this composite formation, amethyst is apt to break with a rippled fracture, or to show "thumb markings," and the intersection of two sets of curved ripples may produce on the fractured surface a pattern something like that of "engine turning." Some mineralogists, following Sir D. Brewster, apply the name of amethyst to all quartz which exhibits this structure, regardless of its colour.

The amethyst was used as a gem-stone by the ancient Egyptians, and was largely employed in antiquity for intaglios. Beads of amethyst are found in Anglo-Saxon graves in England. Amethyst is a very widely distributed mineral, but fine clear specimens fit for cutting as ornamental stones are confined to comparatively few localities. Such crystals occur either in cavities in mineral-veins and in granitic rocks, or as a lining in agate geodes. A huge geode, or "amethyst- grotto," from near Santa Cruz in southern Brazil, was exhibited at the Dusseldorf Exhibition of 1902. Many of the hollow agates of Brazil and Uruguay contain a crop of amethyst-crystals in the interior. Much fine amethyst comes from Russia, especially from near Mursinka in the Ekaterinburg district, where it occurs in drusy cavities in granitic rocks. Many localities in India yield amethyst; and it is found also in Ceylon, chiefly as pebbles.

Purple corundum, or sapphire of amethystine tint, is called (Oriental amethyst, but this expression is often applied by jewellers to fine examples of the ordinary amethystine quartz, even when not derived from Eastern sources.

Amethyst occurs at many localities in the United States, but rarely fine enough for use in jewellery. Among these may be mentioned Amethyst Mountain, Texas; Yellowstone National Park; Delaware Co., Pennsylvania; Haywood Co., North Carolina; Deer Hill, and Stow, Maine. It is found also in the Lake Superior district. See G. F. Kunz, Gems &c. of North America (1890),and Report for 12th Census (vol. "Mines and Quarries"). (F. W. R.*)

AMHARA, the central province of Abyssinia. The chief town, Gondar (q.v.), by which name the province is also known, was the residence of the negus negusti, or emperor, of Abyssinia from the middle ages up to 1854. The speech of the inhabitants, Amharic, which differs in several features from the dialects spoken in Tigre and Shoa, is the official language of Abyssinia.

AMHERST, JEFFREY AMHERST, BARON (1717-1797), British soldier, was the son of Jeffrey Amherst of Riverhead, Kent, and by the interest of the duke of Dorset obtained an ensigncy in the Guards in 1731. He served in Germany and the Low Countries as aide-de-camp to General (Lord) Ligonier, and was present at Dettingen, Fontenoy and Roucoux. He then served on Cumberland's staff, and took part with the duke in the later campaigns of the Austrian Succession war, in the battle of Val, and the North German campaign of 1757, including the battle of Hastenbeck. A year previously he had been promoted to a lieutenant- colonelcy. In 1758 William Pitt caused Amherst to be made a major- general, and gave him command of an expedition to attack the French in North America. For the great plan of conquering Canada, Pitt chose young and ardent officers, with Amherst, distinguished for steadiness and self-control, as their commander-in-chief. The first victory of the expedition, the capture of Louisburg (July 26, 1758), was soon followed by other successes, and Amherst was given the chief command of all the forces in the theatre of war. In the campaign of 1759 Amherst's own share was the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, while Fort Niagara fell to another column, and Quebec was taken by Wolfe. In 1760 a concentric march on Montreal was carried out with complete success, Amherst was immediately appointed governor-general of British North America, and in the following year was made a K.B. His conduct of the operations against the Indians under Pontiac was, however, far from being as successful as his generalship against regular troops; and he returned to England in 1763, being made governor of Virginia and colonel of the 60th regiment in the same year. In 1768 the king, who had had a quarrel with Amherst, made amends by giving him another colonelcy; in 1770 he was made governor of Guernsey; and two years later, though not yet a full general, he was made lieutenant-general of the ordnance and acting commander-in- chief of the forces. In this capacity he was the chief adviser at headquarters during the American War of Independence. He was created a peer in 1776, was promoted general in 1778 and became colonel of the 2nd Horse Grenadiers (2nd Life Guards) two years later. He aided in suppressing the Gordon riots of 1780. The rest of his active life, with a short interval in 1782-1783, he spent at the Horse Guards as commander-in-chief, but he was no longer capable of good service, and in 1795 he was succeeded by the duke of York. In 1796 Lord Amherst was made field-marshal; and he died on the 3rd of August 1797 at "Montreal," his residence in Kent.

AMHERST, WILLIAM PITT AMHERST, EARL (1773-1857), governor- general of India, was the nephew of Jeffrey, Baron Amherst, and succeeded to his title in 1797 by the remainder provided when the patent of nobility was renewed in 1788. In 1816 he was sent as ambassador extraordinary to the court of China, with a view of establishing more satisfactory commercial relations between that country and Great Britain. On arriving in the Peiho he was given to understand that he could only be admitted to the emperor's presence on condition of performing the ko-tou (kow-tow), a ceremony which Western nations consider degrading, and which is, indeed, a homage exacted by a Chinese sovereign from his tributaries. To this Lord Amherst, following the advice of Sir George T. Staunton, who accompanied him as second commissioner, refused to consent, as Lord Macartney had done in 1793, unless the admission was made that his sovereign was entitled to the same show of reverence from a mandarin of his rank. In consequence of this he was not allowed to enter Pekin, and the object of his mission was frustrated. His ship, the "Alceste," after a cruise along the coast of Korea and to the Loo-Choo Islands, on proceeding homewards was totally wrecked on a sunken rock in Gaspar Strait. Lord Amherst and part of his shipwrecked companions escaped in the ship's boats to Batavia, whence relief was sent to the rest. The ship in which he returned to England in 1817 having touched at St Helena, he had several interviews with the emperor Napoleon (see Ellis's Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China, 1817; M'Leod's Narrative of a Voyage in H.M.S. "Alceste," 1817). Lord Amherst held the office of governor-general of India from August 1823 to February 1828. The principal event of his government was the first Burmese war of 1824, resulting in the cession of Arakan and Tenasserim to Great Britain. He was created Earl Amherst of Arakan in 1826. On his return to England he lived in retirement till his death in March 1857.

See A. Thackeray and R. Evans, Lord Amherst ("Rulers of India" series), 1894.

AMHERST, a town and district in the Tenasserim division of Lower Burma. The town is situated about 30 m. S. of Moulmein. It was founded by the British in 1826 on the restoration of the town of Martaban to the Burmese, and named in compliment to the governor- general of India of that day; but in 1827 the headquarters were transferred to Moulmein. Amherst has been eclipsed in prosperity by the latter city, and is now merely a bathing-place for Moulmein.

The district forms a narrow strip of land between the Indian Ocean and the mountains which separate it from the independent kingdom of Siam. It has an area of 7062 sq. m. and had a population in 1901 of 300,173; it consists partly of fertile valleys formed by spurs of mountain system which divides it from Siam, and partly of a rich alluvial tract created by the great rivers which issue from them. The most important of these are the Salween and the Gyaing, formed by the junction of the Hlaingbwe and Haungtharaw rivers. The river highways bring down inexhaustible supplies of rice to Moulmein, the chief town of the district, as also of the province of Tenasserim. The district is subject to very heavy rainfall approaching 150 in. in the year, and has a uniform temperature of about 80 deg. F. throughout the twelvemonth.

AMHERST, a village of Amherst township, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, about 7 m. N.E. of Northampton. Pop. of the township (1890) 4512; (1900) 5028; (1905, state census) 5313. It is served by the Boston & Maine and the Central Vermont railways, and by interurban electric railways to Northampton, Holyoke, Sunderland and Pelham. The village is picturesquely situated on a plateau within a rampart of hills on the E. side of the Connecticut river valley. About 3 m. to the S. are the Holyoke Mountains (so called), while on the three remaining sides the land slopes to meadows, beyond which rise on the W. the Hampshire and Berkshire Hills, on the E. the Sugar Loaf Mountains and Mt. Toby, and on the E. the Pelham Hills, including Mt Lincoln (1246 ft.). Two small rivers (Mill and Fort) flow through the township. Amherst is a quiet, pleasing, academic village of attractive homes. It is noteworthy as the seat of Amherst College, one of the best known of the smaller colleges of the United States. Amherst Academy (opened about 1814, chartered 1816), a co-educational school at which Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke College, was educated, preceded the college (not co-educational), which was opened in 1821 and was chartered in 1825. It was originally a collegiate charitable institution, its basis being a fund for the schooling of ministers, and the charity element has remained very large relatively to other colleges. The principal college buildings are College Hall (1828); College Chapel (1828); the Henry T. Morgan Library; Williston Hall, containing the Mather Art Museum, the rooms of the Young Men's Christian Association, and several lecture-rooms; Walker Hall, with college offices and lecture-rooms; Hitchcock Hall; Barrett Hall (1859), the first college gymnasium built in the United States, now used as a lecture hall; the Pratt Gymnasium and Natatorium and the Pratt Health Cottage, whose donors also gave to the college the Pratt Field; an astronomical observatory; and the two dormitories, North College and South College, supplemented by several fraternity houses. The natural history collections (including the very large ichnological collection of President Hitchcock, and Audubon's collection of birds) are of exceptional richness. At Amherst is also the Massachusetts Agricultural College (co-educational; 1867) and experiment station (1887). Among the presidents of Amherst College have been in 1845- 1854 and in 1876-1890 respectively--Edward Hitchcock, the famous geologist, and the Rev. Julius H. Seelye (1824-1895), a well-known educationalist. The township seems to have been first settled in 1731; it was incorporated in 1759 as a "district" (i.e. having all the rights of a township save corporate representation in the legislature) and in 1776 as a "town" (township). It was originally part of Hadley. Its name was given to it in honour of General Jeffrey Amherst (1717-1797). During the Shays' Rebellion Amherst was a centre of disaffection and a rallying-point of the insurgents. Noah Webster lived in the village from 1812 to 1822, when working on his Dictionary; and Emily Dickinson and Helen M. Fiske (later Helen Hunt- Jackson, "H. H.") were born here.

See William Seymour Tyler, A History of Amherst College (New York, 1896), and Carpenter and Morehouse, The History of the Town of Amherst (New York, 1896).

AMHERST, the county town of Cumberland county, and port of entry in Novia Scotia, Canada, at the head of Chignecto Bay and on the Intercolonial railway, 138 m. from Halifax. Pop. (1901) 4964. It is situated in a rich agricultural and mining district, and contains county and railway buildings and numerous mills and factories. It is the distributing centre for the surrounding district, and exports railway carriages, engines, boilers, stoves, &c.

AMHURST, NICHOLAS (1697-1742), English poet and political writer, was born at Marden, Kent, on the 16th of October 1697. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and received an exhibition (1716) to St John's College, Oxford. In 1719 he was expelled from the university, ostensibly for his irregularities of conduct, but in reality, according to his own account, because of his whig principles, which were sufficiently evident in a congratulatory epistle to Addison, in Protestant Popery; or the Convocation (1718), an attack on the opponents of Bishop Hoadly, and in The Protestant Session ... by a member of the Constitution Club at Oxford (1719), addressed to James, first Earl Stanhope, and printed anonymously, but doubtless by Amhurst. He had satirized Oxford morals in Strephon's Revenge; a Satire on the Oxford Toasts (1718), and he attacked from time to time the administration of the university and its principal members. An old Oxford custom on public occasions permitted some person to deliver from the rostrum a humorous, satirical speech, full of university scandal. This orator was known as Terrae filius. In 1721 Amhurst produced a series of bi-weekly satirical papers under this name, which ran for seven months and incidentally provides much curious information. These publications were reprinted in 1726 in two volumes as Terrae Filius; or the secret history of the University of Oxford; in several essays.... He collected his poems in 1720, and wrote another university satire, Oculus Britanniae, in 1724. On leaving Oxford for London he became a prominent pamphleteer on the opposition side. On the 5th of December 1726 he issued the first number of the Craftsman, a weekly periodical, which he conducted under the pseudonym of Caleb D'Anvers. The paper contributed largely to the final overthrow of Sir Robert Walpole's government, and reached a circulation of 10,000 copies. For this success Amhurst's editorship was not perhaps chiefly responsible. It was the organ of Lord Bolingbroke and William Pulteney, the latter of whom was a frequent and caustic contributor. In 1737 an imaginary letter from Colley Cibber was inserted, in which he was made to suggest that many plays by Shakespeare and the older dramatists contained passages which might be regarded as seditious. He therefore desired to be appointed censor of all plays brought on the stage. This was regarded as a "suspected" libel, and a warrant was issued for the arrest of the printer. Amhurst surrendered himself instead, and suffered a short imprisonment. On the overthrow of the government in 1742 the opposition leaders did nothing for the useful editor of the Craftsman, and this neglect is said to have hastened Amhurst's death, which took place at Twickenham on the 27th of April 1742.

AMIANTHUS, a corruption of amiantus (Gr. amiautos, undefiled), a name applied to the finer kinds of asbestos (q.v.), in consequence, it is said, of the mineral being unaffected by fire. Some of the finest amianthus, with long silky flexible fibres, occurs in the district of the Tarentaise in Savoy. According to Dr J. W. Evans, the ancient amianthus, derived mostly from Karystos in Euboea and from Cyprus, was probably a fibrous serpentine, or chrysotile (now called locally pampakopetrai or cotton-stone).

See Mineralogical Mag. (London) vol. xiv. no. 65 (1906), art. by J. W. Evans.

AMICABLE NUMBERS, two numbers so related that the sum of the factors of the one is equal to the other, unity being considered as a factor. Such a pair are 220 and 284; for the factors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55 and 110, of which the sum is 284; and the factors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71, and 142, of which the sum is 220. Amicable numbers were known to the Pythagoreans, who accredited them with many mystical properties. A general formula by which these numbers could be derived was invented by the Arabian astronomer Tobit ben Korra (836-901): if p=3.2m-1, q=3.2m-1-1 and r=9.22m-1-1, where m is an integer and p,q,r prime numbers, then 2m pq and 2m r are a pair of amicable numbers. This formula gives the pairs 220 and 284, 17,296 and 18,416, 9,463,584 and 9,437,056. The pair 6232 and 6368 are amicable, but they cannot be derived from this formula. Amicable numbers have been studied by Al Madshritti (d. 1007), Rene Descartes, to whom the formula of Tobit ben Korra is sometimes ascribed, C. Rudolphus and others.

AMICE (earlier forms: amyt, amys, O. Fr. amit, Lat. amictus, from amicire, to throw or wrap round, the change of t to s being probably due to an early confusion with the aumuce: see ALMUCE), a liturgical vestment of the Western Church. It is a rectangular piece of cloth which is wrapped round the neck, shoulders and breast. Sometimes, more particularly in Germany, it is called the humerale (from humerus, shoulder). According to modern Roman use, laid down by the decree of the Congregation of Rites in 1819, the amice must be of linen or of a hempen material, not wool; and, as directed by the new Roman Missal (1570), a small cross must be sewn or embroidered in the middle of it. In putting it on it is first laid on the head, then allowed to fall on the shoulders, and finally folded round the chest and tied with the strings attached for that purpose (see fig. 1). The amice is now worn under the alb, except at Milan and Lyons, where it is put on over it. The vestment was at first a perfectly plain white cloth, but in the 12th century the custom arose of decorating the upper border with a band of embroidery, the parure (parura) or "apparel." This was abandoned at Rome about the end of the 15th century and is not prescribed in the Missal; it survived, however, in many parts of Europe till much later. This apparel, when the vestment has been adjusted, forms a sort of stiff collar which appears above the chasuble or dalmatic (see fig. 2). In some exceptional cases, as at Milan, it has become detached from the amice and is fixed like a collar to the chasuble.

The Latin word amictus was applied to any wrap-like garment, and, according to Father Braun, the liturgical amice originated in the ordinary neck-cloth worn by all classes of Romans. It had at the outset no liturgical significance whatever, and was simply adopted by the clergy for the same reason that the clergy of the 18th century wore wigs--because it was part of the full dress of ordinary life. The first record of its ecclesiastical use is at Rome in the 8th century, when it was worn only with the dalmatic and was known as the anabolagium (anagolaium, anagolagium, from Gr. anabolaion), a name it continued to bear at Rome till the 13th century. In the 9th century it spread to the other countries that adopted the Roman use: it is mentioned in an inventory of vestments given by Abbot Angilbert (d. 814) to the monastery at Centula (St Riguier) and in the de clericorum institutione of Hrabanus Maurus (c. 820). The amice was worn first simply as a shoulder-cloth, but at the end of the 9th century the custom grew up of putting it on over the head and of wearing it as a hood, either while the other vestments were being put on or, according to the various uses of local churches, during part of the Mass, though never during the canon. This ceased at Rome at the same time as the apparel disappeared; but two relics of it survive--(1) in the directions of the Missal for putting on the amice, (2) in the ordination of subdeacons, when the bishop lays the vestment on the ordinand's head with the words, "Take the amice, which symbolizes discipline over the tongue, &c." The priest too in putting it on prays, "Place on my head the helmet of salvation, &c."

The amice, whatever its origin or symbolism, became specifically a vestment associated with the sacrifice of the Mass, and as such it was rejected with the other "Mass vestments" in England at the Reformation. Its use has, however, been revived in many Anglican churches, the favourite form being the medieval apparelled amice. (See VESTMENTS.) A vestment akin to the amice is also worn in the Armenian and some other oriental churches, but it is unknown to the Orthodox Eastern Church.

Akin to the amice is a vestment peculiar to the popes, the fanone (Med. Lat. fano, "cloth," Goth. fana, "cloth," Mod. Ger. Fahne, "a flag"), also called the orale (from ora, an edge, border). This is at present a circular broad collar of two thicknesses of silk, ornamented with gold stripes and a gold- embroidered cross (see fig. 3). It is put on after the alb, &c., and under the tunicle, dalmatic and chasuble, but then drawn up so as to fall over the latter like a collar. The fanone was originally a cloth like the amice and was wrapped round neck and shoulders; until the 15th century, moreover, it was not worn with the amice. Since then, however, both vestments have been worn, one under, the other over, the alb. It is worn by the popes only on certain special days or occasions, and forms part of the vestments in which they are buried.

See Joseph Braun, S. J., Die liturgische Gewandung, pp. 21-56 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1907), and bibliography to the article VESTMENTS.

AMICI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1786-1863), Italian astronomer and microscopist, was born on the 25th of March 1786 at Modena. After studying at Bologna, he became professor of mathematics at Modena, and in 1831 was appointed inspector-general of studies in the duchy. A few years later he was chosen director of the observatory at Florence, where he also lectured at the museum of natural history. He died at Florence on the 10th of April 1863. His name is best known for the improvements he effected in the mirrors of reflecting telescopes and especially in the construction of the microscope. He was also a diligent and skilful observer, and busied himself not only with astronomical subjects, such as the double stars, the satellites of Jupiter and the measurement of the polar and equatorial diameters of the sun, but also with biological studies of the circulation of the sap in plants, the fructification of plants, infusoria, &c.

AMICIS, EDMONDO DE (1846-1908), Italian writer, was born at Oneglia, in Liguria, on the 21st of October 1846. After some schooling at Cuneo and Turin, he was sent to the Military School at Modena, from which he was appointed to a lieutenancy in the 3rd regiment of the line in 1865. He fought at the battle of Custozza in 1866. In 1867 he became director of the Italia Militare, Florence. In the following year he published his first book, La Vita Militare, which consisted of sketches of military life, and attained wide popularity. After the overthrow of the pope's temporal power in 1870, De Amicis retired from the army and devoted himself to literature, making his headquarters at Turin. Always a traveller by inclination, he found opportunity for this in his new leisure, and some of his most popular books have been the product of his wanderings. Several of these have been translated into English and the other principal languages of Europe. The most important of these are his descriptions of Spain (1873), Holland (1874), Constantinople (1877) and Morocco (1879). These gained him a well- deserved reputation as a brilliant depicter of scenery and the external aspects of life; solid information is not within their sphere; and much of their success is owing to the opportunities they afford for spirited illustration. Subsequently De Amicis greatly extended his fame as a writer of fiction, especially by Il Romanzo d' un Maestro, and the widely read Il Cuore (translated into English as An Italian Schoolboy's Journal); later volumes from his pen being La Carozza di tutti (centring round an electric tram), Memorie, Speranze e glorie, Ricordi d' infanzia e di scuola, L' Idioma gentile, and a volume of short stories, Nel Regno dell' Amore. He died suddenly of heart disease at Bordighera on the 12th of March 1908.

AMICUS CURIAE (Lat. for "a friend of the court"), a term used primarily in law, signifying a person (usually a member of the bar) who, having special knowledge but not being engaged in the suit, intervenes during its hearing to give information for the assistance of the court, either upon some fact relevant to the issue or upon a point of law, such as the hearing of a local custom, the precedent of some decided case, &c.

AMIDINES, in organic chemistry, the name given to compounds of general formula R.C:(NH).NH2, which may be considered as derived from the acid-amides by replacement of oxygen by the divalent imino (=NH) group. They may be prepared by the action of ammonia or amines on imide chorides, or on thiamides (O. Wallach, A. Bernthsen); by the action of ammonium chloride or hydrochlorides of amines on nitriles; by condensing amines and amides in presence of phosphorus trichloride; by the action of hydrochloric acid on acid-amides (O. Wallach, Ber., 1882, 15, p. 208); and by the action of ammonia or amines on imino-ethers (A. Pinner, Ber., 1883, 16, p. 1647; 1884, 17, p. 179). They are monacid bases, which are not very stable; they readily take up the elements of water (when boiled with acids or alkalies), yielding amides and ammonia. On dry distillation they yield nitriles and ammonia. When warmed with sulphuretted hydrogen they yield thiamides, R.C:(NH).NHR+H2S = R.C(NH2)(SH)NHR = R.CSNH2 + NH2.R or RCS.NHR + NH3. With b-ketonic esters, HO(CH3)C:CH.CO2R, they yield oxypyrimidines (A. Pinner, Ber., 1890, 23, p. 3820).

Formamidine, HC:(NH)NH2, is only known in the form of its salts, the hydrochloride being obtained by the action of ammonia on the hydrochloride of formimido-ethyl ether (A. Pinner, Ber., 1883, 16, p. 357). Acetamidine, CH3C:(NH).NH2, is alkaline in reaction, and readily splits up into acetic acid and ammonia when warmed with acids. Its hydrochloride melts at 163 deg. C., and crystallizes from alcohol in colourless deliquescent prisms. Acetic anhydride converts the base into an acetamino-dimethyl pyrimidine, acetic acid and acetamide being also formed.

Benzamidine, C6H5.C:(NH)NH2, forms colourless crystals which melt at 75-80 deg. C. When warmed it breaks down into ammonia and cyanphenine (s-triphenyl triazine). It condenses with acetic anhydride to form a methyldiphenyl triazine, acetamide being also formed; with acetyl-acetone to form dimethylphenyl pyrimidine (A. Pinner, Ber., 1893, 26, p. 2125); and with trimethylene bromide to form a phenyl tetrahydropyrimidine (Pinner). H. v. Pechmann (Ber., 1895, 28, p. 2362) has shown that amidines of the type R.C: (NY).NHZ sometimes react as if they possessed the constitution R.C: (NZ).NHY; but this only appears to occur when Y and Z are groups which function in the same way. If Y and Z are groups which behave very differently, then there is apparently no tautomerism and a definite formula can be given to the compound.

The formulae of the ringed compounds mentioned above are here shown:

N--C--(CH3) // \\ R.C CH \ / N==C--(OH) Oxypyrimidine.

N--C--(CH3) // \\ CH3.C CH \ / N==C--(NHCOCH3) Acetaminodimethyl pyrimidine.

C6H5 / N--C // \\ C6H5.C N \ / N==C \ CH3 Methyl diphenyl triazine.

N--CH2 // \ C6H5.C CH2 \ / NH--CH2 Phenyl tetrahydropyrimidine.

AMIEL, HENRI FREDERIC (1821-1881), Swiss philosopher and critic, was born at Geneva on the 27th of September 1821. He was descended from a Huguenot family driven to Switzerland by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Losing his parents at an early age, he travelled widely, became intimate with the intellectual leaders of Europe and made a special study of German philosophy in Berlin. In 1849 he was appointed professor of aesthetics at the academy of Geneva, and in 1854 became professor of moral philosophy. These appointments, conferred by the democratic party, deprived him of the support of the aristocratic party; which comprised nearly all the culture of the city. This isolation inspired the one book by which Amiel lives, the Journal Intime, which, published after his death, obtained a European reputation. It was translated into English by Mrs Humphry Ward. Although second-rate as regards productive power, Amiel's mind was of no inferior quality, and his journal gained a sympathy which the author had failed to obtain in his life. In addition to the Journal, he produced several volumes of poetry and wrote studies on Erasmus, Madame de Stael and other writers. He died in Geneva on the 11th of March 1881. His chief poetical works are Grains de mil, Il penseroso, Part du reve, Les Etrangeres, Charles le Temeraire, Romancero historique, Jour a jour.

See Life of Amiel by Mdlle Berthe Vadier (Paris, 1885); Paul Bourget, Nouveaux essais (Paris, 1885); E. Scherer, introd. to the Journal and in Etudes sur la litt. contemp. (vol. viii.).

AMIENS, a city of northern France, capital of the department of Somme, on the left bank of the Somme, 81 m. N. of Paris on the Northern railway to Calais. Pop. (1906) 78,407. Amiens was once a place of great strength, and still possesses a citadel of the end of the 16th century, but the ramparts which surrounded it have been replaced by boulevards, bordered by handsome residences. Suburbs, themselves bounded by another line of boulevards, have arisen beyond these limits, and the city also extends to the right bank of the Somme. The busy quarter of Amiens lies between the river and the railway, which for some distance follows the inner line of boulevards. The older and more picturesque quarter is situated directly on the Somme; its narrow and irregular streets are intersected by the eleven arms of the river and it is skirted on the north by the canal derived therefrom. Besides its boulevards Amiens has the ample park or Promenade de la Hotoie to the west and several fine squares, notably the Place Longueville and the Place St Denis, in which stands the statue of the famous 17th-century scholar Charles Ducange. The cathedral (see ARCHITECTURE: Romanesque and Gothic Architecture in France; and CATHEDRAL), which is perhaps the finest church of Gothic architecture in France, far exceeds the other buildings of the town in importance. Erected on the plans of Robert de Luzarches, chiefly between 1220 and 1288, it consists of a nave, nearly 140 ft. in height, with aisles and lateral chapels, a transept with aisles, and a choir (with deambulatory) ending in an apse surrounded by chapels. The total length is 469 ft., the breadth 216 ft. The facade, which is flanked by two square towers without spires, has three portals decorated with a profusion of statuary, the central portal having a remarkable statue of Christ of the 13th century; they are surmounted by two galleries, the upper one containing twenty-two statues of the kings of Judah in its arcades, and by a fine rose-window. A slender spire rises above the crossing. The southern portal is remarkable for a figure of the Virgin and other statuary. In the interior, which contains beautifully carved stalls, a choir-screen in the flamboyant style and many other works of art, the most striking features are the height of the nave and the boldness of the columns supporting the vaulting. The chief of the other churches of Amiens is St Germain (15th century), which has some good stained glass. The hotel de ville, begun in 1550, a belfry of the 14th and 18th centuries and several old mansions are of interest. Amiens has a rich library and admirable collections of paintings, sculptures and antiquities in the museum of Picardy. Its learned associations include the Societe des Antiquaires de Picardie, by whom the museum was built in 1854-1864. The city is the seat of a bishop, a prefect, a court of appeal and a court of assizes, and headquarters of the II. Army Corps. There are also tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. The educational institutions include lycees for boys and girls, training-colleges for teachers, a preparatory school of medicine, a school of music and a school of iron-working and wood-working. The textile industries for which Amiens has been celebrated since the middle ages include manufactures of velvet, cotton-, wool-, silk-, hemp- and flax-spinning, and the weaving of hosiery and a variety of mixed fabrics. Manufactures of machinery, chemicals, blacking, polish and sugar, and printing, dyeing and iron-founding are also carried on. Market gardens, known as hortillonnages, intersected by small canals derived from the Somme and Avre, cover a considerable area to the north-east of Amiens; and the city has trade in vegetables, as well as in grain, sugar, wool, oil-seeds and the duck-pasties and macaroons for which it is renowned.

Amiens occupies the site of the ancient Samarobriva, capital of the Ambiani, from whom it probably derives its name. At the beginning of the 4th century Christianity was preached there by St Firmin, its first bishop. During the middle ages its territory formed the countship of Amienois. The authority of the counts was, however, balanced by that of the bishops, and early in the 12th century the citizens, profiting by this rivalry, gained a charter of enfranchisement. The fief became for the first time a dependency of the French crown in 1185, when Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, ceded it to Philip Augustus. It more than once passed out of the power of the French kings, notably in 1435, when, by the treaty of Arras, it came into the possession of the dukes of Burgundy, to whom it belonged till 1477. Surprised by the Spaniards in 1597, the city was recaptured from them after a long siege by Henry IV. Till 1790 it was the capital of the gouvernement of Picardy (q.v.). The famous treaty between Great Britain, France, Spain and Holland which took its name from Amiens was signed in the hotel de ville on the 25th of March 1802. During the war between France and Germany, Amiens, after an important action, fell into the hands of the Prussians on the 28th of November 1870. (See FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.)

See A. de Calonne, Histoire de la ville d'Amiens (1900); John Ruskin, The Bible of Amiens (1881); La Picardie historique et monumentale, tome i., published by the Societe des Antiquaires de Picardie (1893).

AMINES, in chemistry, derivatives of ammonia in which one or more of the hydrogen atoms are replaced by alkyl or aryl groups. The replacement of one hydrogen atom by one alkyl or aryl group gives rise to primary amines; of two hydrogen atoms by two groups, to secondary amines; of three hydrogen atoms by three groups, to tertiary amines. The tertiary amines possess the power of combining with one molecular proportion of an alkyl iodide to form quaternary ammonium salts. The structural relations of these compounds may be shown thus:

NH3; NH2R; NHR2; NR3; Ammonia; primary amine; secondary amine; tertiary amine; NR4I. quaternary ammonium iodide. Aliphatic amines.--These compounds possess properties very similar to those of ammonia, the lowest members of the series being combustible gases readily soluble in water. The next higher members of the series are liquids of low boiling point also readily soluble in water, the solubility and volatility, however, decreasing with the increasing carbon content of the molecule, until the highest members of the series are odourless solids of high boiling point and are insoluble in water. They are all strong bases, readily forming salts with the mineral acids and double salts with the chlorides of gold, platinum and mercury. They are ionized in aqueous solution to a much greater extent than ammonia, the quaternary ammonium bases being the most ionized, and the secondary bases being more strongly ionized than the primary or tertiary bases. For data concerning the conductivity of the organic bases see G. Bredig (Zeit. fur phys. Chem., 1894, 13, p. 289).

Many methods have been devised for the preparation of the amines, the first amine having been isolated in 1849 by A. Wurtz on boiling methyl isocyanate with caustic potash, CON.CH3 + 2KHO = CH3NH2 + K2CO3. The primary amines may also be prepared by heating the alkyl iodides with ammonia (A. W. Hofmann); by the reduction of nitriles with alcohol and sodium (A. Ladenburg, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 783); by heating the esters of nitric acid with alcoholic ammonia at 100 deg. C. (O. Wallach, Ber., 1881, 14, p. 421); by the action of reducing agents on nitroparaffins; by the action of zinc and hydrochloric acid on aldehyde ammonias (German Patent 73,812); by the reduction of the phenylhydrazones and oximes of aldehydes and ketones with sodium amalgam in the presence of alcohol and sodium acetate (J. Tafel, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 1925; 1889, 22, p. 1854; H. Goldschmidt, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 3232); by the action of dilute hydrochloric acid on the isonitriles, R.NC + 2H2O = R.NH2 + H2CO2; by heating the mustard oils with a mineral acid, by the hydrolysis of the alkyl phthalimides (S. Gabriel, Ber., 1887, 20, p. 2224; 1891, 24, p. 3104),

CO CO / \ RI / \ 2H2O C6H4 NK ---> C6H4 NR --------> \ / \ / CO CO

COOH / C6H4 + NH2R; \ COOH

by distilling the amino-acids with baryta; by the action of bromine and caustic potash on the acid-amides (A. W. Hofmann, Ber., 1885, 18, p. 2734; 1886, 19, p. 1822);

CH3CONH2 --> CH3CONHBr --> CH3CONKBr -->

CH3NCO --> CH3NH2;

and by the hydrolysis of substituted urethanes (Th. Curtius, Ber., 1894, 27, p. 779; 1896, 29, p. 1166),

N2H4.H20 HONO R.COOH --> R.COOR1 ------------------> R.CONH.NH2 -----> acid ester hydrazide

C2H5OH HCI R.CON3 -------------> R.NH.CO2C2H5 ----> R.NH2 azide urethane

The secondary amines are prepared, together with the primary and tertiary, by the action of ammonia on the alkyl iodides (see below), or by the hydrolysis of para-nitroso derivatives of tertiary aromatic amines, such as para-nitrosodimethylaniline, thus: NO.C6H4.N(CH3)2 + H2O = NO.C6H4.OH + NH(CH3)2. By the action of ammonia on the alkyl iodides a complex mixture of primary, secondary and tertiary amines, along with a quaternary ammonium salt, is obtained, the separation of which is difficult. The method worked out by A. W. Hofmann is as follows:--the mixture is distilled with caustic potash, when the primary, secondary and tertiary amines distil over, and the quaternary ammonium salt remains behind unaffected. The aqueous solution of the amines is now shaken up with diethyl oxalate, when the primary amine forms a crystalline dialkyl oxamide and the secondary amine an insoluble liquid, which is an ethyl dialkyl oxamate, the tertiary amine not reacting: (CO2C2H5)2 + 2NH2R = (CO.NHR)2 + 2C2H5OH; (CO2C2H5)2 + NHR2 = C2H5O2C.CONR2 + C2H5OH. The tertiary amine is then distilled off, the residual products separated by filtration and finally hydrolysed by a caustic alkali.

The primary, secondary and tertiary amines may be readily distinguished by their behaviour with various reagents. Primary amines when heated with alcoholic potash and chloroform yield isonitriles, which are readily detected by their offensive smell. The secondary and tertiary amines do not give this reaction. With nitrous acid, the primary amines yield alcohols, the secondary amines yield nitrosamines and the tertiary amines do not react: R.NH2 + ONOH = R.OH + N2 + H2O; R2NH + ONOH = R2N.NO + H2O. With benzene sulphochloride in the presence of alkali, the primary amines yield compounds of the type C6H5SO2NHR, soluble in alkalies, whilst the secondary amines yield compounds of the type C6H5SO2NR2, insoluble in alkalies (O. Hinsberg, Ber., 1890, 23, p. 2963). Primary amines heated with carbon bisulphide in alcoholic solution are converted into mustard oils, when the dithiocarbamate first produced is heated with a solution of mercuric chloride.

Methylamine, CH3NH2, occurs in Mercurialis perennis, in bone-oil, and herring brine. It is also a decomposition product of many alkaloids. At ordinary temperatures it is a gas, but may be condensed to a liquid which boils at -6 deg. C. It has a strong ammoniacal smell, burns readily and is exceedingly soluble in water. Its critical temperature is 155 deg. C. and critical pressure 72 atmos. (C. Vincent, J. Chappuis, Jahresb., 1886, p. 202). Dimethylamine, (CH3)2NH, is found in Peruvian guano. It is a heavy vapour which condenses at 7 deg. C. to a liquid, having a pronounced fish-like smell. Trimethylamine, (CH3)3N, is very similar to dimethylamine, and condenses to a liquid which boils at 3.2-3.8 deg. C. It is usually obtained from "vinasses," the residue obtained from the distillation of beet sugar alcohol, and is used in the manufacture of potassium bicarbonate by the Solvay process, since its hydrochloride is much more soluble than potassium carbonate. Tetramethylammonium iodide, N(CH3)4I, is the chief product obtained by the action of methyl iodide on ammonia (Hofmann). It crystallizes in quadratic prisms and has a bitter taste. By warming its aqueous solution with an excess of silver oxide it is converted into tetramethylammonium hydroxide, N(CH3)4OH, which crystallizes in hygroscopic needles, and has a very alkaline reaction. It forms many crystalline salts and absorbs carbon dioxide. It precipitates many metallic hydroxides. On dry distillation it is resolved into trimethylamine and methyl alcohol. If the nitrogen atom in the quaternary ammonium salts be in combination with four different groups, then the molecule is asymmetrical, and the salt can be resolved into optically active enantiamorphous isomerides. W. J. Pope (Jour. Chem. Soc., 1901, 79, p. 828) has resolved benzyl-allyl-phenyl-methylamine iodide by boiling with silver d-camphorsulphonate in a nearly anhydrous mixture of acetone and ethyl acetate. The silver iodide is separated and the solvent distilled off. The residue crystallizes slowly, and the crystalline product is almost wholly d-benzyl-ally-phenyl- ammonium-d-sulphonate, the corresponding l-compound remaining as a syrupy residue. The corresponding iodides are obtained by the addition of potassium iodide to solutions of the sulphonates, and are optically active antipodes.

Diamines.--The diamines contain two amino groups and bear the same relation to the glycols that the primary monamines bear to the primary alcohols. They are of importance, since the higher homologues are identical in many cases with the ptomaines produced by the putrefactive action of some bacteria on albumen and other related substances. Ethylene diamine, C2H4(NH2)2, may be prepared by heating ethylene dibromide with alcoholic ammonia to 100 deg. C. (F. S. Cloez, Jahresb., 1853, p. 468); or by the action of tin and hydrochloric acid on cyanogen (T. Fairley, Ann. Suppl., 3, 1864, p. 372). It is an alkaline liquid, which when anhydrous boils at 116.5 deg. C. Nitrous acid converts it into ethylene oxide. It combines directly with many metallic salts. (See S. F. Jorgensen, Jour. pr. Chem., 1889 (2), 39, p. 8.) Trimethylene diamine, NH2.(CH2)3.NH2, is prepared by the action of ammonia on trimethylene bromide (E. Fischer, Ber., 1884, 17, p. 1799). It is a liquid which boils at 135-136 deg. C., and is readily soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform and benzene. Tetramethylene diamine (putrescine), NH2.(CH2)4.NH2, is prepared by reducing ethylene dicyanide (succinonitrile) with sodium in absolute alcoholic solution (A. Ladenburg, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 780). It melts at 27 deg. C., and is easily soluble in water. Pentamethylene diamine (cadaverine), NH2.(CH2)5.NH2,is prepared by reducing trimethylene cyanide in ether solution by zinc and hydrochloric acid (A. Ladenburg, Ber., 1883, 16, p. 1151). J. v. Braun (Ber., 1904, 37, p. 3583) has prepared pentamethylene derivatives from piperidine by the action of phosphorus pentachloride. On heating piperidine with phosphorus pentachloride to 200 deg. C. in a sealed tube pentamethylene dichloride is obtained, and this on treatment with potassium phthalimide gives a condensation product of composition, C6H4[CO]2N(CH2)5N[CO]2C6H4, which is finally hydrolysed by hydrochloric acid. Cadaverine is a syrup at ordinary temperatures, and boils at 178-179 deg. C. It is readily soluble in water and alcohol, but only slightly soluble in ether.

Aromatic Amines.--The aromatic amines in some respects resemble the aliphatic amines, since they form salts with acids, and double salts with platinum chloride, and they also distil without decomposition. On the other hand, they are much weaker bases than the aliphatic amines, their salts undergoing hydrolytic dissociation in aqueous solution. The primary aromatic amines may be prepared by the reduction of the nitro-hydrocarbons, the reducing agents used being either alcoholic-ammonium sulphide (N. Zinin), zinc and hydrochloric acid (A. W. Hofmann), an alcoholic solution of stannous chloride (containing hydrochloric acid) (R. Anschutz, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 2161), tin and hydrochloric acid, or, on the manufacturing scale, iron and hydrochloric acid. They may also be obtained by the reduction of nitroso compounds and of hydrazo compounds and of hydrazones (J. Tafel, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 1924), by distilling the amido-acids with lime, by heating phenols with zinc chloride ammonia (V. Merz, Ber., 1880, 13, p. 1298), and by heating the secondary and tertiary bases with concentrated hydrochloric acid to about 180 deg. C.

At a temperature of about 300-400 deg. C. the alkyl chloride formed in this reaction attacks the benzene nucleus and replaces hydrogen by an alkyl group or groups, forming primary amines homologous with the original amine; thus methylaniline hydrochloride is converted into para- and ortho-toluidine hydrochloride, and trimethyl phenyl ammonium iodide is converted into mesidine hydriodide. It is to be noted that only traces of the aromatic amines are produced by heating the halogen substituted benzenes with ammonia, unless the amino group be situated in the side chain, as in the case of benzylamine.

The primary amines are colourless liquids or crystalline solids, which are insoluble in water, but readily soluble in the common organic solvents. When heated with alkyl or aryl iodides, they are converted into secondary and tertiary amines. Concentrated nitric acid attacks them violently, producing various oxidation products, but if the amino group be "protected" by being previously acetylated, then nitro derivatives are obtained. When heated with concentrated sulphuric acid for some time, they are sulphonated. They form condensation products with aldehydes, benzaldehyde and aniline forming benzylidene aniline, C6H5N: CHC6H5, and when heated with acids they form anilides. They give the isonitrile reaction (see above) when warmed with chloroform and a caustic alkali, and form alkyl thioureas when heated with an alcoholic solution of carbon bisulphide. When warmed with a solution of nitrous acid, they are converted into phenols; if, however, nitrous acid be added to an ice-cold solution of a primary amine in excess of mineral acid, a diazonium salt is formed (see AZO COMPOUNDS and DIAZO COMPOUNDS), or in absence of excess of acid, a diazoamine is produced.

The secondary amines may be of two types--namely, the purely aromatic amines, and the mixed secondary amines, which contain an aromatic residue and an alkyl group. The purely aromatic amines result upon heating the primary amines with their hydrochlorides, and, in some cases, by heating a phenol with a primary amine and anhydrous zinc chloride. The mixed secondary amines are prepared by the action of alkyl iodides on the primary amines, or by heating salts of the primary amine with alcohols under pressure. The mixed secondary amines have basic properties, but the purely aromatic secondary amines are only very feeble bases. Both classes readily exchange the imide hydrogen for acid radicals, and give nitrosamines with nitrous acid. The secondary amines do not give the isonitrile reaction.

The tertiary amines may also be of two types, the purely aromatic and the mixed type. The mixed tertiary amines are produced by the action of alkyl halides on the primary amines. The simplest aromatic tertiary amine, triphenylamine, is prepared by the action of brombenzene on sodium diphenylamine (C. Heydrich, Ber., 1885, 18, p. 2156). The simplest aromatic monamine is aniline (q.v.), and the simplest mixed amines are mono- and di-methyl aniline. These substances are treated in the article ANILINE.

The aromatic amine resembling the aliphatic amines is benzylamine, C6H5.CH2.NH2, which may be prepared by reducing benzonitrile in alcoholic solution by means of zinc and acetic acid (O. Mendius, Ann. 1862, 121, p. 144), or by metallic sodium (E. Bamberger, Ber., 1887, 20, p. 1709). It can also be obtained by the action of ammonia on benzyl chloride (S. Cannizzaro, Ann., 1865, 134, p. 128), but di- and tri-benzylamines are simultaneously formed. It is a liquid, which boils at 183 deg. C., and is miscible in all proportions with water, alcohol and ether. It is basic in character, and has a strongly alkaline reaction. Diphenylamine, (C6H5)2NH, is the simplest representative of the true aromatic secondary amines. It is prepared by heating aniline and aniline hydrochloride for some hours to 210-240 deg. C, (Ch. Girard and G. de Laire, Zeit. fur Chem., 1866, p. 438). It crystallizes in white plates, which melt at 45 deg. C. and boil at 302 deg. C. It is almost insoluble in water, but readily volatilizes in steam. When heated with monobasic saturated acids and zinc chloride it yields acridines.

Aromatic Diamines.--The diamines are prepared by reducing the nitranilines or the dinitrohydrocarbons. They crystallize in plates, and for the most part distil without decomposition. Orthophenylene diamine, C6H4(NH2)2, crystallizes from water in plates, which melt at 102-103 deg. C. and boil at 256-258 deg. C. When heated with 10% hydrochloric acid to 180 deg. C. it yields pyrocatechin (Jacob Meyer, Ber., 1897, 30, p. 2569). The orthodiamines are characterized by the large number of condensation products they form. (See IMIDAZOLES, QUINOXALINES, &c.). Metaphenylene diamine crystallizes in rhombic plates which melt at 63 deg. C. and boil at 287 deg. C. It is easily soluble in water and alcohol. When heated with 10% hydrochloric acid to 180 deg. C. it yields resorcin (J. Meyer). Paraphenylene diamine may be prepared as above, and also by the reduction of amidoazobenzene. It crystallizes in tables which melt at 140 deg. C. and boil at 267 deg. C. When heated with 10% hydrochloric acid to 180 deg. C. it yields hydroquinone (J. Meyer). Manganese dioxide and dilute sulphuric acid oxidize it to quinone. The three classes of diamines may be distinguished by their behaviour towards nitrous acid. The ortho-compounds condense to azimido benzenes, the metacompounds yield azo-dyestuffs, and the para- compounds yield bis-diazo compounds of the type XN2.C6H4.N2X.

AMIOT, JEAN JOSEPH MARIE (1718-1793), French Jesuit missionary, was born at Toulon in February 1718. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1737 and was sent in 1750 as a missionary to China. He soon won the confidence of the emperor Kien-lung and spent the remainder of his life at Pekin, where he died on the 9th of October 1793. Amiot was eminently fitted to make good use of the advantages which his situation afforded, and his works did more than had ever been done before to make known to the Western world the thought and life of the Far East. His Dictionnaire tatare-mantchou-francais (Paris, 1789) was a work of great value, the language having been previously quite unknown in Europe. His other writings are to be found chiefly in the Memoires concernant l'histoire, les sciences et les arts de Chinois (15 vols., Paris, 1776-1791). The Vie de Confucius, the twelfth volume of that collection, is complete and accurate.

For full bibliography see De Backer and C. Sommervogel, Bibliotheque de la Cie. de Jesus, i. 294-303; for his works on Chinese music see F. J. Fetis, Biog. univers. des musiciens (Brussels, 1837-1844).

AMIR, or AMEER (an Arabic word meaning "commander," from the root amr, "commanding"), a title common in the Mahommedan East. The form emir is also commonly employed in English. The word originally signified a military commander, but very early came to be extended to anyone bearing rule, Mahomet himself being styled by the pagan Arabs amir of Mecca. Thus the term gradually came to be applied to any high office-bearer, or to any lord or chief. The caliph has the style of Amir ul Omara, "lord of lords." The title Amir ul Muminim, or "commander of the faithful," now borne by the sultan of Turkey, was first assumed by Abu Bekr, and was taken by most of the various dynasties which claimed the caliphate, including the Fatimites, the Spanish Omayyads and the Almohades. The Almoravides and the Merinides assumed the style of Amir ul Muslimin, "commander of the Mussulmans."

The use of the word is, in fact, closely akin to that of the English "lord," sometimes connoting office, as in Amir ul-ahghal (minister of finance) under the Almohades (cf. "lord of the treasury"), sometimes mere dignity, as in the case of the title of honour borne by all descendants of the Prophet, or of the title Mir assumed by men of great rank in the Far East. Sometimes it implies a temporary office of dignity and command--e.g. the Amir ul-haj, "commander of the pilgrimage" (to Mecca). Sometimes again it connotes the meaning of "sovereign lord," in which sense it was early assumed by the princes of Sind and by the rulers of Afghanistan and Bokhara, the title implying a lesser dignity than that of sultan. Thus too it is very generally applied in the East to the chiefs of independent or semi-independent tribes. In the Lebanon both the Christian clans and the Druses are ruled by hereditary amirs. Finally the word (confused not unnaturally with the particle usually attached to it) was borrowed by the West, and is the origin of the English "admiral."

AMIS ET AMILES, the title of an old French romance based on a widespread legend of friendship and sacrifice. In its earlier and simpler form it is the story of two friends, one of whom, Amis, was smitten with leprosy because he had committed perjury to save his friend. A vision informed him that he could only be cured by bathing in the blood of Amiles's children. When Amiles learnt this he killed the children, who were, however, miraculously restored to life after the cure of Amis. The tale was probably of Oriental origin, and introduced to the West by way of Byzantium. It found its way into French literature through the medium of Latin, as the names Amicus and Amellus indicate, and was eventually attached to the Carolingian cycle in the 12th-century chanson de geste of Amis et Amiles. This poem is written in decasyllabic assonanced verse, each stanza being terminated by a short line. It belongs to the heroic period of French epic, containing some passages of great beauty, notably the episode of the slaying of the children, and maintains a high level of poetry throughout. Amis has married Lubras and become count of Blaives (Blaye), while Amiles has become seneschal at the court of Charlemagne, and is seduced by the emperor's daughter, Bellisant. The lovers are betrayed, and Amiles is unable to find the necessary supporters to enable him to clear himself by the ordeal of single combat, and fears, moreover, to fight in a false cause. He is granted a reprieve, and goes in search of Amis, who engages to personate him in the combat. He thus saves his friend, but in so doing perjures himself. Then follows the leprosy of Amis, and, after a lapse of years, his discovery of Amiles and cure. There are obvious reminiscences in this story of Damon and Pythias, and of the classical instances of sacrifice at the divine command. The legend of Amis and Amiles occurs in many forms with slight variations, the names and positions of the friends being sometimes reversed. The crown of martyrdom was not lacking, for Amis and Amiles were slain by Ogier the Dane at Novara on their way home from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Jourdain de Blaives, a chanson de geste which partly reproduces the story of Apollonius of Tyre, was attached to the geste of Amis by making Jourdain his grandson.

The versions of Amis and Amiles include--(a) numerous Latin recensions in prose and verse, notably that given by Vincent de Beauvais in his Speculum historiale (lib. xxiii. cap. 162-166 and 169); (b) an Anglo-Norman version in short rhymed couplets, which is not attached to the Charlemagne legend and agrees fairly closely with the English Amis and Amiloun (Midland dialect, 13th century); these with the old Norse version are printed by E. Kolbing, Altengl. Bibl. vol. ii. (1889), and the English romance also in H. Weber, Metrical Romances, vol. ii. (1810); (c) the 12th- century French chanson de geste analysed by P. Paris in Hist. litt. de la France (vol. xxii.), and edited by K. Hofmann (Erlangen, 1882) with the addition of Jourdain de Blaives; (d) the Latin Vita Sanct. Amici et Amelii (pr. by Kolbing, op. cit.) and its Old-French translation, Li amitiez de Ami et Amile, ed. L. Moland and C. d'Hericault in Nouvelles ... du xiiie siecle (Paris, 1856); (e) a 14th-century drama, Un Miracle de Notre Dame d'Amis et Amile, ed. L. J. N. Monmerque and F. Michelin Theatre fr. au moyen age (1839); (f) old Norse, Icelandic, Danish versions, &c. (see K. Hofmann, op. cit.); (g) an imitation which under the name of Oliver and Artus was current in many languages and was the subject of Hans Sachs's comedy, Die treuen Gesellen (1556); (h) Engelhart und Engeltrut, by the minnesinger Conrad von Wurzburg (ed. M. Haupt, Leipzig, 1844, 2nd ed., 1900); (i) the late prose romances, with many changes and additions, Milles et Amys, printed by A. Verard (Paris, c. 1503), &c., for which see G. Brunet, Manuel du libraire, s.v. "Milles." A different version of the legend is inserted at considerable length in L'Ystoire des sept sages (ed. G. Paris, Soc. des anc. textes fr., 1876), in which the friends are called Alexandre and Louis, and Bellisant Florentine. For a further bibliography see L. Gautier, Bibl. des chansons de geste (Paris, 1897). William Morris's version of the French romance was printed at the Kelmscott Press in 1894. See also the essay by W. Pater in The Renaissance, 1893.

AMITERNUM, an ancient town of the Sabines, situated about 5 m. N. of Aquila, in the broad valley of the Aternus, from which, according to Varro, it took its name. It was stormed by the Romans in 293 B.C., and though it suffered from the wars of the Republican period, it seems to have risen to renewed prosperity under the empire. This it owed largely to its position. It lay at the point of junction of four roads--the via Caecilia, the Via Claudia Nova and two branches of the Via Salaria, which joined it at the 64th and 89th miles respectively. The fertility of its territory was also praised by ancient authors. There are considerable remains of an aqueduct, an amphitheatre and a theatre (the latter excavated in 1880--see Notizie degli scavi, 1880, 290, 350, 379), all of which belong to the imperial period, while in the hill on which the village of S. Vittorino is built are some Christian catacombs. Amiternum was the birthplace of the historian Sallust. In a gorge 1 1/2 m. east are massive remains of cyclopean walls (i.e. in rough blocks), probably intended to regulate the flow of the stream (N. Persichetti in Romische Mitteilungen, 1902, 134 seq..)

AMLWCH (llwch = "lake"), a market town of Anglesey, North Wales, situated on slightly rising ground on the N. coast of the island, 15 m. N.W. of Beaumaris and 262 m. from London, by the London & North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 2994. Originally it owed its whole importance to the copper mines of the Parys (probably, Parry's) mountain, as, before ore was discovered in March 1768, it was a small hamlet of fishermen. The mines once produced 3000 tons of metal annually, copper smelting being largely carried on, but have now almost ceased working. Though apparently not mentioned by Ptolemy, they were perhaps Roman. Robert Parys, chamberlain of North Wales under Henry IV., is often given as their godfather. The poor harbour called the "port," protected by a breakwater, has been cut out of the rock (shingle). Amlwch is the terminus of the branch railway from Gaerwen to Amlwch, formerly the Anglesey Central Railway Company. Porthllechog, or Bull Bay (so called from the Bull Rock), at a mile's distance, is a small but favourite watering-place. Beyond, on the coast, some 3 m. distant, are the remains of a British fort and of the Llanllaianau monastery, opposite the Middle Mouse islet and close to Llanbadrig old church and Cemmaes. Industries include slate quarrying, shipbuilding, iron and brass foundries, alum, vitriol, manure, guano and tobacco works. At Llanllaianau was found, in 1841, a stone coffin, holding a well- preserved skeleton of 7 1/2 ft. in length. The coffin was apparently of Aberdovey (Aberdyfi) limestone, much corroded. At Llangefni, not far from Amlwch, in 1829, and at Llangristiolus, 3 m. distant from Llangefni, about 1770, were found human bones of a high antiquity, between Glan Hwfa and Fron, and at Capel, respectively. The town has an old Anglican church (St Eleth's).

AMMAN, JOHANN CONRAD (1669-c. 1730), Swiss physician, was born at Schaffhausen in 1669. After graduating at Basel in 1687 he began to practise at Amsterdam, where he gained a great reputation. He was one of the earliest writers on the instruction of the deaf and dumb, and first called attention to his method in his Surdus loquens (Amsterdam, 1692), which was often reprinted, and was reproduced by John Wallis in the Philosophical Transactions (1698). His process consisted principally in exciting the attention of his pupils to the motions of his lips and larynx while he spoke, and then inducing them to imitate these movements, till he brought them to repeat distinctly letters, syllables and words. The edition of Caelius Aurelianus, which was undertaken by the Wetsteins in 1709, was superintended by Amman. He died about 1730 at Warmoud, near Leiden.

AMMAN, JOST (1539-1591), Swiss artist, celebrated chiefly for his engravings on wood, was born at Zurich. Of his personal history little is known beyond the fact that he removed in 1560 to Nuremberg, where he continued to reside until his death in March 1591. His productiveness was very remarkable, as may be gathered from the statement of one of his pupils, that the drawings he made during a period of four years would have filled a hay wagon. A large number of his original drawings are contained in the Berlin collection of engravings. The genuineness of not a few of the specimens to be seen elsewhere is at least questionable. A series of copperplate engravings by Amman of the kings of France, with short biographies, appeared at Frankfort in 1576. He also executed many of the woodcut illustrations for the Bible published at Frankfort by Sigismund Feierabend. Another serial work, the Panoplia Omnium Liberalium Mechanicarum et Sedentariarum Artium Genera Continens, containing 115 plates, is of great value. Amman's drawing is correct and spirited, and his delineation of the details of costume, &c., is minute and accurate. He executed too much, however, to permit of his reaching the highest style of art. Paintings in oil and on glass are attributed to him, but no specimen of these is known to exist.

AMMAN, PAUL (1634-1691), German physician and botanist, was born at Breslau in 1634. In 1662 he received the degree of doctor of physic from the university of Leipzig, and in 1664 was admitted a member of the society Naturae Curiosorum, under the name of Dryander. Shortly afterwards he was chosen extraordinary professor of medicine in the above-mentioned university; and in 1674 he was promoted to the botanical chair, which he again in 1682 exchanged for the physiological. He died at Leipzig in 1691. He seems to have been a man of critical mind and extensive learning. His principal works were: Medicina Critica (1670); Paraenesis ad Docentes occupata circa Institutionum Medicarum Emendationem (1673); Irenicum Numae Pompilii cum Hippocrate (1689); Supellex Botanica (1675); and Character Naturalis Plantarum (1676).

AMMANATI, BARTOLOMEO (1511-1592), Florentine architect and sculptor. He studied under Bandinelli and Jacopo Sansovino, and closely imitated the style of Michelangelo. He was more distinguished in architecture than in sculpture. He designed many buildings in Rome, Lucca and Florence, an addition to the Pitti Palace in the last- named city being one of his most celebrated works. He was also employed in 1569 to build the beautiful bridge over the Arno, known as Ponte della Trinita--one of his celebrated works. The three arches are elliptic, and though very light and elegant, have resisted the fury of the river, which has swept away several other bridges at different times. Another of his most important works was the fountain for the Piazza della Signoria. In 1550 Ammanati married Laura Battiferri, an elegant poet and an accomplished woman.

AMMIANUS, MARCELLINUS, the last Roman historian of importance, was born about A.D. 325-330 at Antioch; the date of his death is unknown, but he must have lived till 391, as he mentions Aurelius Victor as the city prefect for that year. He was a Greek, and his enrolment among the protectores domestici (household guards) shows that he was of noble birth. He entered the army at an early age, when Constantius II. was emperor of the East, and was sent to serve under Ursicinus, governor of Nisibis and magister militiae. He returned to Italy with Ursicinus, when he was recalled by Constantius, and accompanied him on the expedition against Silvanus the Frank, who had been forced by the unjust accusations of his enemies into proclaiming himself emperor in Gaul. With Ursicinus he went twice to the East, and barely escaped with his life from Amida or Amid (mod. Diarbekr), when it was taken by the Persian king Shapur (Sapor) II. When Ursicinus lost his office and the favour of Constantius, Ammianus seems to have shared his downfall; but under Julian, Constantius's successor, he regained his position. He accompanied this emperor, for whom he expresses enthusiastic admiration, in his campaigns against the Alamanni and the Persians; after his death he took part in the retreat of Jovian as far as Antioch, where he was residing when the conspiracy of Theodorus (371) was discovered and cruelly put down. Eventually he settled in Rome, where, at an advanced age, he wrote (in Latin) a history of the Roman empire from the accession of Nerva to the death of Valens (96-378), thus forming a continuation of the work of Tacitus. This history (Rerum Gestarum Libri XXXI.) was originally in thirty-one books; of these the first thirteen are lost, the eighteen which remain cover the period from 353 to 378. As a whole it is extremely valuable, being a clear, comprehensive and impartial account of events by a contemporary of soldierly honesty, independent judgment and wide reading. "Ammianus is an accurate and faithful guide, who composed the history of his own times without indulging the prejudices and passions which usually affect the mind of a contemporary" (Gibbon). Although Ammianus was no doubt a heathen, his attitude towards Christianity is that of a man of the world, free from prejudices in favour of any form of belief. If anything he himself inclined to neo-Platonism. His style is generally harsh, often pompous and extremely obscure, occasionally even journalistic in tone, but the author's foreign origin and his military life and training partially explain this. Further, the work being intended for public recitation, some rhetorical embellishment was necessary, even at the cost of simplicity. It is a striking fact that Ammianus, though a professional soldier, gives excellent pictures of social and economic problems, and in his attitude to the non-Roman peoples of the empire he is far more broad-minded than writers like Livy and Tacitus; his digressions on the various countries he had visited are peculiarly interesting. In his description of the empire--the exhaustion produced by excessive taxation, the financial ruin of the middle classes, the progressive decline in the morale of the army--we find the explanation of its fall before the Goths twenty years after his death.

The work was discovered by Poggio, who copied the original MS. Editio princeps (bks. 14-26) by Sabinus, 1474; completed by Accursius, 1533; with variorum notes, by Wagner-Erfurdt, 1808; latest edition of text, Gardthausen, 1874-1875. English translations by P. Holland, 1609; Yonge (Bohn's Classical Library), 1862; also Max Budinger, Ammianus Marcellinus und die Eigenart seines Geschichtswerkes (1895); F. Liesenberg, Die Sprache des Ammianus Marcellinus (1888-1890); T. R. Glover, Life and Letters in the Fourth Century (1901); Abbe Gimazane, Ammianus Marcellinus, sa vie et son oeuvre (Toulouse, 1889), a work containing a number of very doubtful theories. For a criticism of his views on Roman society see S. Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire (London, 1898).

AMMIRATO, SCIPIONE (1531-1601), Italian historian, born at Lecce, in the kingdom of Naples. His father, intending him for the profession of law, sent him to study at Naples, but his own decided preference for literature prevented him from fulfilling his father's wishes. Entering the church, he resided for a time at Venice, and afterwards engaged in the service of Pope Pius IV. In 1569 he went to Florence, where he was fortunate in securing the patronage and support of Duke Cosimo I., who gave him a residence at the Medici Palace and the Villa Zopaja on the understanding that he should write his Istorie Fiorentine (1600), the work by which he is best known. In 1595 he was made a canon of the cathedral of Florence. He died in 1601. Among the other works of Ammirato, some of which were first published after his death, may be mentioned discourses on Tacitus and genealogies of the families of Naples and Florence.

AMMON, the Graecized name of an Egyptian deity, in the native language Amun, connected by the priests with a root meaning "conceal." He was, to begin with, the local deity of Thebes, when it was an unimportant town on the east bank of the river, about the region now occupied by the temple of Karnak. The XIth dynasty sprang from a family in the Hermonthite nome or perhaps at Thebes itself, and adorned the temple of Karnak with statues. Amenemhe, the name of the founder of the XIIth dynasty, was compounded with that of Amun and was borne by three of his successors. Several Theban kings of the later part of the Middle Kingdom adopted the same name; and when the Theban family of the XVIIth dynasty drove out the Hyksos, Ammon, as the god of the royal city, was again prominent. It was not, however, until the rulers of the XVIIIth dynasty carried their victorious arms beyond the Egyptian frontiers in every direction that Ammon began to assume the proportions of a universal god for the Egyptians, eclipsing all their other deities and asserting his power over the gods of all foreign lands. To Ammon the Pharaohs attributed all their successful enterprises, and on his temples they lavished their wealth and captured spoil.

Ammon is figured of human form, wearing on his head a plain deep circlet from which rise two straight parallel plumes, perhaps representing the tail feathers of a hawk. Two main types are seen: in the one he is seated on a throne, in the other he is standing, ithyphallic, holding a scourge, precisely like Min, the god of Coptos and Chemmis (Akhmim). The latter may be his original form, as a god of fertility, before whom the king ceremoniously breaks up the ground for sowing or cuts the ripe corn. His consort was sometimes called Amaune (feminine of Amun), but more usually Mut, "mother": she was human-headed, wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, and their son was Khons (Chon or Chons), a lunar god, represented as a youth wearing the crescent and disk of the moon. A great temple was built to Mut at Karnak not later than the XVIIIth dynasty, and another to Khons not later than the XXth dynasty.

The name of Re, the sun-god, was generally joined to Ammon, especially in his title as "king of the gods": the rule of heaven belonged to the sun-god in the Egyptian cosmos, and this identification with Re was only logical for a supreme deity. Ammon was entitled "lord of the thrones of the two lands," or, more proudly still, "king of the gods." Such indeed was his unquestioned position when suddenly he was overthrown and his worship proscribed. Not even a henotheist fervently worshipping one of many gods, Amenophis (Amenhotp) IV. of the XVIIIth dynasty became the monotheist Akhenaton; discarding all the gods of Egypt, and especially persecuting Ammon the arch-god, he devoted himself to the purer and more sublime worship of Aton, the sun. But he failed to win the permanent adhesion of the people to his reform, or to conciliate or entirely crush the enormously powerful priesthood of Ammon. A few years after the reformer's death, the old cults were re-established and the monuments of Aton studiously defaced. Hymns were then addressed to Amen-re, which are almost monotheistic in expression. The cult of the supreme god spread throughout Egypt and was carried by the Egyptian conquerors into other lands, Syria, Ethiopia and Libya, and was accepted by the natives both in Ethiopia and in the Libyan cases, where civilization was low and Egyptian influence permanent. After the XXth dynasty the centre of power was removed from Thebes, and the authority of Ammon began to wane. In the XXIst dynasty the secondary line of priest kings of Thebes upheld his dignity to the best of their power, and the XXIInd dynasty favoured Thebes: but as the sovereignty weakened the division between Upper and Lower Egypt asserted itself, and thereafter Thebes would have rapidly decayed had it not been for the piety of the kings of Ethiopia towards Ammon, whose worship had long prevailed in their country. Thebes was at first their Egyptian capital, and they honoured Ammon greatly, although their wealth and culture were not sufficient to effect much. Ammon (Zeus) continued to be the great god of Thebes in its decay, and notwithstanding that a nome-capital in the north of the Delta and many lesser temples, from El Hibeh in Middle Egypt to Canopus on the sea, acknowledged Ammon as their supreme divinity, he probably in some degree represented the national aspirations of Upper Egypt as opposed to Middle and Lower Egypt: he also remained the national god of Ethiopia, where his name was pronounced Amane. The priests of Amane at Meroe and Napata, in fact, regulated through his oracle the whole government of the country, choosing the king, directing his military expeditions (and even compelling him to commit suicide, according to Diodorus) until in the 3rd century B.C. Arkamane (Ergamenes) broke through the bondage and slew the priests. Ammon had yet another outburst of glory. There was an oracle of Ammon established for some centuries in Libya, in the distant oasis of Siwa. Such was its reputation among the Greeks that Alexander journeyed thither, after the battle of Issus, and during his occupation of Egypt, in order to be acknowledged the son of the god. The Egyptian Pharaohs of the XVIIIth dynasty had likewise been proclaimed mystically sons of this god, who, it was asserted, had impregnated the queen-mother; and on occasion wore the ram's horns of Ammon, even as Alexander is represented with them on coins.

The Egyptian goose (chenalopex) is figured in the XVIIIth dynasty as sacred to Ammon; but his most frequent and celebrated incarnation was the woolly sheep with curved ("Ammon") horns (as opposed to the oldest native breed with long horizontal twisted horns and hairy coat, sacred to Khnum or Chnumis). It is found as representing Ammon from the time of Amenophis III. onwards.

As king of the gods Ammon was identified by the Greeks with Zeus and his consort Mut with Hera. Khnum was likewise identified with Zeus probably through his similarity to Ammon; his proper animal having early become extinct, Ammon horns in course of time were attributed to this god also.

See Erman, Handbook of Egyptian Religion (London, 1907); Ed. Meyer, art. "Ammon" in Roscher's Lexikon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie; Pietschmann, arts. "Ammon," "Ammoneion" in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie; and works on Egyptian religion quoted under EGYPT, section Religion. (F. LL. G.)

AMMON, CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON (1766-1850), German theological writer and preacher, was born at Baireuth. He studied at Erlangen, held various professorships in the philosophical and theological faculties of Erlangen and Gottingen, succeeded Franz Reinhard (1753-1812) in 1813 as court preacher and member of the consistorial court at Dresden, retired from these offices in 1849, and died on the 21st of May 1850. Seeking to establish for himself a middle position between rationalism and supernaturalism, he declared for a "rational supernaturalism," and contended that there must be a gradual development of Christian doctrine corresponding to the advance of knowledge and science. But at the same time he sought, like other representatives of this school of thought, such as K. G. Bretschneider and Julius Wegscheider, to keep in close touch with the historical theology of the Protestant churches. He was a man of great versatility and extensive learning, a philologist and philosopher as well as a theologian, and a very voluminous author. His principal theological work was the Fortbildung des Christenthums zur Weltreligion, in 4 volumes (Leipzig, 1833-1840). Entwurf einer reinbiblischen Theologie appeared in 1792 (2nd ed., 1801), Summa Theologiae Christianae in 1803 (other editions, 1808, 1816, 1830); Das Leben Jesu in 1842, and Die wahre und falsche Orthodoxie in 1849. Von Ammon's style in preaching was terse and lively, and some of his discourses are regarded as models of pulpit treatment of political questions.

See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie; Otto Pfleiderer, The Development of Theology in Germany since Kant, pp. 89 ff.

AMMONIA (NH3). Salts of ammonia have been known from very early times; thus the term Hammoniacus sal appears in the writings of Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxxi. 39), although it is not known whether the term is identical with the more modern sal-ammoniac (q.v.). In the form of sal-ammoniac, ammonia was known, however, to the alchemists as early as the 13th century, being mentioned by Albertus Magnus, whilst in the 15th century Basil Valentine showed that ammonia could be obtained by the action of alkalies on sal-ammoniac. At a later period when sal-ammoniac was obtained by distilling the hoofs and horns of oxen, and neutralizing the resulting carbonate with hydrochloric acid, the name spirits of hartshorn was applied to ammonia. Gaseous ammonia was first isolated by J. Priestley in 1774 and was termed by him "alkaline air." In 1777 K. W. Scheele showed that it contained nitrogen, and C. L. Berthollet, in about 1785, ascertained its composition.

Ammonia is found in small quantities as the carbonate in the atmosphere, being produced from the putrefaction of nitrogenous animal and vegetable matter; ammonium salts are also found in small quantities in rain-water, whilst ammonium chloride (sal-ammoniac) and ammonium sulphate are found in volcanic districts; and crystals of ammonium bicarbonate have been found in Patagonian guano. Ammonium salts too are found distributed through all fertile soil, in sea- water, and in most plant and animal liquids, and also in urine.

Ammonia can be synthesized by submitting a mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen to the action of the silent electric discharge, the combination, however, being very imperfect. It is obtained by the dry distillation of nitrogenous vegetable and animal products; by the reduction of nitrous acid and nitrites with nascent hydrogen; and also by the decomposition of ammonium salts by alkaline hydroxides or by slaked lime, the salt most generally used being the chloride (sal- ammoniac, q.v.) thus 2NH4Cl + Ca(OH)2 = CaCl2 + 2H2O + 2NH3. It also results on decomposing magnesium nitride (Mg3N2) with water, Mg3N2 + 6H2O = 3Mg(OH)2 + 2NH3. Large quantities of ammonia and ammonium salts are now obtained from the ammoniacal liquor of gas-works.

Ammonia is a colourless gas possessing a characteristic pungent smell and a strongly alkaline reaction; it is lighter than air, its specific gravity being 0.589 (air=1). It is easily liquefied and the liquid boils at -33.7 deg. C., and solidifies at -75 deg. C. to a mass of white crystals. It is extremely soluble in water, one volume of water at 0 deg. C. and normal pressure absorbs 1148 volumes of ammonia (Roscoe and W. Dittmar). All the ammonia contained in an aqueous solution of the gas may be expelled by boiling. It does not support combustion; and it does not burn readily unless mixed with oxygen, when it burns with a pale yellowish-green flame. Ammonia gas has the power of combining with many substances, particularly with metallic halides; thus with calcium chloride it forms the compound CaCl2.8NH3, and consequently calcium chloride cannot be used for drying the gas. With silver chloride it forms two compounds (F. Isambert, Comptes rendus, 1868, lxvi. p. 1259)--one, AgCl.3NH3 at temperatures below 15 deg. C.; the other, 2AgCl.3NH3 at temperatures above 20 deg. C. On heating these substances, ammonia is liberated and the metallic chloride remains. It was by the use of silver chloride ammonia compounds that in 1823 M. Faraday was first able to liquefy ammonia. It can be shown by Isambert's results that the compound AgCl.3NH3 cannot be formed above 20 deg. C., by the action of ammonia on silver chloride at atmospheric pressure; whilst 2AgCl.3NH3, under similar conditions, cannot be formed above about 68 deg. C. Liquid ammonia is used for the artificial preparation of ice. It readily dissolves sodium and potassium, giving in each case a dark blue solution. At a red heat ammonia is easily decomposed into its constituent elements, a similar decomposition being brought about by the passage of electric sparks through the gas. Chlorine takes fire when passed into ammonia, nitrogen and hydrochloric acid being formed, and unless the ammonia be present in excess, the highly explosive nitrogen chloride NCl3 is also produced. With iodine it reacts to form nitrogen iodide. This compound was discovered in 1812 by Bernard Courtois, and was originally supposed to contain nitrogen and iodine only, but in 1840 R. F. Marchand showed that it contained hydrogen, whilst R. Bunsen showed that no oxygen was present. As regards its constitution, it has been given at different times the formulae NI3, NHI2, NH2I, N2H3I3, &c., these varying results being due to the impurities in the substance, owing to the different investigators working under unsuitable conditions, and also to the decomposing action of light. F. D. Chattaway determined its composition as N2H3I3, by the addition of excess of standard sodium sulphite solution, in the dark, and subsequent titration of the excess of the sulphite with standard iodine. The constitution has been definitely determined by O. Silberrad (Jour. of Chem. Soc., 1905, lxxxvii. p. 55) by the interaction of nitrogen iodide with zinc ethyl, the products of the reaction being triethylamine and ammonia; the ammonia liberated was absorbed in hydrochloric acid, and 95% of the theoretical amount of the ammonium chloride was obtained. On these grounds O. Silberrad assigns the formula NH3.NI3 to the compound, and explains the decomposition as taking place, 2NH3.NI3 + 6Zn(C2H5)2 = 6ZnC2H5.I + 2NH3 + 2N(C2H5)3. The hydrogen in ammonia is capable of replacement by metals, thus magnesium burns in the gas with the formation of magnesium nitride Mg3N2, and when the gas is passed over heated sodium or potassium, sodamide, NaNH2, and potassamide, KNH2, are formed.

One of the most characteristic properties of ammonia is its power of combining directly with acids to form salts; thus with hydrochloric acid it forms ammonium chloride (sal-ammoniac); with nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, &c. It is to be noted that H. B. Baker (Journal of Chem. Soc., 1894, lxv. p. 612) has shown that perfectly dry ammonia will not combine with perfectly dry hydrochloric acid, moisture being necessary to bring about the reaction. The aqueous solution of ammonia is very basic in its reactions, and since it is a weak electrolyte, one must assume the solution to contain a certain amount of ammonium hydroxide NH4OH, although it is probably chiefly composed of a solution of ammonia in water. (On the constitution of aqueous ammonia solutions see also Carl Frenzel, Zeit fur angew. Chemie, xxxii. 3, p. 319.) Ammonia finds a wide application in organic chemistry as a synthetic reagent; it reacts with alkyl iodides to form amines (q.v.), with esters to form acid amides (q.v.), with halogen fatty acids to form amino-acids; while it also combines with isocyanic esters to form alkyl ureas and with the mustard oils to form alkyl thioureas. Aldehydes also combine directly with ammonia.

Liquid ammonia possesses strong ionizing powers, and solutions of salts in liquid ammonia have been much studied. For details see E. C. Franklin and C. A. Kraus, Amer. Chem. Jour., 1899, xxi. p. 8; 1900, xxiv. p. 83; 1902, xxviii. p. 277; also Carl Frenzel, Zeits fur Elektrochemie, 1900, vi. p. 477.

The salts produced by the action of ammonia on acids are known as the ammonium salts and all contain the compound radical ammonium (NH4). Numerous attempts have been made to isolate this radical, but so far none have been successful. By the addition of sodium amalgam to a concentrated solution of ammonium chloride, the so-called ammonium amalgam is obtained as a spongy mass which floats on the surface of the liquid; it decomposes readily at ordinary temperatures into ammonia and hydrogen; it does not reduce silver and gold salts, a behaviour which distinguishes it from the amalgams of the alkali metals, and for this reason it is regarded by some chemists as being merely mercury inflated by gaseous ammonia and hydrogen. M. le Blanc has shown, however, that the effect of ammonium amalgam on the magnitude of polarization of a battery is comparable with that of the amalgams of the alkali metals.

Many of the ammonium salts are made from the ammoniacal liquor of gas- works, by heating it with milk of lime and then absorbing the gas so liberated in a suitable acid. (See GAS: Manufacture.)

Ammonium bromide, NH4Br, can be prepared by the direct action of bromine on ammonia. It crystallizes in colourless prisms, possessing a saline taste; it sublimes on heating and is easily soluble in water. On exposure to air it gradually assumes a yellow colour and becomes acid in its reaction.

Ammonium chloride, NH4Cl. (See SAL-AMMONIAC.)

Ammonium fluoride, NH4F, may be obtained by neutralizing ammonia with hydrofluoric acid. It crystallizes in small prisms, having a sharp saline taste, and is exceedingly soluble in water. It decomposes silicates on being heated with them.

Ammonium iodide, NH4I, can be prepared by the action of hydriodic acid on ammonia. It is easily soluble in water, from which it crystallizes in cubes, and also in alcohol. It gradually turns yellow on standing in moist air, owing to decomposition with liberation of iodine.

Ammonium chlorate, NH4ClO3, is obtained by neutralizing chloric acid with either ammonia or ammonium carbonate, or by precipitating barium, strontium or calcium chlorates with ammonium carbonate. It crystallizes in small needles, which are readily soluble in water, and on heating, decompose at about 102 deg. C., with liberation of nitrogen, chlorine and oxygen. It is soluble in dilute aqueous alcohol, but insoluble in strong alcohol.

Ammonium carbonates. The commercial salt is known as sal-volatile or salt of hartshorn and was formerly obtained by the dry distillation of nitrogenous organic matter such as hair, horn, decomposed urine, &c., but is now obtained by heating a mixture of sal-ammoniac, or ammonium sulphate and chalk, to redness in iron retorts, the vapours being condensed in leaden receivers. The crude product is refined by sublimation, when it is obtained as a white fibrous mass, which consists of a mixture of hydrogen ammonium carbonate, NH4.HCO3, and ammonium carbamate, NH2COONH4, in molecular proportions; on account of its possessing this constitution it is sometimes called ammonium sesquicarbonate. It possesses a strong ammoniacal smell, and on digestion with alcohol the carbamate is dissolved and a residue of ammonium bicarbonate is left; a similar decomposition taking place when the sesquicarbonate is exposed to air. Ammonia gas passed into a strong aqueous solution of the sesquicarbonate converts it into normal ammonium carbonate, (NH4)2CO3, which can be obtained in the crystalline condition from a solution prepared at about 30 deg. C. This compound on exposure to air gives off ammonia and passes back to ammonium bicarbonate.

Ammonium bicarbonate, NH4.HCO3, is formed as shown above and also by passing carbon dioxide through a solution of the normal compound, when it is deposited as a white powder, which has no smell and is only slightly soluble in water. The aqueous solution of this salt liberates carbon dioxide on exposure to air or on heating, and becomes alkaline in reaction. The aqueous solutions of all the carbonates when boiled undergo decomposition with liberation of ammonia and of carbon dioxide.

Ammonium nitrate, NH4NO3, is prepared by neutralizing nitric acid with ammonia, or ammonium carbonate, or by double decomposition between potassium nitrate and ammonium sulphate. It can be obtained in three different crystalline forms, the transition points of which are 35 deg. C., 83 deg. C. and 125 deg. C. It is easily soluble in water, a considerable lowering of temperature taking place during the operation; on this account it is sometimes used in the preparation of freezing mixtures. On gentle heating, it is decomposed into water and nitrous oxide. P. E. M. Berthelot in 1883 showed that if ammonium nitrate be rapidly heated the following reaction takes place with explosive violence:--2NH4NO3 = 4H2O + 2N2 + O2.

Ammonium nitrite, NH4NO2, is formed by oxidizing ammonia with ozone or hydrogen peroxide; by precipitating barium or lead nitrites with ammonium sulphate, or silver nitrite with ammonium chloride. The precipitate is filtered off and the solution concentrated. It forms colourless crystals which are soluble in water and decompose on heating, with the formation of nitrogen.

Ammonium phosphates. The normal phosphate, (NH4)3PO4,is obtained as a crystalline powder, on mixing concentrated solutions of ammonia and phosphoric acid, or on the addition of excess of ammonia to the acid phosphate (NH4)2HPO4. It is soluble in water, and the aqueous solution on boiling loses ammonia and the acid phosphate NH4H2PO4 is formed. Diammonium hydrogen phosphate, (NH4)2HPO4, is formed by evaporating a solution of phosphoric acid with excess of ammonia. It crystallizes in large transparent prisms, which melt on heating and decompose, leaving a residue of metaphosphoric acid, (HPO3). Ammonium dihydrogen phosphate, NH4.H2PO4, is formed when a solution of phosphoric acid is added to ammonia until the solution is distinctly acid. It crystallizes in quadratic prisms.

Ammonium sodium hydrogen phosphate, NH4.NaHPO4.4H2O. (See MICROCOSMIC SALT.)

Ammonium sulphate (NH4)2SO4 is prepared commercially from the ammoniacal liquor of gas-works (see GAS: Manufacture) and is purified by recrystallization. It forms large rhombic prisms, has a somewhat saline taste and is easily soluble in water. The aqueous solution on boiling loses some ammonia and forms an acid sulphate. It is used largely as an artificial manure, and also for the preparation of other ammonium salts.

Ammonium persulphate (NH4)2S2O8 has been prepared by H. Marshall (Jour. of Chem. Soc., 1891, lix. p. 777) by the method used for the preparation of the corresponding potassium salt (see SULPHUR). Pure specimens are difficult to obtain. It is very soluble in cold water, a large fall of temperature accompanying solution.

Ammonium sulphide, (NH4)2S, is obtained, in the form of micaceous crystals, by passing sulphuretted hydrogen mixed with a slight excess of ammonia through a well-cooled vessel; the hydrosulphide NH4.HS is formed at the same time. It dissolves readily in water, but is probably partially dissociated in solution. The hydrosulphide NH4.HS can be obtained as a white solid, by mixing well-cooled ammonia with a slight excess of sulphuretted hydrogen. According to W. P. Bloxam (Jour. of Chem. Soc., 1895, lxvii. p. 283), if sulphuretted hydrogen is passed into strong aqueous ammonia at ordinary temperature, the compound (NH4)2S.2NH4HS is obtained, which, on cooling to 0 deg. C. and passing more sulphuretted hydrogen, forms the compound (NH4)2S.12NH4HS. An ice-cold solution of this substance kept at 0 deg. C. and having sulphuretted hydrogen continually passed through it gives the hydrosulphide. Several complex polysulphides of ammonium have been isolated, for details of which see Bloxam's paper quoted above. Compounds are known which may be looked upon as derived from ammonia by the replacement of its hydrogen by the sulpho-group (HSO3); thus potassium ammon-trisulphonate, N(SO3K)3.2H2O, is obtained as a crystalline precipitate on the addition of excess of potassium sulphite to a solution of potassium nitrite, KNO2 + 3K2SO3 + 2H2O = N(SO3K)3 + 4KHO. It can be recrystallized by solution in alkalies. On boiling with water, it is converted, first into the disulphonate NH(SO3K)2 thus, N(SO3K)3 + H2O = NH(SO3K)2 + KHSO4, and ultimately into the monosulphonate NH2.SO3K. The disulphonate is more readily obtained by moistening the nitrilosulphonate with dilute sulphuric acid and letting it stand for twenty-four hours, after which it is recrystallized from dilute ammonia. It forms monosymmetric crystals which by boiling with water yield amidosulphonic acid. (See also E. Divers, Jour. of Chem. Soc., 1892, lxi. p. 943.) Amidosulphonic acid crystallizes in prisms, slightly soluble in water, and is a stable compound.

Ammonia and ammonium salts can be readily detected, in very minute traces, by the addition of Nessler's solution, which gives a distinct yellow coloration in the presence of the least trace of ammonia or ammonium salts. Larger quantities can be detected by warming the salts with a caustic alkali or with quicklime, when the characteristic smell of ammonia will be at once apparent. The amount of ammonia in ammonium salts can be estimated quantitatively by distillation of the salts with sodium or potassium hydroxide, the ammonia evolved being absorbed in a known volume of standard sulphuric acid and the excess of acid then determined volumetrically; or the ammonia may be absorbed in hydrochloric acid and the ammonium chloride so formed precipitated as ammonium chlorplatinate, (NH4)2PtCl6.

AMMONIACUM, or GUM AMMONIAC, a gum-resin exuded from the stem of a perennial herb (Dorema ammoniacum), natural order Umbelliferae. The plant grows to the height of 8 or 9 ft., and its whole stem is pervaded with a milky juice, which oozes out on an incision being made at any part. This juice quickly hardens into round tears, forming the "tear ammoniacum" of commerce. "Lump ammoniacum," the other form in which the substance is met with, consists of aggregations of tears, frequently incorporating fragments of the plant itself, as well as other foreign bodies. Ammoniacum has a faintly fetid, unpleasant odour, which becomes more distinct on heating; externally it possesses a reddish-yellow appearance, and when the tears or lumps are freshly fractured they exhibit a waxy lustre. It is chiefly collected in central Persia, and comes to the European market by way of Bombay. Ammoniacum is closely related to asafetida and galbanum (from which, however, it differs in yielding no umbelliferone) both in regard to the plant which yields it and its therapeutical effects. Internally it is used in conjunction with squills in bronchial affections; and in asthma and chronic colds it is found useful, but it has no advantages over a number of other substances of more constant and active properties (Sir Thomas Fraser). Only the "tear ammoniacum" is official.

African ammoniacum is the product of a plant said to be Ferula tingitana, which grows in North Africa; it is a dark coloured gum-resin, possessed of a very weak odour and a persistent acrid taste.

AMMONITES, or the "children of Ammon," a people of east Palestine who, like the Moabites, traced their origin to Lot, the nephew of the patriarch Abraham, and must have been regarded, therefore, as closely related to the Israelites and Edomites. Both the Ammonites and Moabites are sometimes spoken of under the common name of the children of Lot (Deut. ii. 19; Ps. lxxxiii. 8); and the whole history shows that they preserved throughout the course of their national existence a sense of the closest brotherhood. According to the traditions, the original territory of the two tribes was the country lying immediately on the east of the Dead Sea, and of the lower half of the Jordan, having the Jabbok for its northern boundary; and of this tract the Ammonites laid claim to the northern portion between the Arnon and the Jabbok, out of which they had expelled the Zamzummim (Judg. xi. 13; Deut. ii. 20 sqq.; cf. Gen. xiv. 5), though apparently it had been held, in part at least, conjointly with the Moabites, or perhaps under their supremacy (Num. xxi. 26, xxii. 1; Josh. xiii. 32). From this their original territory they had been in their turn expelled by Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was said to have been found by the Israelites, after their deliverance from Egypt, in possession of both Gilead and Bashan, that is, of the whole country on the left bank of the Jordan, lying to the north of the Arnon (Num. xxi. 13). By this invasion, as the Moabites were driven to the south of the Arnon, which formed their northern boundary from that time, so the Ammonites were driven out of Gilead across the upper waters of the Jabbok where it flows from south to north, which henceforth continued to be their western boundary (Num. xxi. 24; Deut. ii. 37, iii. 16). The other limits of the Ammonitis, or country of the Ammonites ('Lmmanitis chora, 2 Mac. iv. 26), there are no means of exactly defining. On the south it probably adjoined the land of Moab; on the north it may have met that of the king of Geshur (Josh. xii. 5); and on the east it probably melted away into the desert peopled by Amalekites and other nomadic races.

The chief city of the country, called Rabbah, or Rabbath of the children of Ammon, i.e. the metropolis of the Ammonites (Deut. iii. 11), and Rabbathammana by the later Greeks (Polyb, v. 7. 4), whose name was changed into Philadelphia by Ptolemy Philadelphus, a large and strong city with an acropolis, was situated on both sides of a branch of the Jabbok, bearing at the present day the name of Nahr `Amman, the river of Ammon, whence the designation "city of waters" (2 Sam. xii. 27); see Survey of E. Pal (Pal. Explor. Fund), pp. 19 sqq. The ruins called Amman by the natives are extensive and imposing. The country to the south and east of Amman is distinguished by its fertility; and ruined towns are scattered thickly over it, attesting that it was once occupied by a population which, however fierce, was settled and industrious, a fact indicated also by the tribute of corn paid annually to Jotham (2 Chron. xxvii. 5).

The traditional history of Ammon as related in the Old Testament is not free from obscurity, due to the uncertain date of the various references and to the doubt whether the individual details belong to the particular period to which each is ascribed. (See further MOAB.) From the Assyrian inscriptions we learn that the Ammonite king Ba'sa (Baasha) (son) of Ruhubi, with 1000 men joined Ahab and the Syrian allies against Shalmaneser II. at the battle of Karkar in 854. In 734 their king Sanip(b)u was a vassal of Tiglathpileser IV., and his successor, P(b)udu-ilu, held the same position under Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. Somewhat later, their king Amminadab was among the tributaries who suffered in the course of the great Arabian campaign of Assurbanipal. With the neighbouring tribes, the Ammonites helped the Babylonian monarch Nebuchadrezzar against Jehoiakim (2 Kings xxiv. 2); and if they joined Zedekiah's conspiracy (Jer. xxvii. 3), and were threatened by the Babylonian army (Ezek. xxi. 20 sqq.), they do not appear to have suffered punishment at that period, perhaps on account of a timely submission. When, after the destruction of Jerusalem, the fugitive Jews were again gathered together, it was at the instigation of Baalis, king of Ammon, that Gedaliah, the ruler whom Nebuchadrezzar had appointed over them, was murdered, and new calamities were incurred (Jer.