The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28

Third­ly, the ill ef­fect of in­tro­duced forms on ex­ist­ing ones may of­ten be due rather to the spread of dis­ease and par­asites than to ac­tu­al at­tack; thus, in Hawaii the na­tive birds have been found suf­fer­ing from a dis­ease which at­tacks poul­try. And the re­ces­sion of the New Zealand earth­worms and flies be­fore ex­ot­ic forms prob­ably falls un­der this cat­ego­ry. As man can­not eas­ily avoid in­tro­duc­ing par­asites, and must keep do­mes­tic an­imals and till the land, a cer­tain dis­tur­bance in abo­rig­inal fau­nas is ab­so­lute­ly un­avoid­able. Un­der cer­tain cir­cum­stances, how­ev­er, the na­tive an­imals may re­cov­er, for in some cas­es they even prof­it by man’s ad­vent, and at times them­selves be­come pests, like the Kea par­rot (Nestor no­ta­bilis), which at­tacks sheep in New Zealand, and the bobolink or rice-​bird (Dolicho­nyx oryzivorus) in North Amer­ica. Fi­nal­ly, it should nev­er be for­got­ten that the worst en­emies of de­clin­ing forms have been col­lec­tors who have not giv­en these species the chance of re­cov­er­ing them­selves. (F. FN.)

AC­CO­LADE (from Ital. ac­co­la­ta, de­rived from Lat. col­lum, the neck), a cer­emo­ny an­cient­ly used in con­fer­ring knight­hood; but whether it was an ac­tu­al em­brace (ac­cord­ing to the use of the mod­ern French word ac­co­lade), or a slight blow on the neck or cheek, is not agreed. Both these cus­toms ap­pear to be of great an­tiq­ui­ty. Gre­go­ry of Tours writes that the ear­ly kings of France, in con­fer­ring the gilt shoul­der-​belt, kissed the knights on the left cheek; and William the Con­queror is said to have made use of the blow in con­fer­ring the hon­our of knight­hood on his son Hen­ry. At first it was giv­en with the naked fist, a ver­ita­ble box on the ear, but for this was sub­sti­tut­ed a gen­tle stroke with the flat of the sword on the side of the neck, or on ei­ther shoul­der as well. In Great Britain the sovereign, in con­fer­ring knight­hood, still em­ploys this lat­ter form of ac­co­lade.

“Ac­co­lade” is al­so a tech­ni­cal term in mu­sic-​print­ing for a sort of brace join­ing sep­arate staves; and in ar­chi­tec­ture it de­notes a form of dec­ora­tion on doors and win­dows.

AC­COLTI, BENEDET­TO (1415-1466), Ital­ian ju­rist and his­to­ri­an, was born at Arez­zo, in Tus­cany, of a no­ble fam­ily, sev­er­al mem­bers of which were dis­tin­guished like him­self for their at­tain­ments in law. He was for some time pro­fes­sor of ju­rispru­dence in the uni­ver­si­ty of Flo­rence, and on the death of the cel­ebrat­ed Pog­gio, in 1459, be­came chan­cel­lor of the Flo­ren­tine re­pub­lic. He died at Flo­rence. In con­junc­tion with his broth­er Leonar­do, he wrote in Latin a his­to­ry of the first cru­sade, en­ti­tled De Fel­lo a Chris­tia­nis con­tra Bar­baros gesto pro Ghristi Sepulehro et Iu­daea re­cu­peran­dis lib­ri tres (Venice, 1432, trans­lat­ed in­to Ital­ian, 1543, and in­to French, 1620), which, though it­self of lit­tle in­ter­est, is said to have fur­nished Tas­so with the his­toric ba­sis for his Jerusalem De­liv­ered. An­oth­er work of Ac­colti’s-​De Praes­tantia Vi­ro­rum sui Ae­vi–was pub­lished at Par­ma in 1689. His broth­er Francesco (1418-1483) was al­so a dis­tin­guished ju­rist, and was the au­thor of Con­ril­ia seu re­spon­sa (Pisa, 1481); Com­men­taria su­per lib. ii. dec­re­tal­ium (Bologna, 1481); Gom­men­taria (Pavia, 1493); de Bal­neis Pule­ola­nis (1475).

AC­COLTI, BERNAR­DO (1465–1536), Ital­ian po­et, born at Arez­zo, was the son of Benedet­to Ac­colti. Known in his own day as l’Uni­co Aretino, he ac­quired great fame as a re­citer of im­promp­tu verse. He was lis­tened to by large crowds, com­posed of the most learned men and the most dis­tin­guished prelates of the age. Among oth­ers, Car­di­nal Bom­bo has left on record a tes­ti­mo­ny to his ex­traor­di­nary tal­ent. His high rep­uta­tion with his con­tem­po­raries seems scarce­ly jus­ti­fied by the po­ems he pub­lished, though they give ev­idence of bril­liant fan­cy. It is prob­able that he suc­ceed­ed bet­ter in his ex­tem­po­rary pro­duc­tions than in those which were the fruit of de­lib­er­ation. His works, un­der the ti­tle Vir­ginia, Co­me­dia, Capi­toli e Stram­bot­ti di Mess­er Bernar­do Ac­colti Aretino, were pub­lished at Flo­rence in 1513, and have been sev­er­al times reprint­ed.

AC­COLTI, PIETRO (1455–1532), broth­er of the pre­ced­ing, known as the car­di­nal of An­cona, was born in Flo­rence on the 15th of March 1455, and died at Rome on the 12th of De­cem­ber 1532 (Cia­coni, Vi­tae Pon­tif­icum, 1677, iii. 295). He was made bish­op of An­cona, in 1505, and car­di­nal on the 17th of March 1511, by Julius II. He was ab­bre­vi­ator un­der Leo X., and in that ca­pac­ity drew up in 1520 the bull against Luther (L. Cardel­la, Mem­orie Storiche de’ Car­di­nali, 1793, iii. 450). He held suc­ces­sive­ly the sub­ur­ban sees of Al­bano and Sabi­na, al­so the sees of Cadiz, Maillezais, Ar­ras and Cre­mona, and was made arch­bish­op of Raven­na, 1524, by Clement VII.

F. Cristo­fori (Sto­ria dei Car­di­nali, 1888) and oth­ers have con­fused him with his nephew BENEDET­TO (1497-1549), son of Michaele; who fol­lowed him in sev­er­al of his prefer­ments, was made car­di­nal, 1527, by Clement VII., and is known as a writ­er in be­half of pa­pal claims and as a Latin po­et.

AC­COM­MO­DA­TION (Lat. ac­com­modare, to make fit, from ad, to, cum, with, and modus, mea­sure), the pro­cess of fit­ting, adapt­ing, ad­just­ing or sup­ply­ing with what is need­ed (e.g. hous­ing).

In the­ol­ogy the term “ac­com­mo­da­tion” is used rather loose­ly to de­scribe the em­ploy­ment of a word, phrase, sen­tence or idea, in a con­text oth­er than that in which it orig­inal­ly oc­curred; the ac­tu­al word­ing of the quo­ta­tion may be mod­ified to a greater or less­er ex­tent. Such ac­com­mo­da­tion, though some­times pure­ly lit­er­ary or stylis­tic, gen­er­al­ly has the def­inite pur­pose of in­struc­tion, and is fre­quent­ly used both in the New Tes­ta­ment and in pul­pit ut­ter­ances in all pe­ri­ods as a means of pro­duc­ing a rea­son­ably ac­cu­rate im­pres­sion of a com­pli­cat­ed idea in the minds of those who are for var­ious rea­sons un­like­ly to com­pre­hend it oth­er­wise. There are rough­ly three main kinds. (1) A lat­er Bib­li­cal pas­sage quotes from an ear­li­er, part­ly as a lit­er­ary de­vice, but al­so with a view to demon­stra­tion. Some­times it is plain that the writ­er de­lib­er­ate­ly “ac­com­mo­dates” a quo­ta­tion (cf. John xvi­ii. 8, 9 with xvii. 12). But New Tes­ta­ment quo­ta­tions of Old Tes­ta­ment pre­dic­tions are of­ten for us ac­com­mo­da­tions—strik­ing or forced as the case may be –while the New Tes­ta­ment writ­er, “fol­low­ing the ex­eget­ical meth­ods cur­rent among the Jews of his time, Matthew ii. 15, 18, xxvi. 31, xxvii. 9” (S. R. Driv­er in Zechari­ah in Cen­tu­ry Bible, pp. 259, 271), puts them for­ward as ar­gu­ments. To say that he is mere­ly “de­scrib­ing a New Tes­ta­ment fact in Old Tes­ta­ment phrase­ol­ogy” may be true of the re­sult rather than of his de­sign. (2) Much beei­des in the Bible–para­ble, metaphor, &c.–has been called an “ac­com­mo­da­tion,” or di­vine con­de­scen­sion to hu­man weak­ness. (3) Ger­man 18th-​cen­tu­ry ra­tio­nal­ism (see APOLO­GET­ICS) held that the Bib­li­cal writ­ers made great use of con­scious ac­com­mo­da­tion–in­tend­ing moral com­mon­places when they seemed to be enun­ci­at­ing Chris­tian dog­mas. An­oth­er ex­pres­sion for this, used, e.g., by J. S. Sem­ler, is “econ­omy,” which al­so oc­curs in the kin­dred sense of “re­serve” (or of Dis­ci­plina Ar­cani–a mod­ern term for the sup­posed ear­ly Catholic habit of re­serv­ing es­oter­ic truths). Isaac Williams on Re­serve in Re­li­gious Teach­ing, No. 80 of Tracts for the Times, made a great sen­sa­tion; see R. W. Church’s com­ments in The Ox­ford Move­ment. Strict­ly, ac­com­mo­da­tion (2) or (3) mod­ifies, in form or in sub­stance, the con­tent of re­li­gious be­lief; re­serve, from pru­dence or cun­ning, with­holds part. “Econ­omy” is used in both sens­es.

AC­COM­MO­DA­TION BILL. An ac­com­mo­da­tion bill, as its name im­plies, is a bill of ex­change ac­cept­ed and some­times en­dorsed with­out any re­ceipt of val­ue in or­der to af­ford tem­po­rary pe­cu­niary aid to the per­son ac­com­mo­dat­ed. (See BILL OF EX­CHANGE.)

AC­COM­PA­NI­MENT (i.e. that which “ac­com­pa­nies”), a mu­si­cal term for that part of a vo­cal or in­stru­men­tal com­po­si­tion added to sup­port and height­en the prin­ci­pal vo­cal or in­stru­men­tal part; ei­ther by means of oth­er vo­cal parts, sin­gle in­stru­ments or the or­ches­tra. The ac­com­pa­ni­ment may be ob­bli­ga­to or ad li­bi­tum, ac­cord­ing as it forms an es­sen­tial part of the com­po­si­tion or not. The term ob­bli­ga­to or ob­bli­ga­to ac­com­pa­ni­ment is al­so used for an in­de­pen­dent in­stru­men­tal so­lo ac­com­pa­ny­ing a vo­cal piece. Ow­ing to the ear­ly cus­tom of on­ly writ­ing the ac­com­pa­ni­ment in out­line, by means of a “fig­ured bass,” to be filled in by the per­former, and to the changes in the num­ber, qual­ity and types of the in­stru­ments of the or­ches­tra, “ad­di­tion­al” ac­com­pa­ni­ments have been writ­ten for the works of the old­er mas­ters; such are Mozart’s “ad­di­tion­al” ac­com­pa­ni­ments to Han­del’s Mes­si­ah or those to many of the el­der Bach’s works by Robert Franz. In com­mon par­lance any sup­port giv­en, e.g. by the pi­ano, to a voice or in­stru­ment is loose­ly called an ac­com­pa­ni­ment, which may be mere­ly “vamped” by the in­tro­duc­tion of a few chords, or may rise to the dig­ni­ty of an artis­tic com­po­si­tion. In the his­to­ry of song the evo­lu­tion of the art side of an ac­com­pa­ni­ment is im­por­tant, and in the high­er forms the vo­cal and in­stru­men­tal parts prac­ti­cal­ly con­sti­tute a duet, in which the in­stru­men­tal part may be at least as im­por­tant as that of the voice.

AC­COM­PLICE (from Fr. com­plice, con­spir­ator, Lat. com­plex, a shar­er, as­so­ciate, com­pli­care, to fold to­geth­er; the ac- is pos­si­bly due to con­fu­sion with “ac­com­plish,” to com­plete, Lat. com­plere, to fill up), in law, one who is as­so­ci­at­ed with an­oth­er or oth­ers in the com­mis­sion of a crime, whether as prin­ci­pal or ac­ces­so­ry. The term is chiefly im­por­tant where one of those charged with a crime turns king’s ev­idence in the ex­pec­ta­tion of ob­tain­ing a par­don for him­self. Ac­cord­ing­ly, as his ev­idence is taint­ed with self-​in­ter­est, it is a rule of prac­tice to di­rect a ju­ry to ac­quit, where the ev­idence of an ac­com­plice is not cor­rob­orat­ed by in­de­pen­dent ev­idence both as to the cir­cum­stances of the of­fence and the par­tic­ipa­tion of the ac­cused in it. An ac­com­plice who has turned king’s ev­idence usu­al­ly re­ceives a par­don, but has no le­gal right to ex­emp­tion from pun­ish­ment till he has ac­tu­al­ly re­ceived it.

AC­CO­RAM­BONI, VIT­TO­RIA (1557–1585), an Ital­ian la­dy fa­mous for her great beau­ty and ac­com­plish­ments and for her trag­ic his­to­ry. She was born in Rome of a fam­ily be­long­ing to the mi­nor no­blesse of Gub­bio, which mi­grat­ed to Rome with a view to bet­ter­ing their for­tunes. Af­ter re­fus­ing sev­er­al of­fers of mar­riage for Vit­to­ria, her fa­ther be­trothed her to Francesco Peretti (1573), a man of no po­si­tion, but a nephew of Car­di­nal Mon­tal­to, who was re­gard­ed as like­ly to be­come pope. Vit­to­ria was ad­mired and wor­shipped by all the clever­est and most bril­liant men in Rome, and be­ing lux­uri­ous and ex­trav­agant al­though poor, she and her hus­band were soon plunged in debt. Among her most fer­vent ad­mir­ers was P. G. Orsi­ni, duke of Brac­ciano, one of the most pow­er­ful men in Rome, and her broth­er Mar­cel­lo, wish­ing to see her the duke’s wife, had Peretti mur­dered (1581). The duke him­self was sus­pect­ed of com­plic­ity, inas­much as he was be­lieved to have mur­dered his first wife, Is­abel­la de’ Medi­ci. Now that Vit­to­ria was free he made her an of­fer of mar­riage, which she will­ing­ly ac­cept­ed, and they were mar­ried short­ly af­ter. But her good for­tune aroused much jeal­ousy, and at­tempts were made to an­nul the mar­riage; she was even im­pris­oned, and on­ly lib­er­at­ed through the in­ter­fer­ence of Car­di­nal Car­lo Bor­romeo. On the death of Gre­go­ry XI­II., Car­di­nal Mon­tal­to, her first hus­band’s un­cle, was elect­ed in his place as Six­tus V. (1585); he vowed vengeance on the duke of Brac­ciano and Vit­to­ria, who, warned in time, fled first to Venice and thence to Sa­lo in Vene­tian ter­ri­to­ry. Here the duke died in Novem­ber 1585, be­queath­ing all his per­son­al prop­er­ty (the duchy of Brac­ciano he left to his son by his first wife) to his wid­ow. Vit­to­ria, over­whelmed with grief, went to live in re­tire­ment at Pad­ua, where she was fol­lowed by Lodovi­co Orsi­ni, a re­la­tion of her late hus­band and a ser­vant of the Vene­tian re­pub­lic, to ar­range am­ica­bly for the di­vi­sion of the prop­er­ty. But a quar­rel hav­ing arisen in this con­nex­ion Lodovi­co hired a band of bravos and had Vit­to­ria as­sas­si­nat­ed (22nd of De­cem­ber 1585). He him­self and near­ly all his ac­com­plices were af­ter­wards put to death by or­der of the re­pub­lic.

About Vit­to­ria Ac­co­ram­boni much has been writ­ten, and she has been great­ly ma­ligned by some bi­og­ra­phers. Her sto­ry formed the ba­sis of Web­ster’s dra­ma, The Tragedy of Pao­lo Gior­dano Ursi­ni (1612), and of Lud­wig Tieck’s nov­el, Vit­to­ria Ac­co­ram­boni (1840); it is told more ac­cu­rate­ly in D. Gno­li’s vol­ume, Vit­to­ria Ac­co­ram­boni (Flo­rence, 1870), and an ex­cel­lent sketch of her life is giv­en in Count­ess E. Mar­ti­nen­go-​Ce­saresco’s Lom­bard Stud­ies (Lon­don, 1902). (L. V.*)

AC­CORD (from Fr. ac­corder, to agree), in law, an agree­ment be­tween two par­ties, one of whom has a right of ac­tion against the oth­er, to give and ac­cept in sub­sti­tu­tion for such Iight any good le­gal con­sid­er­ation. Such an agree­ment when ex­ecut­ed dis­charges the cause of ac­tion and is called Ac­cord and Sat­is­fac­tion.

AC­COR­DION (Fr. aee­ordeoni Ger. Hand­har­mon­ica, Ziehhar­mon­ica), a small portable reed wind in­stru­ment with key­board, the small­est rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the or­gan fam­ily, in­vent­ed in 1829 by Dami­an, in Vi­en­na.

The ac­cor­dion con­sists of a bel­lows of many folds, to which is at­tached a key­board with from 5 to 50 keys. The keys on be­ing de­pressed, while the bel­lows are be­ing worked, open valves ad­mit­ting the wind to free reeds, con­sist­ing of nar­row tongues of met­al riv­et­ed some to the up­per, some to the low­er board of the bel­lows, hav­ing their free ends bent, some in­wards, some out­wards. Each key pro­duces two notes, one from the in­ward­ly bent reed when the bel­lows are com­pressed, the oth­er from the out­ward­ly bent reed by suc­tion (as in the Amer­ican or­gan; see HAR­MO­NI­UM) when the bel­lows are ex­pand­ed. The pitch of the note is de­ter­mined by the length and thick­ness of the reeds, re­duc­tion of the length tend­ing to sharp­en the note, while re­duc­tion of the thick­ness low­ers it. The right hand plays the melody on the key­board, while the left works the bel­lows and ma­nip­ulates the two or three bass har­mo­ny keys, which sound the sim­ple chords of the ton­ic and dom­inant. The archetype of the ac­cor­dion is the cheng (q.v.), or Chi­nese or­gan, be­tween which and the har­mo­ni­um it forms a con­nect­ing link struc­tural­ly, al­though not in­vent­ed for some thir­ty years af­ter the har­mo­ni­um. The tim­bre of the ac­cor­dion is coarse and de­void of beau­ty, but in the hands of a skil­ful per­former the best in­stru­ments are not en­tire­ly with­out artis­tic mer­it. Im­prove­ments in the con­struc­tion of the ac­cor­dion pro­duced the con­certi­na (q.v.), melo­di­on and melo­phone. las Ac­cor­dion in kurz­er Zeit richtig spie­len zu er­ler­nen (Wien, 1834). See al­so FREE REED VI­BRA­TOR. (K. S.)

AC­COR­SO (AC­CUR­SIUS), MAR­IA­NOE­LO (c. 1490-1544), Ital­ian crit­ic, was born at Aquila, in the king­dom of Naples. He was a great favourite with Charles V., at whose court he resid­ed for thir­ty-​three years, and by whom he was em­ployed on var­ious for­eign mis­sions. To a per­fect knowl­edge of Greek and Latin he added an in­ti­mate ac­quain­tance with sev­er­al mod­ern lan­guages. In dis­cov­er­ing and col­lat­ing an­cient manuscripts, for which his trav­els abroad gave him spe­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties, he dis­played un­com­mon dili­gence. His work en­ti­tled Di­atrib­ae in Au­so­ni­um, Solinum et Ovid­ium (1524) is a mon­ument of eru­di­tion and crit­ical skill. He was the first ed­itor of the Let­ters of Gas­siodor­us, with his Trea­tise on the Soul (1538); and his edi­tion of Am­mi­anus Mar­celli­nus (1533) con­tains five books more than any for­mer one. The af­fect­ed use of an­ti­quat­ed terms, in­tro­duced by some of the Latin writ­ers of that age, is hu­mor­ous­ly ridiculed by him, in a di­alogue in which an Os­can, a Vols­cian and a Ro­man are in­tro­duced as in­ter­locu­tors (1531). Ac­cor­so was ac­cused of pla­gia­rism in his notes on Au­so­nius, a charge which he most solemn­ly and en­er­get­ical­ly re­pu­di­at­ed.

AC­COUNT (through O. Fr. acont, Late Lat. comp­tum, com­putare, to cal­cu­late), count­ing, reck­on­ing, es­pe­cial­ly of mon­eys paid and re­ceived, hence a state­ment made as to the re­ceipt and pay­ment of mon­eys; al­so any state­ment as to acts or con­duct, or quite sim­ply any nar­ra­tive re­port of events, &c. A fur­ther sense-​de­vel­op­ment is that of es­teem, con­sid­er­ation.

As a stock-​ex­change term “ac­count” is used in sev­er­al sens­es. (1) The pe­ri­od­ical set­tle­ments oc­cur­ring, in Lon­don, month­ly for British gov­ern­ment and a few oth­er first-​class se­cu­ri­ties, and fort­night­ly for all oth­ers. The set­tle­ment ex­tends over four days in min­ing shares and three days in oth­er se­cu­ri­ties. The first day is the car­ry-​over, “con­tan­go,” or mak­ing-​up, day, on which spec­ula­tive com­mit­ments are car­ried over, or con­tin­ued: that is, the bulls, who have bought stock for the rise, ar­range the rate of in­ter­est that they have to give on their stock to a mon­eylen­der, or bear, who will pay for it or take it in for them; and the bears, who have sold for the fall, ar­range the rate that they re­ceive from the bulls or, if the stock is scarce and over­sold, the back­war­da­tion or rate that they have to pay to hold­ers of the stock who will lend it them to en­able them to com­plete their bar­gains. On the sec­ond day, called tick­et-​day or name day, a tick­et giv­ing the name and ad­dress of the ul­ti­mate buy­er and the firm which will pay for the stock is passed through the var­ious in­ter­me­di­aries to the ul­ti­mate sell­er, so that the ac­tu­al trans­fer of the stock can be made di­rect­ly. In the min­ing mar­ket the pass­ing of names takes two days. On the last day, ac­count day, pay day or set­tling day, cheques are paid to meet spec­ula­tive dif­fer­ences, or against the de­liv­er­ing of stock. (2) The pe­ri­od be­tween two set­tle­ments. A nine­teen-​day ac­count is one in which nine­teen days elapse be­tween one pay-​day and an­oth­er. (3) The vol­ume or con­di­tion of com­mit­ments. A spec­ula­tor is said to have a large ac­count open when he has dealt heav­ily ei­ther for the rise or fall. A bull ac­count ex­ists in a stock or group of stocks when it or they have been bought for the rise by a Iarge num­ber of op­er­ators; in the con­trary case, when there have been heavy sales for the fall, a bear ac­count is de­vel­oped.

AC­COUN­TANT-​GEN­ER­AL, for­mer­ly an of­fi­cer in the En­glish Court of Chancery, who re­ceived all mon­eys lodged in court, and by whom they were de­posit­ed in bank and dis­bursed. The of­fice was abol­ished by the Chancery Funds Act 1872, and the du­ties trans­ferred to the pay­mas­ter-​gen­er­al (q.v.).

AC­COUN­TANTS. The term “ac­coun­tant” is one to which, of late years, its orig­inal mean­ing has been more gen­er­al­ly at­tribut­ed—that of an ex­pert in the sci­ence of book-​keep­ing. It is some­times adopt­ed by book-​keep­ers, but this is an er­ro­neous ap­pli­ca­tion of the term; it prop­er­ly de­scribes those com­pe­tent to de­sign and con­trol the sys­tems of ac­counts re­quired for the record of the mul­ti­far­ious and rapid trans­ac­tions of trade and fi­nance. It as­sumes the pos­ses­sion of a wide knowl­edge of the prin­ci­ples up­on which ac­coun­tan­cy is based, which may be short­ly de­scribed as con­sti­tut­ing a sci­ence by means of which all mer­can­tile and fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions, whether in mon­ey or in mon­ey’s worth, in­clud­ing op­er­ations com­plet­ed and en­gage­ments un­der­tak­en to be ful­filled at once or in a fu­ture, how­ev­er re­mote, may be record­ed; and this sci­ence com­pris­es a knowl­edge of the meth­ods of prepar­ing statis­tics, whether re­lat­ing to fi­nance or to any trans­ac­tions or cir­cum­stances which can be stat­ed by nu­mer­ation, and of as­cer­tain­ing or es­ti­mat­ing on cor­rect bases the cost of any op­er­ation whether in mon­ey, in com­modi­ties, in time, in life or in any wast­ing prop­er­ty. Gen­er­al­ly, ac­coun­tan­cy may be de­scribed as be­ing the sci­ence by means of which all op­er­ations, as far as they are ca­pa­ble of be­ing shown in fig­ures, are ac­cu­rate­ly record­ed and their re­sults as­cer­tained and stat­ed.

His­to­ry.

The ori­gin of the pro­fes­sion of ac­coun­tan­cy in Great Britain is dif­fi­cult to trace; au­di­tors of ac­counts were nat­ural­ly of very ear­ly ex­is­tence, be­ing men­tioned as of­fi­cers of im­por­tance in the statutes of West­min­ster in the reign of Ed­ward I. The art of ac­coun­tan­cy on a sci­en­tif­ic prin­ci­ple must cer­tain­ly have been un­der­stood in Italy be­fore 1495, when Fri­ar Lu­ca dal Bor­go pub­lished at Venice his trea­tise on book-​keep­ing; but the first known En­glish book on the sci­ence was pub­lished in Lon­don by John Gouge or Gough in 1543. It is de­scribed as A Prof­itable Treatyce called the In­stru­ment or Boke to learn to knowe the good or­der of the kepyng of the fa­mouse re­conyn­ge, called in Latin, Dare and Habere, and, in En­glyshe, Deb­itor and Cred­itor. A short book of in­struc­tion was al­so pub­lished in 1588 by John Mel­lis of South­wark, in which he says, “I am but the renuer and re­viv­er of an aun­cient old copie print­ed here in Lon­don the 14 of Au­gust 1543: col­lect­ed, pub­lished, made, and set forth by one Hugh Old­cas­tle, Sc­hole­mas­ter, who, as ap­peareth by his trea­tise, then taught Arith­metike, and this booke in Saint Ollaves parish in Marko Lane.” John Melfis refers to the fact that the prin­ci­ple of ac­counts he ex­plains (which is a sim­ple sys­tem of dou­ble en­try) is “af­ter the forme of Venice.” The very in­ter­est­ing and able book de­scribed as The Mer­chants Mir­rour, or di­rec­tions for the per­fect or­der­ing and keep­ing af his ac­counts formed by way of Deb­itor and Cred­itor, af­ter the (so termed) Ital­ian man­ner, by Richard Daf­forne, ac­coun­tant, pub­lished in 1635, con­tains many ref­er­ences to ear­ly books on the sci­ence of ac­coun­tan­cy. In a chap­ter in this book, head­ed “Opin­ion of Book-​keep­ing’s An­tiq­ui­ty,” the au­thor states, on the au­thor­ity of an­oth­er writ­er, that the form of book-​keep­ing re­ferred to had then been in use in Italy about two hun­dred years, “but that the same, or one in many parts very like this, was used in the time of Julius Cae­sar, and in Rome long be­fore.” He gives quo­ta­tions of Latin book-​keep­ing terms in use in an­cient times, and refers to “ex Ora­tione Ci­cero­nis pro Roscio Co­mae­do”; and he adds: “That the one side of their booke was used for Deb­itor, the oth­er for Cred­itor, is man­ifest in a cer­taine place, Nat­uralis His­to­ri­ae Plinii, lib. 2, cap. 7, where hee, speak­ing of For­tune, saith thus:

Huic Om­nia Ex­pen­sa. Huic Om­nia Fer­un­tur ac­cep­ta et in to­ta Ra­tione mor­tal­ium so­la Utramque Pag­inam fac­it.” An ear­ly Dutch writ­er ap­pears to have sug­gest­ed that dou­ble-​en­try book-​keep­ing was even in ex­is­tence among the Greeks, point­ing to sci­en­tif­ic ac­coun­tan­cy hav­ing been in­vent­ed in re­mote times.

There were sev­er­al edi­tions of Richard Daf­forne’s book print­ed—the sec­ond edi­tion hav­ing been pub­lished in 1636, the third in 1656, and an­oth­er was is­sued in 1684. The book is a very com­plete trea­tise on sci­en­tif­ic ac­coun­tan­cy, it was beau­ti­ful­ly pre­pared and con­tains elab­orate ex­pla­na­tions; the nu­mer­ous edi­tions tend to prove that the sci­ence was high­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed in the 17th cen­tu­ry. From this time there has been a con­tin­uous sup­ply of lit­er­ature on the sub­ject, many of the au­thors styling them­selves ac­coun­tants and teach­ers of the art, and thus prov­ing that the pro­fes­sion­al ac­coun­tant was then known and em­ployed. Very ear­ly in the 18th cen­tu­ry the ser­vices of an ac­coun­tant prac­tis­ing in the city of Lon­don were made use of in the course of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the trans­ac­tions of a di­rec­tor of the South Sea Com­pa­ny, who had been deal­ing in the com­pa­ny’s stock. Dur­ing this in­ves­ti­ga­tion the ac­coun­tant ap­pears to have ex­am­ined the books of at least two firms of mer­chants. His re­port is de­scribed Ob­ser­va­tions made up­on ex­am­in­ing the books of Saw­bridge and Com­pa­ny, by Charles Snell, Writ­ing Mas­ter and Ac­coun­tant in Fos­ter Lane, Lon­don.

In 1799, when Hold­en’s Tri­en­ni­al Di­rec­to­ry of Lon­don, West­min­ster and South­wark was first pub­lished, 11 in­di­vid­uals and firms were there­in de­scribed as ac­coun­tants; in the same di­rec­to­ry, for the pe­ri­od 1809-1811, the num­ber had risen to 24; and in that for 1822–1824, there were 73 firms of prac­tis­ing ac­coun­tants record­ed.

Mod­ern de­vel­op­ment.

The ear­li­est En­glish books deal­ing with sci­en­tif­ic book-​keep­ing were writ­ten at a time when the En­glish and Dutch were very ac­tive­ly en­gaged in for­eign trade, in suc­ces­sion to the Ital­ian mer­chants of the 14th, 15th and 16th cen­turies; but it was not un­til the be­gin­ning of the 19th cen­tu­ry that, in con­se­quence of the adop­tion of im­proved meth­ods of man­ufac­ture and tran­sit, re­sult­ing from the ap­pli­ca­tion of wa­ter and steam pow­er to man­ufac­tures and meth­ods of con­veyance which large­ly in­creased the trade of Great Britain, the pro­fes­sion of an ac­coun­tant be­came one which men of sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge and ca­pac­ity adopt­ed for their busi­ness ca­reer. Cor­po­ra­tions and com­pa­nies were formed to car­ry out large op­er­ations pre­vi­ous­ly ei­ther left to the state or not un­der­tak­en, and for the de­vel­op­ment of trades and man­ufac­tures which were be­com­ing less prof­itable when car­ried on by hand labour and with lim­it­ed cap­ital; and, for these, the ser­vices of pub­lic ac­coun­tants were nec­es­sar­ily re­quired to de­vise sys­tems of ac­counts and meth­ods of con­trol, and to en­able the re­sults of the var­ious trans­ac­tions car­ried on to be as­cer­tained with the least waste of pow­er or chance of loss by neg­li­gence or fraud. The large num­ber of com­pa­nies formed in 1843 and 1844, when a great amount of cap­ital was in­vest­ed in rail­ways and ex­ten­sive spec­ula­tion re­sult­ed, al­so added to the de­mand for the ser­vices of pro­fes­sion­al ac­coun­tants. The Com­pa­nies’ Claus­es Con­sol­ida­tion Act 1845 made pro­vi­sion for the au­dit of the ac­counts of com­pa­nies reg­ulat­ed by act of par­lia­ment, and gave some ex­ten­sive pow­ers to the au­di­tors, who are now, to a very large ex­tent, se­lect­ed from among pro­fes­sion­al ac­coun­tants. The Com­pa­nies Act of 1862 led to a large ex­ten­sion of the busi­ness of ac­coun­tants, both as au­di­tors and liq­uida­tors of com­pa­nies; and the acts re­lat­ing to bankrupt­cy passed be­tween the years 1831 and 1883 added to the work de­volv­ing on pro­fes­sion­al ac­coun­tants. The Com­pa­nies Act 1879, which af­fect­ed bank­ing com­pa­nies, made pro­vi­sion for the au­dit of their ac­counts, and it has been found de­sir­able, in most cas­es, to ap­point pro­fes­sion­al ac­coun­tants to this du­ty. The ex­pe­ri­ence and pro­fes­sion­al knowl­edge of trained ac­coun­tants have, in fact, been uti­lized by their ap­point­ment as au­di­tors in the ma­jor­ity of joint-​stock com­pa­nies, whether man­ufac­tur­ing, bank­ing, trad­ing or cre­at­ed for any oth­er pur­pose. Un­til the Com­pa­nies Act 1900 was passed there was no gen­er­al obli­ga­tion up­on lim­it­ed com­pa­nies to have au­di­tors; this act not on­ly re­quires that au­di­tors shall be ap­point­ed in all cas­es, but pro­vides for their re­mu­ner­ation, and to a lim­it­ed ex­tent de­fines their rights and du­ties. The leg­is­la­ture ev­ident­ly did not find it easy to for­mu­late at all clear­ly the du­ties of au­di­tors, and it seems rea­son­able to sup­pose that any gen­er­al def­ini­tion will prove an im­pos­si­bil­ity, as the work which au­di­tors un­der­take must vary very wide­ly, and de­pends large­ly up­on the scope of the op­er­ations the ac­counts of which are to be ex­am­ined.

Du­ties.

The du­ties of prac­tis­ing ac­coun­tants cov­er a very wide area: they act as trustees, liq­uida­tors, re­ceivers and man­agers of busi­ness­es, the own­ers of which are in de­fault or their af­fairs in liq­ui­da­tion, both un­der the di­rec­tion of the courts and by ap­point­ment of cred­itors and oth­ers; they are large­ly en­gaged as ar­bi­tra­tors, um­pires and ref­er­ees in dif­fer­ences re­lat­ing to mat­ters of ac­count or fi­nance; they pre­pare the ac­counts of ex­ecu­tors and trustees, and the nec­es­sary state­ments of af­fairs in cas­es of bankrupt­cy, both of firms and com­pa­nies; they pre­pare ac­counts for pros­ecu­tions in cas­es of fraud and mis­con­duct; and they are con­stant­ly called up­on to un­rav­el and prop­er­ly state the ac­counts of com­pli­cat­ed trans­ac­tions. Their ser­vices are com­mon­ly re­quired to cer­ti­fy the prof­its of busi­ness­es in­tend­ed to be sold, ei­ther pri­vate­ly or to com­pa­nies by means of a pub­lished prospec­tus; and, in cas­es of com­pul­so­ry pur­chas­es of busi­ness­es by rail­way com­pa­nies and pub­lic bod­ies, the state­ments of the prof­its of the busi­ness­es to be ac­quired are gen­er­al­ly made by them. In a very large num­ber of fi­nan­cial op­er­ations they are called up­on to give ad­vice and pre­pare ac­counts, and in few busi­ness mat­ters re­quir­ing arith­meti­cal cal­cu­la­tions or in­volv­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of fig­ures, and par­tic­ular­ly where a con­sid­er­able ac­quain­tance­ship with the prin­ci­ples of law is need­ed, are their ser­vices not uti­lized.

Au­di­tors.

One of the most im­por­tant du­ties un­der­tak­en by ac­coun­tants is the au­dit of ac­counts, and this du­ty has, of late years, been wide­ly ex­tend­ed. Orig­inal­ly, au­di­tors were ap­point­ed to ex­am­ine and vouch state­ments of re­ceipts and pay­ments; but the pro­vi­sions made in acts of par­lia­ment in re­la­tion to au­dit, and the re­quire­ments of most ar­ti­cles of as­so­ci­ation of lim­it­ed com­pa­nies, put much graver re­spon­si­bil­ities on au­di­tors, who are now gen­er­al­ly re­quired to cer­ti­fy to the ac­cu­ra­cy of bal­ance sheets and of rev­enue and oth­er ac­counts, the per­for­mance of which du­ties in­volves far more knowl­edge of ac­counts than was once re­quired. The ef­fi­cien­cy, in most cas­es, of au­dits con­duct­ed by skilled ac­coun­tants has led the pub­lic to at­tach ex­cep­tion­al val­ue to their au­dit cer­tifi­cates, and to de­mand ex­ten­sive knowl­edge and abil­ity in the con­duct of the au­dit of the ac­counts of pub­lic com­pa­nies. One oth­er re­quire­ment which is gen­er­al­ly re­gard­ed as in­dis­pens­able, is that the work of au­dit should be very ex­pe­di­tious­ly per­formed; for it is easy to un­der­stand that, were the pre­sen­ta­tion of the ac­counts of a com­pa­ny and the dis­tri­bu­tion of div­idends ma­te­ri­al­ly de­layed in con­se­quence of the au­dit, much in­con­ve­nience would re­sult, while the val­ue of the crit­icism of the ac­counts of busi­ness op­er­ations would be much de­te­ri­orat­ed if it could not be made very short­ly af­ter the ac­counts were closed. In these cir­cum­stances, in the cas­es of large con­cerns with wide ram­ifi­ca­tions and nu­mer­ous trans­ac­tions, it is nec­es­sary that au­di­tors should have the help of trained as­sis­tants, and thus the per­son­al ex­am­ina­tion of de­tails by the au­di­tor him­self is, to a large ex­tent, ren­dered un­nec­es­sary and the cost of au­dit ma­te­ri­al­ly re­duced. This del­ega­tion of du­ty by au­di­tors is gen­er­al­ly well un­der­stood, and is in ac­cor­dance with the re­quire­ments of those con­cerned; but there has been a ten­den­cy of late years to en­large the re­spon­si­bil­ities of au­di­tors to an ex­tent which, if per­sist­ed in, might ren­der it dan­ger­ous for men of rep­uta­tion and means to ac­cept the du­ties.

Or­ga­ni­za­tion.

While the num­ber of prac­tis­ing ac­coun­tants has of late years been steadi­ly in­creas­ing and their ser­vices are cor­re­spond­ing­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed, the ne­ces­si­ty for con­trol­ling those ex­er­cis­ing the pro­fes­sion and for im­prov­ing its sta­tus has nat­ural­ly be­come ap­par­ent. The first im­por­tant steps in this di­rec­tion were tak­en by the ac­coun­tants in Scot­land–the So­ci­ety of Ac­coun­tants in Ed­in­burgh be­ing in­cor­po­rat­ed by roy­al char­ter in 1854; sim­ilar so­ci­eties in Glas­gow and Ab­erdeen be­ing al­so in­cor­po­rat­ed by char­ter in 1855 and 1867. The In­sti­tute of Ac­coun­tants was formed in Lon­don in 1870, but did not re­ceive a roy­al char­ter un­til the 11th May 1880, when all the then ex­ist­ing ac­coun­tants’ so­ci­eties and in­sti­tutes in Eng­land were in­cor­po­rat­ed as the In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­coun­tants in Eng­land and Wales, and means were pro­vid­ed by which all the then prac­tis­ing ac­coun­tants in these coun­tries could claim mem­ber­ship there­of. In the year 1885 the So­ci­ety of Ac­coun­tants and Au­di­tors was in­cor­po­rat­ed, but has ob­tained no char­ter; this body, while num­ber­ing among its mem­bers a con­sid­er­able num­ber of prac­tis­ing ac­coun­tants in the Unit­ed King­dom, al­so in­cludes trea­sur­ers and ac­coun­tants to cities and bor­oughs in Eng­land, as well as clerks to char­tered and oth­er ac­coun­tants. A large pro­por­tion of its mem­bers al­so con­sists of ac­coun­tants prac­tis­ing abroad. In 1888 an In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­coun­tants was formed in Ire­land, and a great many in­sti­tutes and so­ci­eties have been formed in the British colonies and in the Unit­ed States, some of which have lo­cal char­ters. It is cu­ri­ous to note, how­ev­er, that, out­side the Unit­ed King­dom, it was on­ly in the British colonies that as­so­ci­ations of prac­tis­ing ac­coun­tants ex­ist­ed, un­til, in 1895, an In­sti­tute of Ac­coun­tants (Ned­er­lands In­sti­tu­ut van Ac­coun­tants) was found­ed in Utrecht for Dutch ac­coun­tants; when, al­though the prin­ci­ples of ac­coun­tan­cy have been well un­der­stood and prac­tised in Hol­land since the 16th cen­tu­ry, and prob­ably ear­li­er, it was found nec­es­sary to bor­row the words “ac­coun­tant” and “ac­coun­tan­cy” from the En­glish lan­guage to con­vey to the Dutch an idea of the mean­ing of the terms. Three oth­ers have since been formed, the Ned­er­land­sche Academie van Ac­coun­tants (1902); the Na­tionale Or­gan­isatie van Ac­coun­tants (1903); and the Ned­er­land­sche Bond van Ac­coun­tants (1902). Swe­den has a so­ci­ety, Sven­ska Re­vi­sor­sam­fun­det, formed in 1899; Bel­gium, the Cham­bre Syn­di­cate des Ex­perts Compt­ables, found­ed in 1903. In South Amer­ica, ac­coun­tants have ac­quired a cer­tain sta­tus in Ar­genti­na, Uruguay and Pe­ru.

In the Unit­ed States the or­ga­ni­za­tion of pro­fes­sion­al ac­coun­tants is of quite re­cent growth. The first so­ci­ety formed in Amer­ica was “The New York State So­ci­ety of Cer­ti­fied Pub­lic Ac­coun­tants,” and short­ly af­ter­wards (in 1896) the New York state leg­is­la­ture passed an act au­tho­riz­ing the State uni­ver­si­ty to con­fer the de­gree of cer­ti­fied pub­lic ac­coun­tant (C.P.A.) on the mem­bers of the so­ci­ety, while re­quir­ing all sub­se­quent en­trants to pass an ex­am­ina­tion. This de­gree, how­ev­er, can be ob­tained, like oth­er uni­ver­si­ty de­grees, with­out be­ing a mem­ber of the so­ci­ety. Oth­er states, no­tably Penn­syl­va­nia, Mary­land, Cal­ifor­nia, Illi­nois, Wash­ing­ton and New Jer­sey, have fol­lowed the ex­am­ple of New York. In 1903 the var­ious state so­ci­eties formed them­selves in­to a fed­er­ation. There is al­so an in­de­pen­dent so­ci­ety of prac­tis­ing ac­coun­tants, the Amer­ican As­so­ci­ation of Pub­lic Ac­coun­tants, with ob­jects sim­ilar to those of the fed­er­ation, but steps have been tak­en to bring about an amal­ga­ma­tion be­tween the two in or­der to form one cen­tral so­ci­ety to look af­ter their com­mon in­ter­ests, with­out, how­ev­er, in­ter­fer­ing with the in­di­vid­ual or­ga­ni­za­tion of the var­ious state so­ci­eties.

See R. Brown, His­to­ry of Ac­count­ing and Ac­coun­tants (Ed­in­burgh), 1905, the most com­pre­hen­sive book up­on the sub­ject; al­so G. W. Hask­ins, Ac­coun­tan­cy, its Past and Present (U.S.A., 1900); S. S. Daw­son, Ac­coun­tant’s Com­pendi­um; G. Lisle, Ac­count­ing in The­ory and Prac­tice (1899); F. W. Pix­ley, Au­di­tors and their Li­abil­ities (1901). The pro­fes­sion­al pe­ri­od­icals, The Ac­coun­tant (vol. i., 1877); Ac­coun­tant’s Jour­nal (vol. i., 1883-1884); The Ac­coun­tants’ Mag­azine (vol. i., 1897); In­cor­po­rat­ed Ac­coun­tants’ Jour­nal (vol. i., 1889-1890); Ac­coun­tics (U.S.A., vol. i., 1897) may al­so be con­sult­ed, and al­so the Year-​books of the So­ci­ety of Ac­coun­tants and Au­di­tors, and of the In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­coun­tants. (J. G. GR.)

AC­COU­TREMENT (a French word, prob­ably de­rived from a and cous­tre or coutre, an old word mean­ing one who has charge of the vest­ments in a church), cloth­ing, ap­par­el; a term used es­pe­cial­ly, in the plu­ral, of the mil­itary equip­ment of a sol­dier oth­er than his arms and cloth­ing.

AC­CRA, a port on the Gulf of Guinea in 5 deg. 31′ N., 0 deg. 12′ W., since 1876 cap­ital of the British Gold Coast colony. Pop­ula­tion about 20,000, in­clud­ing some 150 Eu­ro­peans. Ac­cra is about 80 m. E. of Cape Coast (q.v.), the for­mer cap­ital of the colony. The name is de­rived from the Fan­ti word Nkran (an ant), by which des­ig­na­tion the tribe in­hab­it­ing the sur­round­ing dis­trict was for­mer­ly known. The town grew up around three forts es­tab­lished in close prox­im­ity–St James (British), Creve­coeur (Dutch) and Chris­tians­borg (Dan­ish). The last named was ced­ed to Britain in 1850, Creve­coeur not till 1871. Fort St James is now used as a sig­nal sta­tion, light­house and prison. Ac­cra pre­serves the dis­tinc­tions of James Town, Ussh­er Town and Chris­tians­borg, in­dica­tive of its tri­par­tite ori­gin. Ussh­er Town rep­re­sents Creve­coeur, the fort be­ing re­named af­ter H. T. Ussh­er, ad­min­is­tra­tor of the Gold Coast (1867-1872). The sea frontage ex­tends about three miles; there is, how­ev­er, no har­bour, and steam­ers have to lie about a mile out, goods and pas­sen­gers be­ing land­ed in surf boats. The streets for­mer­ly con­sist­ed large­ly of mud hov­els, but since a great fire in 1894, which de­stroyed large parts of James Town and Ussh­er Town, more sub­stan­tial build­ings have been erect­ed. Chris­tians­borg, the finest of the three forts, is the of­fi­cial res­idence of the gov­er­nor of the colony. West­wards of the land­ing-​place, where is the cus­toms house, lies James Town. Be­yond the fort are var­ious pub­lic build­ings lead­ing to Otoo Street, the main thor­ough­fare, which runs two miles in a straight line to Chris­tians­borg. This street con­tains a fine stone church built in 1895 for the use of the An­gli­can com­mu­ni­ty, a branch of the Bank of British West Africa, tele­graph of­fices and the es­tab­lish­ments of the prin­ci­pal trad­ing firms. In Vic­to­ri­aborg, a sub­urb of Ussh­er Town, are the res­idences of the prin­ci­pal of­fi­cials, and here a race­course has been laid out. (Ac­cra is al­most the on­ly point along the Gold Coast where hors­es thrive.) Be­hind the town is rolling grass land, which gives place to the high­lands of Aquapim and Akim. At Aburi in the Aquapim hills, 26 m. N. by E. of Ac­cra, are the gov­ern­ment sana­to­ri­um and botan­ical gar­dens.

Ac­cra, the first town in the Gold Coast colony to be raised (Ju­ly 1, 1896) to the rank of a mu­nic­ipal­ity, is gov­erned by a town coun­cil with pow­er to raise and spend mon­ey. The coun­cil con­sists in equal pro­por­tions of nom­inat­ed and elect­ed mem­bers, no racial dis­tinc­tions be­ing made. Ac­cra is con­nect­ed by ca­ble with Eu­rope and South Africa, and is the sea ter­mi­nus of a rail­way serv­ing the dis­tricts N.E., where are flour­ish­ing co­coa plan­ta­tions.

AC­CRE­TION (from Lat. ad, to, and crescere, to grow), an ad­di­tion to that which al­ready ex­ists; in­crease in any sub­stance by the ad­di­tion of par­ti­cles from the out­side. In law, the term is used for the in­crease of prop­er­ty caused by grad­ual nat­ural ad­di­tions, as on a riv­er bank or seashore.

AC­CRING­TON, a mar­ket town and mu­nic­ipal bor­ough in the Ac­cring­ton par­lia­men­tary di­vi­sion of Lan­cashire, Eng­land, 208 m. N.W. by N. from Lon­don, and 23 m. N. by W. from Manch­ester, on the Lan­cashire and York­shire rail­way. Pop. (1891) 38,603; (1901) 43,122. It lies in a deep val­ley on the Hind­burn, a feed­er of the Calder. Cot­ton spin­ning and print­ing works, cot­ton-​mill ma­chin­ery works, dye-​works and chem­ical man­ufac­tures, and neigh­bour­ing col­lieries main­tain the in­dus­tri­al pop­ula­tion. The church of St James dates from 1763, and the oth­er nu­mer­ous places of wor­ship and pub­lic build­ings are all mod­ern. The bor­ough is un­der a may­or, 8 al­der­men and 24 coun­cil­lors. Area 3427 acres.

Ac­cring­ton (Ak­er­en­ton, Alk­er­ing­ton, Ak­er­ing­ton) was grant­ed by Hen­ry de Lacy to Hugh son of Le­ofwine in Hen­ry II.’s reign, but came again in­to the hands of the Lacys, and was giv­en by them about 1200 to the monks of Kirk­stall, who con­vert­ed it in­to a grange. It again re­turned, how­ev­er, to the Lacys in 1287, was grant­ed in parcels, and like their oth­er lands be­came merged in the duchy of Lan­cast­er. In 1553 the com­mis­sion­ers of chantries sold the chapel to the in­hab­itants to be con­tin­ued as a place of di­vine ser­vice. In 1836 Old and New Ac­cring­ton were mere­ly strag­gling vil­lages with about 5000 in­hab­itants. By 1861 the pop­ula­tion had grown to 17,688, chiefly ow­ing to its po­si­tion as an im­por­tant rail­way junc­tion. A char­ter of in­cor­po­ra­tion was grant­ed in 1878. The date of the orig­inal chapel is un­known, but it was prob­ably an or­ato­ry which was an off­shoot of Kirk­stall Abbey. Ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal­ly the place was de­pen­dent on Al­tham till af­ter the mid­dle of the 19th cen­tu­ry.

AC­CU­MU­LA­TION (from Lat. ac­cu­mu­la­re, to heap up), strict­ly a pil­ing-​up of any­thing; tech­ni­cal­ly, in law, the con­tin­uous adding of the in­ter­est of a fund to the prin­ci­pal, for the ben­efit of some per­son or per­sons in the fu­ture. Pre­vi­ous to 1800, this ac­cu­mu­la­tion of prop­er­ty was not for­bid­den by En­glish law, pro­vid­ed the pe­ri­od dur­ing which it was to ac­cu­mu­late did not ex­ceed that for­bid­den by the law against per­pe­tu­ities, viz. the pe­ri­od of a life or lives in be­ing, and twen­ty-​one years af­ter­wards. In 1800, how­ev­er, the law was amend­ed in con­se­quence of the ec­cen­tric will of Pe­ter Thel­lus­son (1737–1797), an En­glish mer­chant, who di­rect­ed the in­come of his prop­er­ty, con­sist­ing of re­al es­tate of the an­nu­al val­ue of about L. 5000 and per­son­al es­tate amount­ing to over L. 600,000, to be ac­cu­mu­lat­ed dur­ing the lives of his chil­dren, grand­chil­dren and great-​grand­chil­dren, liv­ing at the time of his death, and the sur­vivor of them. The prop­er­ty so ac­cu­mu­lat­ed, which, it is es­ti­mat­ed, would have amount­ed to over L. 14,000,000, was to be di­vid­ed among such de­scen­dants as might be alive on the death of the sur­vivor of those lives dur­ing which the ac­cu­mu­la­tion was to con­tin­ue. The be­quest was held valid (Thel­lus­son v. Wood­ford, 1798, 4 Vesey, 237). In 1856 there was a pro­tract­ed law­suit as to who were the ac­tu­al heirs. It was de­cid­ed by the House of Lords (June 9, 1859) in favour of Lord Rendle­sham and Charles Sabine Au­gus­tus Thel­lus­son. Ow­ing, how­ev­er, to the heavy ex­pens­es, the amount in­her­it­ed was not much larg­er than that orig­inal­ly be­queathed.

To pre­vent such a dis­po­si­tion of prop­er­ty in the fu­ture, the Ac­cu­mu­la­tions Act 1800 (known al­so as the “Thel­lus­son Act”) was passed, by which it was en­act­ed that no prop­er­ty should be ac­cu­mu­lat­ed for any longer term than ei­ther (1) the life of the set­tlor; or (2) the term of twen­ty-​one years from his death; or (3) dur­ing the mi­nor­ity of any per­son liv­ing or en ven­tre sa mere at the time of the death of the grantor; or (4) dur­ing the mi­nor­ity of any per­son who, if of full age, would be en­ti­tled to the in­come di­rect­ed to be ac­cu­mu­lat­ed. The act, how­ev­er, did not ex­tend to any pro­vi­sion for pay­ment of the debts of the grantor or of any oth­er per­son, nor to any pro­vi­sion for rais­ing por­tions for the chil­dren of the set­tlor, or any per­son in­ter­est­ed un­der the set­tle­ment, nor to any di­rec­tion touch­ing the pro­duce of tim­ber or wood up­on any lands or ten­ements. The act was ex­tend­ed to her­ita­ble prop­er­ty in Scot­land by the En­tail Amend­ment Act 1848, but does not ap­ply to prop­er­ty in Ire­land. The act was fur­ther amend­ed by the Ac­cu­mu­la­tions Act 1892, which for­bids ac­cu­mu­la­tions for the pur­pose of the pur­chase of land for any longer pe­ri­od than dur­ing the mi­nor­ity of any per­son or per­sons who, if of full age, would be en­ti­tled to re­ceive the in­come. (See al­so TRUST and PER­PE­TU­ITY.)

AC­CU­MU­LA­TOR, the term ap­plied to a num­ber of de­vices whose func­tion is to store en­er­gy in one form or an­oth­er, as, for ex­am­ple, the hy­draulic ac­cu­mu­la­tor of Lord Arm­strong (see HY­DRAULICS, sec. 179). In the present ar­ti­cle the term is re­strict­ed to its use in elec­tro-​tech­nol­ogy, in which it de­scribes a spe­cial type of bat­tery. The or­di­nary volta­ic cell is made by bring­ing to­geth­er cer­tain chem­icals, whose re­ac­tion main­tains the elec­tric cur­rents tak­en from the cell. When ex­haust­ed, such cells can be re­stored by re­plac­ing the spent ma­te­ri­als, by a fresh “charge” of the orig­inal sub­stances. But in some cas­es it is not nec­es­sary to get rid of the spent ma­te­ri­als, be­cause they can be brought back to their orig­inal state by forc­ing a re­verse cur­rent through the cell. The re­verse cur­rent re­vers­es the chem­ical ac­tion and re-​es­tab­lish­es the orig­inal con­di­tions, thus en­abling the cell to re­peat its elec­tri­cal work. Cells which can thus be “re-​charged” by the ac­tion of a re­verse cur­rent are called ac­cu­mu­la­tors be­cause they “ac­cu­mu­late” the chem­ical work of an elec­tric cur­rent. An ac­cu­mu­la­tor is al­so known as a “re­versible bat­tery,” “stor­age bat­tery” or “sec­ondary bat­tery.” The last name dates from the ear­ly days of elec­trol­ysis. When a liq­uid like sul­phuric acid was elec­trol­ysed for a mo­ment with the aid of plat­inum elec­trodes, it was found that the elec­trodes could them­selves pro­duce a cur­rent when de­tached from the pri­ma­ry bat­tery. Such a cur­rent was at­tribut­ed to an “elec­tric po­lar­iza­tion” of the elec­trodes, and was re­gard­ed as hav­ing a sec­ondary na­ture, the im­pli­ca­tion be­ing that the phe­nomenon was al­most equiv­alent to a stor­age of elec­tric­ity. It is now known that the plat­inum elec­trodes stored, not elec­tric­ity, but the prod­ucts of elec­tro-​chem­ical de­com­po­si­tion. Hence if the two names, sec­ondary and stor­age cells, are used, they are li­able to be mis­un­der­stood un­less the in­ter­pre­ta­tion now put on them be kept in mind. “Re­versible bat­tery” is an ex­cel­lent name for ac­cu­mu­la­tors.

Sir W. R. Grove first used “po­lar­iza­tion” ef­fects in his gas bat­tery, but R. L. G. Plante (1834-1889) laid the foun­da­tion of mod­ern meth­ods. That he was clear as to the func­tion of an ac­cu­mu­la­tor is ob­vi­ous from his dec­la­ra­tion that the lead-​sul­phuric acid cell could re­tain its charge for a long time, and had the pow­er d’em­ma­gasin­er ain­si le tra­vail chim­ique de la pile voltaique: a phrase whose ac­cu­ra­cy could not be ex­celled. Plante be­gan his work on elec­trolyt­ic po­lar­iza­tion in 1859, his ob­ject be­ing to in­ves­ti­gate the con­di­tions un­der which its max­imum ef­fects can be pro­duced. He found that the great­est stor­age and the most use­ful elec­tric ef­fects were ob­tained by us­ing lead plates in di­lute sul­phuric acid. Af­ter some “form­ing” op­er­ations de­scribed be­low, he ob­tained a cell hav­ing a high elec­tro­mo­tive force, a low re­sis­tance, a large ca­pac­ity and al­most per­fect free­dom from po­lar­iza­tion.

The prac­ti­cal val­ue of the lead-​per­ox­ide-​sul­phuric-​acid cell aris­es large­ly from the fact that not on­ly are the ac­tive ma­te­ri­als (lead and lead per­ox­ide, PbO2) in­sol­uble in the di­lute acid, but that the sul­phate of lead formed from them in the course of dis­charge is al­so in­sol­uble. Con­se­quent­ly, it re­mains fixed in the place where it is formed; and on the pas­sage of the charg­ing cur­rent, the orig­inal PbO2 and lead are re­pro­duced in the places they orig­inal­ly oc­cu­pied. Thus there is no ma­te­ri­al change in the dis­tri­bu­tion of mass­es of ac­tive ma­te­ri­al. Last­ly, the ac­tive ma­te­ri­als are in a porous, spongy con­di­tion, so that the acid is with­in reach of all parts of them.

Plante’s cell.

Plante care­ful­ly stud­ied the changes which oc­cur in the for­ma­tion, charge and dis­charge of the cell. In form­ing, he placed two sheets of lead in sul­phuric acid, sep­arat­ing them by nar­row strips of caoutchouc (fig. 1). When a charg­ing cur­rent is sent through the cell, the hy­dro­gen lib­er­at­ed at one plate es­capes, a small quan­ti­ty pos­si­bly be­ing spent in re­duc­ing the sur­face film of ox­ide gen­er­al­ly found on lead. Some of the oxy­gen is al­ways fixed on the oth­er (pos­itive) plate, form­ing a sur­face film of per­ox­ide. Af­ter a few min­utes the cur­rent is re­versed so that the first plate is per­ox­idized, and the per­ox­ide pre­vi­ous­ly formed on the sec­ond plate is re­duced to metal­lic lead in a spongy state. By re­peat­ed re­ver­sals, the sur­face of each plate is al­ter­nate­ly per­ox­idized and re­duced to metal­lic lead. In suc­ces­sive ox­ida­tions, the ac­tion pen­etrates far­ther in­to the plate, fur­nish­ing each time a larg­er quan­ti­ty of spongy PbO2 on one plate and of spongy lead on the oth­er. It fol­lows that the du­ra­tion of the suc­ces­sive charg­ing cur­rents al­so in­creas­es. At the be­gin­ning. a few min­utes suf­fice; at the end, many hours are re­quired.

Fig. 1 Af­ter the first six or eight cy­cles, Plante al­lowed a pe­ri­od of re­pose be­fore re­vers­ing. He claimed that the PbO2 formed by re­ver­sal af­ter re­pose was more strong­ly ad­her­ent, and al­so more crys­talline than if no re­pose were al­lowed. The fol­low­ing fig­ures show the rel­ative amounts of oxy­gen ab­sorbed by a giv­en plate in suc­ces­sive charges (be­tween one charge and the next the plate stood in re­pose for the time stat­ed, then was re­duced, and again charged as an­ode):-

Sep­arate pe­ri­ods of Charge. Rel­ative amount of Re­pose. Per­ox­ide formed. . . First 1.0 18 hours Sec­ond 1.57 2 days Third 1.71 4 days Fourth 2.14 2 days Fifth 2.43

and so on for many days (Glad­stone and Tribe, Chem­istry of Sec­ondary Bat­ter­ies). See­ing that each plate is in turn ox­idized and then re­duced, it is ev­ident that the spongy lead will in­crease at the same rate on the oth­er plate of the cell. The pro­cess of “form­ing” thus briefly de­scribed was not con­tin­ued in­def­inite­ly, but on­ly till a fair pro­por­tion of the thick­ness of the plates was con­vert­ed in­to the spongy ma­te­ri­al, PbO2 and Pb re­spec­tive­ly. Af­ter this, re­ver­sal was not per­mit­ted, the cell be­ing put in­to use and al­ways charged in a giv­en di­rec­tion. If the pro­cess of form­ing by re­ver­sal be con­tin­ued, the pos­itive plate is ul­ti­mate­ly all con­vert­ed in­to PbO, and falls to pieces.

Plante made ex­cel­lent cells by this method, yet three ob­jec­tions were urged against them. They re­quired too much time to “form”; the spongy mass­es (PbO2 more es­pe­cial­ly) fell off for want of me­chan­ical supoort, and the sep­arat­ing strips of caoutchouc were not like­ly to have a long life. The first ad­vance was made by C. A. Fau­re (1881), who great­ly short­ened the time re­quired for “form­ing” by giv­ing the plates a pre­lim­inary coat­ing of red lead, where­by the slow pre­cess of bit­ing in­to the met­al was avoid­ed. At the first charg­ing, the red lead on the + elec­trode is changed to PbO2, while that on the - etec­trode is re­duced to spongy lead. Thus one con­tin­uous op­er­ation, last­ing per­haps six­ty hours, takes the place of many re­ver­sals, which, with pe­ri­ods of re­pose, last as much as three months.

Fig. 2 Tu­dor pos­itive plate.

Fau­re used felt as a sep­arat­ing mem­brane, but its use was soon abol­ished by meth­ods of con­struc­tion due to E. Vol­ck­mar, J. S. Sel­lon, J. W. Swan and oth­ers. These in­ven­tors put the paste not on to plates of lead, but in­to the holes of a grid, which, when care­ful­ly de­signed, af­fords good me­chan­ical sup­port to the spongy mass­es, and does away with the ne­ces­si­ty for felt, &c. They are more sat­is­fac­to­ry, how­ev­er, as sup­port­ers or spongy lead than of the per­ox­ide, since at the point of con­tact in the lat­ter case the acid gives rise to a lo­cal ac­tion, which slow­ly de­stroys the grid. Dis­in­te­gra­tion fol­lows soon­er or lat­er, though the best mak­ers are able to de­fer the fail­ure for a fair­ly long time. Ef­forts have been made by A. Tribe, D. G. Fitzger­ald and oth­ers to dis­pense whin a sup­port­ing grid for the pos­itive plate, but these at­tempts have not yet been suc­cess­ful enough to en­able them to com­pete with the oth­er forms.

For many years the bat­tle be­tween the “Plante” type and the Fau­re or “past­ed” type has been one in which the is­sue was doubt­ful, but the gen­er­al ten­den­cy is to­wards a mixed type at the present time. There are many good cells, the val­ue of all rest­ing on the care ex­er­cised dur­ing the man­ufac­ture and al­so in the choice of pure ma­te­ri­als. In­creas­ing em­pha­sis is laid on the pu­ri­ty of the wa­ter used to re­place that lost by evap­ora­tion, dis­tilled wa­ter gen­er­al­ly be­ing spec­ified. The fol­low­ing de­scrip­tions will give a good idea of mod­ern prac­tice.

Chlo­ride cell.

The “chlo­ride cell” has a Plante pos­itive with a past­ed neg­ative. For the pos­itive a lead cast­ing is made, about 0.4 inch thick pierced by a num­ber of cir­cu­lar holes about half an inch in di­am­eter. In­to each of these holes is thrust a roll or rosette of lead rib­bon, which has been cut to the right breadth (equal to the thick­ness of the plate), then ribbed or gimped, and fi­nal­ly coiled in­to a rosette. The rosettes have suf­fi­cient spring to fix them­selves in the holes of the lead plate, but are keyed in po­si­tion by a hy­draulic press. The plates are then “formed” by pass­ing a cur­rent for a long time. In a lat­er pat­tern a kind of dis­con­tin­uous lon­gi­tu­di­nal rib is put in the rib­bon, and in­creas­es the ca­pac­ity and life by strength­en­ing the mass

Fig. 3.–Tu­dor neg­ative plate. with­out in­ter­fer­ing with the dif­fu­sion of acid. The neg­ative plate was for­mer­ly ob­tained by re­duc­ing pastilles of lead chlo­ride, but by a lat­er mode of con­struc­tion it is made by cast­ing a grid with thin ver­ti­cal ribs, con­nect­ed hor­izon­tal­ly by small bars of tri­an­gu­lar sec­tion. The bars on the two faces are “stag­gered,” that is, those on one face are not op­po­site those on the oth­er. The grid is past­ed with a lead ox­ide paste and af­ter­wards re­duced; this is known as the “ex­ide” neg­ative.

The larg­er sizes of neg­ative plate are of a “box” type, formed by riv­et­ing to­geth­er two grids and fill­ing the in­ter­ven­ing space

Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6 with paste. A fea­ture of the “chlo­ride” cells is the use of sep­ara­tors made of thin sheets of spe­cial­ly pre­pared wood, These pre­vent short cir­cuits aris­ing from scales of ac­tive ma­te­ri­al or from the for­ma­tion of “trees” of lead which some­times grow across in cer­tain forms of bat­tery.

Tu­dor cell.

The Tu­dor cell has pos­itives formed of lead plates cast in one piece with a large sur­face of thin ver­ti­cal ribs, in­ter­sect­ed at in­ter­vals by hor­izon­tal ribs to give the plates strength to with­stand buck­ling in both di­rec­tions (fig. 2). The thick­ness of the plates is about 0.4 inch, and the de­vel­oped sur­face is about eight times that of a smooth plate of the same size. A thor­ough­ly ad­her­ent and ho­mo­ge­neous coat­ing of per­ox­ide of lead is formed on this large sur­face by an im­proved Plante pro­cess. The neg­ative plate (fig. 3) is com­posed of two grids riv­et­ed to­geth­er to form a shal­low box; the out­er sur­faces are smooth sheets pierced with many small holes. The space be­tween them is in­ter­sect­ed by ribs and past­ed (be­fore riv­et­ing).

E.P.S. cell.

Many of the E.P.S. ceils, made by the Elec­tri­cal Pow­er Stor­age Com­pa­ny, are of the Fau­re or past­ed type, but the Plante for­ma­tion is used for the pos­itives of two kinds of cell. The paste for the pos­itive plates is a mix­ture of red lead with sul­phuric acid; for the neg­ative plates, litharge is sub­sti­tut­ed for red lead. Figs. 4 and

FIG. 7.

5 rough­ly rep­re­sent the grids em­ployed for the neg­ative and pos­itive plates re­spec­tive­ly of a type used for light­ing. Fig. 6 is the cross sec­tion of the cast­ing used for the Plante pos­itive of the larg­er cells for rapid dis­charge. Fin­er in­den­ta­tions on the side ex­pose a large sur­face. Fig. 7 shows a com­plete cell.

Hart cell.

The Hart cell, as used for light­ing, is a com­bi­na­tion of the Plante and Fau­re (past­ed) types. The plates hang by side lugs on glass slats, and are sep­arat­ed by three rows of glass tubes 3/8 inch di­am­eter (fig. 8). The tubes rest in grooved teak wood blocks placed at the bot­tom of the glass box­es. The blocks al­so serve as base for a skele­ton frame­work of the same ma­te­ri­al which sur­rounds and sup­ports the sec­tion. Of course the wood has to be spe­cial­ly treat­ed to with­stand the acid. A spe­cial non-​cor­ro­sive ter­mi­nal is used. A coned bolt draws the lug ends of ad­ja­cent cells to­geth­er, fit­ting in a cor­re­spond­ing ta­pered hole in the lugs, and thus in­creas­ing the con­tact area. The pos­itive and neg­ative ta­pers be­ing dif­fer­ent, a cell can­not be con­nect­ed up in the wrong way.

FIG. 8.–Hart Ac­cu­mu­la­tor.

Gould cell.

In Amer­ica, in ad­di­tion to some of the cells al­ready de­scribed, there are types which are not found in Eng­land. Two may be de­scribed. The Gould cell is of the Plante type. A spe­cial ef­fort is made to re­duce lo­cal and oth­er dele­te­ri­ous ac­tion by start­ing with per­fect­ly ho­mo­ge­neous plates. They are formed from sheet lead blanks by suit­able ma­chines, which grad­ual­ly raise the sur­face in­to a se­ries of ribs and grooves. The sides and mid­dle of the blank are left un­touched and am­ply suf­fice to dis­tribute the cur­rent over the sur­face of the plate. The grooves are very fine, and when the ac­tive ma­te­ri­al is formed in them by elec­tro-​chem­ical ac­tion, they hold it very se­cure­ly.

Hatch cell.

The Hatch cell has its pos­itive en­closed in an en­ve­lope. A very shal­low porous tray (made of kaolin and sil­ica) is filled with red lead paste, an elec­trode of rolled sheet lead is placed on its sur­face, and over this again is placed a sec­ond porous tray filled with paste. The whole then looks like a thin earth­en­ware box with the lug of the elec­trode pro­ject­ing from one end. The neg­atives con­sist of sheet lead cov­ered by ac­tive ma­te­ri­al. On as­sem­bling the plates, each neg­ative is held be­tween two pos­itive “box­es,” the out­sides of which have pro­tect­ing ver­ti­cal ribs. These press against the ac­tive ma­te­ri­al on the neg­ative plates, and help to keep it in po­si­tion. At the same time, the clear­ance be­tween the ribs al­lows room for acid to cir­cu­late freely be­tween the neg­ative plate and the out­er face of the pos­itive en­ve­lope. Dif­fu­sion of the acid through this en­ve­lope is easy, as it is very porous and not more than 1/32 inch thick.

Trac­tion Cells.—At­tempts to run tram­cars by ac­cu­mu­la­tors have prac­ti­cal­ly all failed, but trac­tion cells are em­ployed for elec­tric broughams and light ve­hi­cles for use in towns. There are no large de­vi­ations in man­ufac­ture ex­cept those im­posed by lim­it­ed space, weight and vi­bra­tion. The plates are gen­er­al­ly thin­ner and placed clos­er to­geth­er. The Plante pos­itive is not used so much as in light­ing types. The acid is gen­er­al­ly a lit­tle stronger in or­der to get a high­er elec­tro­mo­tive force (E.M.F.). To pre­vent the ac­tive ma­te­ri­al from be­ing shak­en out of the grids, cor­ru­gat­ed and per­fo­rat­ed ebonite sep­ara­tors are placed be­tween the plates. The “chlo­ride” trac­tion cell us­es a spe­cial va­ri­ety of wood sep­ara­tor: the “ex­ide” type of plate is used for both pos­itive and neg­ative. Cells are now made to run 3000 or more miles be­fore be­com­ing use­less. The spe­cif­ic out­put can be made as high as 10 or 11 watt-​hours per pound of cell, but this in­volves a chance of short­er life. The av­er­age work­ing re­quire­ment for heavy ve­hi­cles is about 50 watt-​hours per 1000 lb. per mile.

Ig­ni­tion Cells for mo­tor cars are made on the same lines as trac­tion cells, though of small­er ca­pac­ity. As a rule two cells are put up in ebonite or cel­lu­loid box­es and joined in se­ries so as to give a 4-volt bat­tery, the pres­sure for which spark­ing coils are gen­er­al­ly de­signed. The ca­pac­ity ranges from 20 to 100 am­pere-​hours, and the cur­rent for a sin­gle cylin­der en­gine will av­er­age one to one and a half am­peres dur­ing the run­ning in­ter­vals.

Gen­er­al Fea­tures.–The ten­den­cy in sta­tion­ary cells is to al­low plen­ty of space be­low the plates, so that any ac­tive ma­te­ri­al which falls from the plates may col­lect there with­out risk of short-​cir­cuit, &c. More space is al­lowed be­tween the plates, which means that (a) there is more acid with­in reach, and (b) a slight buck­ling is not so dan­ger­ous, and in­deed is not so like­ly to oc­cur. The plates are now gen­er­al­ly made thick­er than for­mer­ly, so as to se­cure greater me­chan­ical rigid­ity. At the same time, the man­ufac­tur­ers aim at get­ting the ac­tive ma­te­ri­als in as porous a state as pos­si­ble.

The fig­ures with re­gard to spe­cif­ic out­put are dif­fi­cult to clas­si­fy. It would be most in­ter­est­ing to give the da­ta in the form of watt-​hours per pound of ac­tive ma­te­ri­al, and then to com­pare them with the the­oret­ical val­ues, but such fig­ures are im­pos­si­ble in the na­ture of the case ex­cept in very spe­cial in­stances. For many pur­pos­es, long life and trust­wor­thi­ness are more im­por­tant than spe­cif­ic out­put. Ex­cept in the case of trac­tion cells, there­fore, the mak­ers have not striv­en to re­duce weight to its low­est val­ues. Ta­ble I. shows rough­ly the weight of giv­en types of cells for a giv­en out­put in am­pere hours.

TA­BLE I. Ca­pac­ity in am­pere-​hours if Type of cell. dis­charged in Weight of cell. 9 hrs. 6 hrs. 3 hrs. 1 hr. Or­di­nary light- ing . . . . . 200 182 153 101 100 pounds ” ” 420 380 300 210 200 pounds ” ” 1200 1080 880 600 670 pounds Cen­tral sta­tion and High Rate 3500 3100 2500 1700 2000 pounds ” ” 6000 5400 4400 3000 3200 pounds Trac­tion . . . 220 185 155 125 40 pounds ” . . . .. 440 .. .. 90 pounds

In­flu­ence of Tem­per­ature on Ca­pac­ity.—These fig­ures are true on­ly at or­di­nary tem­per­atures. In win­ter the ca­pac­ity is di­min­ished, in sum­mer it is in­creased. The dif­fer­ences are due part­ly to change of liq­uid re­sis­tance but more es­pe­cial­ly to the dif­fer­ence in the rate at which acid can dif­fuse in­to or out of the pores: ob­vi­ous­ly this is greater at high­er tem­per­atures. The in­crease in ca­pac­ity on warm­ing is ap­pre­cia­ble, and may amount to as much as 3% per de­gree centi­grade (Glad­stone and Hi­bbert, Journ. In­st. Elec. Eng. xxi. 441; Helm, Elec­tri­cian, NOV. 1901, i. 55; Lia­gre, L’Eclairage elec­trique, 1901,xxix. 150). Notwith­stand­ing these re­sults, it is not ad­vis­able to warm ac­cu­mu­la­tors ap­pre­cia­bly. At high­er tem­per­atures, lo­cal ac­tion is great­ly in­creased and de­te­ri­ora­tion be­comes more rapid. It is well, how­ev­er, to avoid low win­ter tem­per­atures.

Work­ing of ac­cu­mu­la­tors.–What­ev­er the type of cell may be, it is im­por­tant to at­tend to the fol­low­ing work­ing re­quire­ments–(1) The cells must be ful­ly equal to the max­imum de­mand, both in dis­charge rate and ca­pac­ity. (2) All the cells in one se­ries ought to be equal in dis­charge rate and ca­pac­ity. This in­volves sim­ilar­ity of treat­ment. (3) The cells are erect­ed on strong wood­en stands. Where floor space is too ex­pen­sive, they can be erect­ed in tiers; but, if pos­si­ble, this should be avoid­ed. They ought to lie in rows, so ar­ranged that it is easy to get to one side (at least) of ev­ery cell, for ex­am­ina­tion and test­ing, and if need be to de­tach and re­move it or its plates. Where a sec­ond tier is plaeed over the first, suf­fi­cient clear­ance space must be al­lowed for the plates to be lift­ed out of the low­er box­es. The cells are in­su­lat­ed by sup­port­ing them on glass or mush­room-​shaped oil in­su­la­tors. If the con­tain­ing ves­sels are made of glass, it it de­sir­able to put them in wood­en trays which dis­tribute the weight be­tween the ves­sel and in­su­la­tors. To pre­vent acid spray from fill­ing the air of the room, a glass plate is ar­ranged over each cell. The pos­itive and neg­ative sec­tions are fixed in po­si­tion with in­su­lat­ing forks or tubes, and the pos­itive ter­mi­nal of one cell is joined to the neg­ative of the next by burn­ing or bolt­ing. If the lat­ter method is adopt­ed, the sur­faces ought to be very clean and well pressed home. The joint ought to be cov­ered by vase­line or var­nish. When this has been done, ex­am­ina­tion ought to be made of each cell to see that the plates are even­ly spaced, that the sep­ara­tors (glass tubes or ebonite forks be­tween the plates) are in po­si­tion and ver­ti­cal, and that there are no scales or oth­er ad­ven­ti­tious mat­ter con­nect­ing the plates. The floor of the cell ought to be quite clear; if any­thing lies there it must be re­moved. (4) To mix the so­lu­tion a gen­tle stream of sul­phuric acid must be poured in­to the wa­ter (not the oth­er way, lest too great heat­ing cause an ac­ci­dent). It is nec­es­sary to stir the whole as the mix­ing pro­ceeds and to ar­range that the den­si­ty is about 1190, or ac­cord­ing to the rec­om­men­da­tion of the mak­er. About five vol­umes of wa­ter ought to be tak­en to one vol­ume of acid. Af­ter mix­ing, al­low to cool for two or three hours. The strong acid ought to be free from ar­senic, cop­per and oth­er sim­ilar im­pu­ri­ties. The wa­ter ought to be as pure as can be ob­tained, dis­tilled wa­ter be­ing best; rain wa­ter is al­so good. If potable wa­ter be em­ployed, it will gen­er­al­ly be im­proved by boil­ing, which re­moves some of the lime held in so­lu­tion. The im­pu­ri­ty in or­di­nary drink­ing wa­ter is very slight; but as all cells lose by evap­ora­tion and re­quire ad­di­tions of wa­ter from time to time, there is a ten­den­cy for it to in­crease. The acid must not be put in­to the cells till ev­ery­thing is ready for charg­ing. (5) A shunt-​wound or sep­arate­ly-​ex­cit­ed dy­namo be­ing ready and run­ning so as to give at will 2.6 or 2.7 volts per cell, the acid is run in­to the cells. As soon as this is done, the dy­namo must be switched on and charg­ing com­menced. The pos­itive ter­mi­nal of the dy­namo must be joined to the pos­itive ter­mi­nal of the bat­tery. If nec­es­sary, the + end of the ma­chine must be found by a tri­al cell made of two plain lead sheets in di­lute acid. It is im­por­tant al­so to main­tain this first charg­ing op­er­ation for a long time with­out a break. Twelve hours is a min­imum time, twen­ty-​four not too much. The charg­ing is not even then com­plete, though a short in­ter­val is not so in­ju­ri­ous as in the ear­li­er stage. The full charge re­quired varies with the cells, but in all types a full and prac­ti­cal­ly con­tin­uous first charge is im­per­ative­ly nec­es­sary. Dur­ing the ear­ly part of this charge the den­si­ty of the acid may fall; but af­ter a time ought to in­crease, and fi­nal­ly reach the val­ue de­sired for per­ma­nent work­ing. To­wards the end of the “for­ma­tion” vig­ilant ob­ser­va­tion must be ex­er­cised. It is im­por­tant to no­tice whether any cells are ap­pre­cia­bly be­hind the oth­ers in volt­age, den­si­ty or gassing. Such cells may be faulty, and in any case they must be charged and tend­ed till their con­di­tion is like that of the oth­ers. They ought not to go on the dis­charge cir­cuit till this is as­sured. The ex­am­ina­tion of the cells be­fore pass­ing them as ready for dis­charge in­cludes:—(a) Den­si­ty of acid as shown by the hy­drom­eter. (b) Volt­age. This may be tak­en when charg­ing or when idle. In the first case it ought to be from 2.4 to 2.6 volts, ac­cord­ing to con­di­tions. In the sec­ond ease it ought to be just over 2 volts, pro­vid­ed that the ob­ser­va­tion is not tak­en too soon af­ter switch­ing in the charg­ing cur­rent. For about half an hour af­ter that is done, the E.M.F. has a tran­sient high val­ue, so that, if it be de­sired to get the prop­er E.M.F. of the cell, the ob­ser­va­tion must be tak­en thir­ty min­utes af­ter the charg­ing ceas­es.

(c) Eye ob­ser­va­tions of the plates and the acid be­tween them. The pos­itive plates ought to show a rich dark brown colour, the neg­atives a dull slate-​blue, and the space be­tween ought to be quite clear and free from any­thing like sol­id mat­ter. All the pos­itives ought to be alike, and sim­ilar­ly all the neg­atives. If the cells show sim­ilar­ity in these re­spects they will prob­ably be in good work­ing or­der.

As to man­age­ment, it is im­por­tant to keep to cer­tain sim­ple rules, of which these are the chief:–(1) Nev­er dis­charge be­low a po­ten­tial dif­fer­ence of 1.85 (or in rapid dis­charge, 1.8) volt. (2) Nev­er leave the cells dis­charged, if it be avoid­able. (3) Give the cells a spe­cial full charg­ing once a month. (4) Make a pe­ri­od­ic ex­am­ina­tion of each cell, de­ter­min­ing its E.M.F., den­si­ty of acid, the con­di­tion of its plates and free­dom from growth. Any in­cip­ient growth, how­ev­er small, must be care­ful­ly watched. (5) If any cell shows signs of weak­ness, keep it off dis­charge till it has been brought back to full con­di­tion. See that it is free from any con­nex­ion be­tween the plates which would cause short-​cir­cuit­ing; tne frame or sup­port which car­ries the plates some­times gets cov­ered by a con­duct­ing lay­er. To re­store the cell, two meth­ods can be adopt­ed. In pri­vate in­stal­la­tions it may be dis­con­nect­ed and charged by one or two cells re­served for the pur­pose; or, as is prefer­able, it may be left in cir­cuit, and a cell in good or­der put in par­al­lel with it. This acts as a “milk­ing” cell, not on­ly pre­vent­ing the faulty one from dis­charg­ing, but keep­ing it sup­plied mith a charg­ing cur­rent till its po­ten­tial dif­fer­ence (P.D.) is nor­mal. Ev­ery bat­tery at­ten­dant should be pro­vid­ed with a hy­drom­eter and a volt­meter. The for­mer en­ables him to de­ter­mine from time to time the den­si­ty of the acid in the cells; in­stru­ments spe­cial­ly con­struct­ed for the pur­pose are now eas­ily procur­able, and it is de­sir­able that one be pro­vid­ed for ev­ery 20 or 25 cells. The volt­meter should read up to about 3 volts and be fit­ted with a suit­able con­nec­tor to en­able con­tacts to be made quick­ly with any de­sired cell. A portable glow lamp should al­so be avail­able, so that a full light can be thrown in­to any cell; a frost­ed bulb is rather bet­ter than a clear one for this pur­pose. He must al­so have some form of wood­en scrap­er to re­move any growth from the plates. The scrap­ing must be done gen­tly, with as lit­tle oth­er dis­tur­bance as pos­si­ble. By the or­di­nary op­er­ations which go on in the cell, small por­tions of the plates be­come de­tached. It is im­por­tant that these should fall be­low the plates, lest they short-​cir­cuit the cell, and there­fore suf­fi­cient space ought to be left be­tween the bot­tom of the plates and the floor of the cell for these “scal­ings” to ac­cu­mu­late with­out touch­ing the plates. It is de­sir­able that they be dis­turbed as lit­tle as pos­si­ble till their in­crease se­ri­ous­ly en­croach­es on the free space. It some­times hap­pens that brass nuts or bolts, &c., are dropped in­to a cell; these should be re­moved at once, as their par­tial so­lu­tion would great­ly en­dan­ger the neg­ative plates. The lev­el of the liq­uid must be kept above the top of the plates. Ex­pe­ri­ence shows the ad­vis­abil­ity of us­ing dis­tilled wa­ter for this pur­pose. It may some­times be nec­es­sary to re­plen­ish the so­lu­tion with some di­lute acid, but strong acid must nev­er be added.

The chief faults are buck­ling, growth, sul­phat­ing and dis­in­te­gra­tion. Buck­ling of the plates gen­er­al­ly fol­lows ex­ces­sive dis­charge, caused by ab­nor­mal load or by ac­ci­den­tal short-​cir­cuit­ing. At such times asym­me­try in the cell is apt to make some part of the plate take much more than its share of the cur­rent. That part then ex­pands un­du­ly, as ex­plained lat­er, and cur­va­ture is pro­duced. The on­ly rem­edy is to re­move the plate, and press it back in­to shape as gen­tly as pos­si­ble. Growth aris­es gen­er­al­ly from scales from one part falling on some oth­er–say, on the neg­ative. In the next charg­ing the scale is re­duced to a pro­ject­ing bit of lead, which grows still fur­ther be­cause oth­er par­ti­cles rest on it. The rem­edy is, gen­tly to scrape off any in­cip­ient growth. Sul­phat­ing, the for­ma­tion of a white hard sur­face on the ac­tive ma­te­ri­al, is due to ne­glect or ex­ces­sive dis­charge. It of­ten yields if a small quan­ti­ty of sul­phate of so­da be added to the liq­uid in the cell. Dis­in­te­gra­tion is due to lo­cal ac­tion, and there is no ul­ti­mate rem­edy. The end can be de­ferred by care in work­ing, and by avoid­ing strains and ex­ces­sive dis­charge as much as pos­si­ble.

Ac­cu­mu­la­tors in re­pose.—Ac­cu­mu­la­tors con­tain on­ly three ac­tive sub­stances—spongy lead on the neg­ative plate, spongy lead per­ox­ide on the pos­itive, and di­lute sul­phuric acid be­tween

TA­BLE

Sub­stance. Colour. Den­si­ty. Spe­cif­ic Re­sis­tance. Lead . . . . slate blue 11.3 0.0000195 ohm Per­ox­ide of lead dark brown 9.28 5.6 to 6.8 ” Sul­phuric acid af­ter charge clear liq­uid 1.210 1.37 ” Sul­phuric acid af­ter dis­charge ” ” 1.170 1.28 ” Sul­phuric acid be­low in pores . . . ” ” 1.03 8.0 ” Sul­phate of lead white 6.3 non-​con­duc­tor.

them. Sul­phate of lead is formed on both plates dur­ing dis­charge and brought back to lead and lead per­ox­ide again dur­ing charge, and there is a con­se­quent change in the strength of acid dur­ing ev­ery cy­cle. The chief prop­er­ties of these sub­stances are shown in Ta­ble II.

The curve in fig. 9 shows the rel­ative con­duc­tiv­ity (re­cip­ro­cal of re­sis­tance) of all the strengths of sul­phuric acid so­lu­tions, and by its aid and the fig­ures in the pre­ced­ing ta­ble, the spe­cif­ic re­sis­tance of any giv­en strength can be de­ter­mined.

Fig 9 The lead ac­cu­mu­la­tor is sub­ject to three kinds of lo­cal ac­tion. First and chiefly, lo­cal ac­tion on the pos­itive plate, be­cause of the con­tact be­tween lead per­ox­ide and the lead grid which sup­ports it. In care­less­ly made or rough­ly han­dled cells this may be a very se­ri­ous mat­ter. It would be so, in all cir­cum­stances if the lead sul­phate formed on the ex­posed lead grid did not act as a cov­er­ing for it. It ex­plains why Plante found “re­pose” a use­ful help in “form­ing,” and al­so why pos­itive plates slow­ly dis­in­te­grate; the lead sup­port is grad­ual­ly eat­en through. Sec­ond­ly, lo­cal ac­tion on the neg­ative plate when a more elec­tro-​neg­ative met­al set­tles on the lead. This of­ten aris­es when the orig­inal paste or acid con­tains metal­lic im­pu­ri­ties. Sim­ilar im­pu­ri­ty is al­so in­tro­duced by scrap­ing cop­per wire, &c., near a bat­tery. Third­ly, lo­cal ac­tion due to the acid vary­ing in strength in dif­fer­ent parts of a plate. This may arise on ei­ther plate and is set up be­cause two spec­imens of ei­ther the same lead or the same per­ox­ide give an E.M.F. when placed in acids of dif­fer­ent strengths. J. H. Glad­stone and W. Hi­bbert found that the E.M.F. de­pends on the dif­fer­ence of strength. With two head plates, a max­imum of about quar­ter volt was ob­tained, the lead in the weak­er acid be­ing pos­itive. With two per­ox­ide plates the max­imum volt­age was about 0.64, the plate in stronger acid be­ing pos­itive to that in weak­er. The elec­tro­mo­tive force

FIG. 10. of a cell de­pends chiefly on the strength of the acid, as may be seen from fig. 10 tak­en from Glad­stone and Hi­bbert’s pa­per (Journ. In­st. Elec. Eng., 1892).The ob­ser­va­tions with very strong acid were dif­fi­cult to ob­tain, though even that with 98% acid marked X is be­lieved to be trust­wor­thy. C. Heim (Elek. Zeit, 1889), F. Streintz (Ann. Phys. Chem. xlvi. p. 449) and F. Doleza­lek (The­ory of Lead Ac­cu­mu­la­tors, p. 55) have al­so giv­en ta­bles.

It is on­ly nec­es­sary to add to these re­sults the facts il­lus­trat­ed by the fol­low­ing dif­fu­sion curves, in or­der to get a com­plete clue to the be­haviour of an ac­cu­mu­la­tor in ac­tive work. Fig. 11 shows the rate of dif­fu­sion from plates soaked in 1.175 acid and then placed in dis­tilled wa­ter. It is from a pa­per by L. Dun­can and H. Wie­gand (Elec. World, N.Y., 1889), who were the first to show the im­por­tance of dif­fu­sion. About one half the acid dif­fused out in 30 min­utes, a good il­lus­tra­tion of the slow­ness of this pro­cess. The rate of dif­fu­sion is much the same for both pos­itive and neg­ative plates; but slow­er for dis­charged plates than for charged ones. Dis­charge af­fects the rate of dif­fu­sion on the lead plate more than on the per­ox­ide plate. This is in ac­cor­dance with the den­si­ty val­ues giv­en in Ta­ble I. For while lead sul­phate is formed in the pores of both plates, the con­se­quent ex­pan­sions (and ob­struc­tions) are dif­fer­ent; 100 vol­umes of lead form 290 vol­umes of sul­phate (a three­fold

FIG. 11.

ex­pan­sion), and 100 vol­umes of per­ox­ide form 186 vol­umes of sul­phate (a twofold ex­pan­sion). The in­flu­ence of dif­fu­sion on the elec­tro­mo­tive force is il­lus­trat­ed by fig. 12. A cell was pre­pared with 20% acid. It al­so held a porous pot con­tain­ing stronger acid, and in­to this the pos­itive plate was sud­den­ly trans­ferred from the gen­er­al body of liq­uid. The E.M.F. rose by dif­fu­sion of stronger acid in­to the pores. Curve I. in fig. 12 shows the rate of rise when the porous pot con­tained 34% acid; curve II. was ob­tained with the stronger (58%) acid (Glad­stone and Hi­bbert, Phil. Mag., 1890). Of these two curves the first is more use­ful, be­cause its con­di­tions are near­er those which oc­cur in prac­tice.

At the end of a dis­charge it is a com­mon thing for the plates to be stand­ing in 25% acid, while in­side the pores the acid may not ex­ceed 8% or 10%. If the dis­charge be stopped, we have con­di­tions some­what like fig. 12, and the E.M.F. be­gins to rise. In one minute it has gone up by about 0.08 volt, &c.

Fig. 12.

Charge and Dis­charge.—The most im­por­tant prac­ti­cal ques­tions con­cern­ing an ac­cu­mu­la­tor are:–its max­imum rate of work­ing; its ca­pac­ity at var­ious dis­charge rates; its ef­fi­cien­cy; and its length of life. Apart from me­chan­ical in­jury all these de­pend pri­mar­ily on the way the cell is made, and then on the method of charg­ing and dis­charg­ing. For each type and size of cell there is a nor­mal max­imum dis­charg­ing cur­rent. Up to this lim­it any cur­rent may be tak­en; be­yond it, the cell may suf­fer if dis­charge be con­tin­ued for any ap­pre­cia­ble time. The most im­por­tant point to at­tend to is the volt­age at which dis­charge shall cease. The po­ten­tial dif­fer­ence at ter­mi­nals must not fall be­low 1.80 volt dur­ing dis­charge at or­di­nary rates (10 hours) or 1.75 to 1.70 volt for 1 or 2 hour rate. The rea­son un­der­ly­ing the fig­ures is sim­ple. These volt­ages in­di­cate that the acid in the pores is not be­ing re­newed fast enough, and that if the dis­charge con­tin­ue the chem­ical ac­tion will change: sul­phate will not be formed in situ for want of acid. Any such change in ac­tion is fa­tal to re­versibil­ity and there­fore to life and con­stan­cy in ca­pac­ity. To il­lus­trate: when at slow dis­charge rates the volt­age is 1.80 volt, the acid in the pores has weak­ened to a mean val­ue of about 2.5% (see fig. 11), which is quite con­sis­tent with some part of the in­te­ri­or be­ing prac­ti­cal­ly pure wa­ter. With high dis­charge rates, some­thing like 0.1 volt may be lost in the cells, by or­di­nary ohmic fall, so that a volt­age read­ing of 1.73 means an E.M.F. of a lit­tle over 1.8 volt, and a very weak den­si­ty of the acid in­side the pores. Guid­ed by these fig­ures, an en­gi­neer can de­ter­mine what ought to be the per­mis­si­ble drop in ter­mi­nal volts for any giv­en work­ing con­di­tions. Messrs W. E. Ayr­ton, C. G. Lamb, E. W. Smith and M. W. Woods were the first to trace the work­ing of a cell through var­ied con­di­tions (Journ. In­st. Elec. Eng., 1890), and a brief re­sume of their re­sults is giv­en be­low.

They be­gan by charg­ing and dis­charg­ing be­tween the lim­its of 2.4 and 1.6 volts.

Fig. 13 shows a typ­ical dis­charge curve. Note­wor­thy points are:–(1) At the be­gin­ning and at the end there is a rapid fall in P.D., with an in­ter­me­di­ate pe­ri­od of fair­ly uni­form val­ue. (2) When the

Fig. 13.

P.D. reach­es 1.6 volt the fall is so rapid that there is no ad­van­tage in con­tin­uing the ac­tion. When the P.D. had fall­en to 1.6 volt the cell was au­to­mat­ical­ly switched in­to a charg­ing cir­cuit, and with a cur­rent of 9 am­peres yield­ed the curve in fig. 14. Here again there is a rapid vari­ation in P.D. (in these cas­es a rise) at the be­gin­ning and end of the op­er­ation. The cells were now car­ried through the same cy­cle sev­er­al times, giv­ing al­most iden­ti­cal val­ues for each cy­cle. Af­ter some days, how­ev­er, they be­came more and more dif­fi­cult to charge, and the re­turn on dis­charge was pro­por­tion­ate­ly less. It be­came im­pos­si­ble to charge up to a P.D. of 2.4 volts, and fi­nal­ly the ca­pac­ity fell away to half its first val­ue. Ex­am­ina­tion showed that the plates were bad­ly scaled, and that some of the scales had par­tial­ly con­nect­ed the plates. These scales were cleared away and the ex­per­iments re­sumed, lim­it­ing the fall of P.D. to 1.8 volt. The

Fig. 14.

dif­fi­cul­ties then dis­ap­peared, show­ing that dis­charge to 1.6 volt caused in­jury that did not arise at a lim­it of 1.8. Be­fore de­scrib­ing the new re­sults it will be use­ful to ex­am­ine these two cas­es in the light of the the­ory of E.M.F. al­ready giv­en.

(a) Fall in E.M.F. at be­gin­ning of dis­charge.–At the mo­ment when pre­vi­ous charg­ing ceas­es the pores of the pos­itive plate con­tain strong acid, brought there by the charg­ing cur­rent. There is con­se­quent­ly a high E.M.F. But the strong acid be­gins to dif­fuse away at once and the E.M.F. falls rapid­ly. Even if the cell were not dis­charged this fall would oc­cur, and if it were al­lowed to rest for thir­ty min­utes or so the dis­charge would have be­gun with the dot­ted line (fig. 13). (b) Fi­nal rapid fall.—The pores be­ing clogged by sul­phate the plugs can­not get acid by dif­fu­sion, and when 5% is reached the fall in E.M.F. is dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly large (see fig. 10). If dis­charge be stopped, there is an al­most in­stan­ta­neous dif­fu­sion in­wards and a rapid rise in E.M.F. (c) The rise in E.M.F. at be­gin­ning and end of the charg­ing is due to acid in the pores be­ing strength­ened, part­ly by dif­fu­sion, part­ly by for­ma­tion of sul­phuric acid from sul­phate, and part­ly by elec­trolyt­ic car­ry­ing of strong acid to the pos­itive plate. The in­ju­ri­ous re­sults at 1.6 volt arise be­cause then the pores con­tain wa­ter. The chem­ical re­ac­tion is al­tered, ox­ide or hy­drate is formed, which will par­tial­ly dis­solve, to be changed to sul­phate when the sul­phuric acid sub­se­quent­ly dif­fus­es in. But formed in this way it will not ap­pear mixed with the ac­tive mass­es in the elec­trolyt­ic paths, but more or less alone in the pores. In this po­si­tion it will more or less block the pas­sage and iso­late some of the per­ox­ide. Fur­ther, when form­ing in the nar­row pas­sage its dis­rup­tive ac­tion will tend to force off the out­er lay­ers. It is ev­ident that lim­ita­tion of P.D. to 1.8 volt ought to pre­vent these in­juries, be­cause it pre­vents ex­haus­tion of acid in the plugs.

Fig. 15 shows the re­sults ob­tained by study of suc­ces­sive pe­ri­ods of rest, the ob­ser­va­tions be­ing tak­en be­tween the lim­its of 2.4 and 1.8 volts. Curves A and B show the state and ca­pac­ity at the be­gin­ning. Af­ter a 10 days’ rest the ca­pac­ity was small­er, but re­peat­ed cy­cles

Fig. 15.

of work brought it back to C and D. A sec­ond rest (10 days), fol­lowed by many cy­cles, then gave E and F. Af­ter a third rest (16 days) and many cy­cles, G and H were ob­tained. Af­ter a fourth rest (16 days) the first dis­charge gave I and the first charge J. Re­peat­ed cy­cles brought the cells back to K and L. Curves M and N show first cy­cle af­ter a fifth rest (16 days); O and P show the fi­nal restora­tion brought about by re­peat­ed cy­cles of work. The num­bers giv­en by the in­te­gra­tion of some of these curves are stat­ed in Ta­ble III.

TA­BLE III.

Ca­pac­ity and Ef­fi­cien­cy un­der Var­ious Con­di­tions of Work­ing. Dis­charge. Charge. Ef­fi­cien­cy. Ex­per­iment. Am­pere- Watt Am­pere- Watt Quan- En­er­gy. hours. hours. hours. hours. tity. ——————————————————————– Nor­mal cy­cle 102 201.7 104.5 230.7 97.2 87.4 Restora­tion af­ter 1st rest 100 179 103.8 228.2 96.8 85.8 Restora­tion af­ter 2nd rest 91 176.7 103.8 228.2 96.8 85.8 Restora­tion af­ter 3rd rest 82.6 161.3 86.2 190.5 95.8 84.7 Dis­charge im­me­di­ate­ly 56.5 110.5 86.2 190.5 65.5 581 af­ter rest . 56.5 110.5 71.1 158.3 79.6 69.6 Restora­tion af­ter 8 cy­cles 80 156.9 83.8 184.6 95.5 85 ————————————————————————

The ta­ble shows that the ef­fi­cien­cy in a nor­mal cy­cle may be as high as 87.4%; that dur­ing a rest of six­teen days the charged

1 This dis­charge is here com­pared with the charge that pre­ced­ed the rest; in the next line the same dis­charge is com­pared with the charge fol­low­ing the rest.

ac­cu­mu­la­tor is so af­fect­ed that about 30% of its charge is not avail­able, and in sub­se­quent cy­cles it shows a di­min­ished ca­pac­ity and ef­fi­cien­cy; and that by re­peat­ed charges and dis­charges the ca­pac­ity may be par­tial­ly re­stored and the ef­fi­cien­cy more com­plete­ly so. These changes might be due to–(a) leak­age or short-​cir­cuit, (b) some of the ac­tive ma­te­ri­al hav­ing fall­en to the bot­tom of the cell or (c) some change in the ac­tive ma­te­ri­als. (a) is ex­clud­ed by the fact that the sub­se­quent charge is small­er, and (b) by the con­tin­ued in­crease of ca­pac­ity dur­ing the cy­cles that fol­low the rest. Hence the third hy­poth­esis is the one which must be re­lied up­on. The change in the ac­tive ma­te­ri­als has al­ready been giv­en. The for­ma­tion of

FIG. 16.

lead sul­phate by lo­cal ac­tion on the per­ox­ide plate and by diract ac­tion of acid on spongy met­al on the lead plate ex­plains the loss of en­er­gy shown in curve M, fig. 15, while the fact that it is prob­ably formed, not in the path of the reg­ular cur­rents, but on the wall of the grid (re­mote from the or­di­nary ac­tion), gives a prob­able ex­pla­na­tion of the sub­se­quent slow re­cov­ery. The ac­tion of the acid on the lead dur­ing rest must not be over­looked.

We have seen that ca­pac­ity di­min­ish­es as the dis­charge rate in­creas­es; that is, the avail­able out­put in­creas­es as the cur­rent di­min­ish­es. R. E. B. Cromp­ton’s di­agram il­lus­trat­ing this fact is giv­en in fig. 16. At the high­er rates the con­sump­tion of acid is too rapid, dif­fu­sion can­not main­tain its strength in the pores, and the fall comes so much ear­li­er.

The re­sis­tance varies with the con­di­tion of the cell, as shown by the curves in fig. 17. It may be un­du­ly in­creased by long or nar­row lugs, and es­pe­cial­ly by dirty joints be­tween the lugs. It is in­ter­est­ing to note that it in­creas­es at the end of both charge and dis­charge, and

Fig. 17.

much more for the first than the sec­ond. Now the com­po­si­tion of the ac­tive ma­te­ri­als near the end of charge is al­most ex­act­ly the same as at the be­gin­ning of dis­charge, and at first sight there seems noth­ing to ac­count for the great fall in re­sis­tance from 0.0115 to 0.004 ohm; that is, to about one-​third the val­ue. There is, how­ev­er, one dif­fer­ence be­tween charg­ing and dis­charg­ing—name­ly, that due to the strong acid near the pos­itive, with a cor­re­spond­ing weak­er acid near the neg­ative elec­trode. The curve of con­duc­tiv­ity for sul­phuric acid shows that both strong and weak acid have much high­er re­sis­tances than the liq­uid usu­al­ly em­ployed in ac­cu­mu­la­tors, and it is there­fore rea­son­able to sup­pose that lo­cal vari­ations in strength of acid cause the changes in re­sis­tance. That these are not due to the con­sti­tu­tion of the plugs is shown by the fact that, while the plugs are al­most iden­ti­cal at end of dis­charge and be­gin­ning of charge, the re­sis­tance falls from 0.0055 to 0.0033 ohm.

While a cur­rent flows through a cell, heat is pro­duced at the rate of C2RX0.24 calo­ries (wa­ter-​gram-​de­gree) per sec­ond. As a con­se­quence the tem­per­ature tends to rise. But the change of tem­per­ature ac­tu­al­ly ob­served is much greater dur­ing charge, and much less dur­ing dis­charge, than the fore­go­ing ex­pres­sion would sug­gest; and it is ev­ident that, bes­dies the heat pro­duced ac­cord­ing to Joule’s law, there are oth­er ac­tions which warm the cell dur­ing charge and cool it dur­ing dis­charge. Dun­can and Wie­gand loc. cit.), who first ob­served the ther­mal changes, as­cribe the chief in­flu­ence to the elec­tro­chem­ical ad­di­tion of H2SO4 to the liq­uid dur­ing charge and its re­moval dur­ing dis­charge. Fig. 18 gives some re­sults ob­tained by Ayr­ton, Lamb, &c. This el­eva­tion of tem­per­ature (due to elec­trolyt­ic strength­en­ing of acid and lo­cal ac­tion) is a mea­sure of the en­er­gy lost in a cy­cle, and ought to be min­imized as much as pos­si­ble.

Fig. 18.

Chem­istry.—The chem­ical the­ory adopt­ed in the fore­go­ing pages is very sim­ple. It de­clares that sul­phate of lead is formed on both plates dur­ing dis­charge, the chem­ical ac­tion be­ing re­versed in charg­ing. The fol­low­ing equa­tions ex­press the ex­per­imen­tal re­sults.

Con­di­tion be­fore

+ plate Liq­uid - plate x. PbO2 + y. H2SO4 + z. Pb n. H2O

Af­ter

+ plate Liq­uid - plate (x-p). PbO2 (y-2p). H2SO4 (z-p). Pb { }+{ }+{ p. Pb­SO4 (n+2p). H2O p. Pb­SO4

Dur­ing charge, the sub­stances are re­stored to their orig­inal con­di­tion: the equa­tion is there­fore re­versed. An equa­tion of this gen­er­al na­ture was pub­lished by Glad­stone and Tribe in 1882, when Oley first sug­gest­ed the “sul­phate’, the­ory, which was based on very nu­mer­ous anal­yses. Con­fir­ma­tion was giv­en by E. Fran­kland in 1883, E. Reynier 1884, A. P. P. Cro­va and P. Garbe 1885, C. Heim and W. F. Kohlrausch 1889, W. E. Ayr­ton, &c., with G. H. Robert­son 1890, C. H. J. B. Liebenow 1897, F. Doleza­lek 1897, and M. Mug­dan 1899. Yet there has been, as Doleza­lek says, an in­com­pre­hen­si­ble un­will­ing­ness to ac­cept the the­ory, though no sug­gest­ed al­ter­na­tive could of­fer good ver­ifi­able ex­per­imen­tal foun­da­tion. Those who seek a full dis­cus­sion will find it in Doleza­lek’s The­ory of the Lead Ac­cu­mu­la­tor. We shall take it that the sul­phate the­ory is proved, and ap­ply it to the con­di­tions of charge and dis­charge.

From the chem­ical the­ory it will be ob­vi­ous that the acid in the pores of both plates will be stronger dur­ing charge than that out­side. Dur­ing dis­charge the re­verse will be the case. Fig. 19 shows a curve

Fig. 19.

of po­ten­tial dif­fer­ence dur­ing charge, with oth­ers show­ing the con­cur­rent changes in the per­cent­age of PbO2 and the den­si­ty of acid. These in­crease al­most in pro­por­tion to the du­ra­tion of the cur­rent, and in­di­cate the de­com­po­si­tion of sul­phate and lib­er­ation of sul­phuric acid. There are breaks in the P.D. curve at A, B, C, D where the cur­rent was stopped to ex­tract sam­ples for anal­ysis, &c. The fall in E.M.F. in this short in­ter­val is note­wor­thy; it aris­es from the dif­fu­sion of stronger acid out of the pores. The fi­nal rise of pres­sure is due to in­crease in re­sis­tance and the ef­fect of stronger acid in the pores, this last aris­ing part­ly from re­duced sul­phate and part­ly from the elec­trolyt­ic con­vec­tion of SO4 (see al­so Doleza­lek, The­ory, p. 113) . Fig. 20 gives the da­ta for dis­charge. The per­cent­age of PbO2 and the den­si­ty here fall al­most in pro­por­tion to the du­ra­tion of the cur­rent. The spe­cial fea­ture is the rapid fall of volt­age at the end.

Sev­er­al sug­ges­tions have been made about this phe­nomenon. The writ­er holds that it is due to the ex­haus­tion of the acid in the pores. Plante, and af­ter­wards Glad­stone and Tribe, found a pos­si­ble cause in the for­ma­tion of a film of per­ox­ide on the spongy lead. E. J. Wade has sug­gest­ed a sud­den read­just­ment of the spongy mass in­to a com­plex sul­phate. To re­but these hy­pothe­ses it is on­ly nec­es­sary to say that the fall can be de­ferred for a long time by press­ing fresh acid in­to the pores hy­dro­stat­ical­ly (see Liebenow, Zeits. fur Elek­trochem., 1897, iv. 61), or by work­ing at a high­er tem­per­ature. This in­creas­es the dif­fu­sion in­wards of strong acid, and like the in­crease due to hy­dro­stat­ic pres­sure main­tains the E.M.F. The oth­er sug­gest­ed caus­es of the fall there­fore fail. Fig. 20 al­so shows that when the dis­charge cur­rent was stopped at points A, B, C, D to ex­tract sam­ples, the volt­age im­me­di­ate­ly rose, ow­ing to in­ward dif­fu­sion of stronger acid. The in­ward dif­fu­sion of fresh acid al­so ac­counts for the re­cu­per­ation found af­ter a rest which fol­lows ei­ther com­plete dis­charge or a par­tial dis­charge at a very rapid rate. If the dis­charge be com­plete the re­cu­per­ation refers on­ly to the elec­tro­mo­tive force; the pres­sure falls at once on closed cir­cuit. If dis­charge has been rapid, a rest will en­able the cell to re­sume work be­cause it brings fresh acid in­to the ac­tive re­gions.

Fig. 20.

As to the ef­fect of re­pose on a charged cell, Glad­stone and Tribe’s ex­per­iments showed that per­ox­ide of lead ly­ing on its lead supoort suf­fers from a lo­cal ac­tion, which re­duces one molecule of PbO2 to sul­phate at the same time that an atom of the grid be­low it is al­so changed to sul­phate. There is thus not on­ly a loss of the avail­able per­ox­ide, but a cor­ro­sion of the grid or plate. It is through this ac­tion that the sup­ports grad­ual­ly give way. On the neg­ative plate an ac­tion aris­es be­tween the fine­ly di­vid­ed lead and the sul­phuric acid, with the re­sult that hy­dro­gen is set free– Pb + H2SO4 = Pb­SO4 + H2. This in­volves a diminu­tion of avail­able spongy lead, or loss of ca­pac­ity, oc­ca­sion­al­ly with se­ri­ous con­se­quences. The ca­pac­ity of the lead plate is re­duced ab­so­lute­ly, of course, but its rel­ative val­ue is more se­ri­ous­ly af­fect­ed. In the dis­charge it gets sul­phat­ed too much, be­cause the bet­ter pos­itive keeps up the E.M.F. too long. In the suc­ceed­ing charge, the pos­itive is ful­ly charged be­fore the neg­ative, and the dif­fer­ences be­tween them tend to in­crease in each cy­cle.

Kelvin and Helmholtz have shown that the E.M.F. of a volta­ic cell oan be cal­cu­lat­ed from the en­er­gy de­vel­oped by the chem­ical ac­tion. For a dyad gram equiv­alent (= 2 grams of hy­dro­gen, 207 grams of lead, &c.), the equa­tion con­nect­ing them is E = H/46000 + T dE/dT, here E is the E.M.F. in volts, H is the heat de­vel­oped by a dyad equiv­alent of the re­act­ing sub­stances, T is the ab­so­lute tem­per­ature, and dE/dT is the tem­per­ature co­ef­fi­cient of the E.M.F. If the E.M.F. does not change with tem­per­ature, the sec­ond term is ze­ro. The ther­mal val­ues for the var­ious sub­stances formed and de­com­posed are -For PbO2, 62400; for Pb­SO4, 216210; for H2SO4, 192920; and for H2O, 68400 calo­ries. Writ­ing the equa­tion in its sim­plest form for strong acid, and ig­nor­ing the tem­per­ature co­ef­fi­cient term,

PbO2 + 2 H2SO4 + Pb = 2Pb­SO4 + 2 H2O -62440 - 385840 + 432420 + 136720 leav­ing a bal­ance of 120860 calo­ries. Di­vid­ing by 46000 gives 2.627 volts. The ex­per­imen­tal val­ue in strong acid, ac­cord­ing to Glad­stone and Hi­bbert, is 2.607 volts, a very close ap­prox­ima­tion. For oth­er strengths of acid, the en­er­gy will be less by the quan­ti­ty of heat evolved by di­lu­tion of the acid, be­cause the chem­ical ac­tion must take the H2SO4 from the di­lut­ed liq­uid. The dot­ted curve in fig. 10 in­di­cates the cal­cu­lat­ed E.M.F. at var­ious points when this is tak­en in­to ac­count. The dif­fer­ence be­tween it and the con­tin­uous curve must, if the chem­ical the­ory be cor­rect, de­pend on the sec­ond term in the equa­tion. The fig­ure shows that the ob­served E.M.F. is above the the­oret­ical for all strengths from 100 down to 5%. Be­low 5 the po­si­tion is re­versed. The ques­tion re­mains, Can the tem­per­ature co­ef­fi­cient be ob­tained? This is dif­fi­cult, be­cause the val­ue is so small, and it is not easy to se­cure a good cy­cle of ob­ser­va­tions. Streintz has giv­en the fol­low­ing val­ues:– E 1.9223 1.9828 2.0031 2.0084 2.0105 2.078 2.2070 dE/dT.106 140 228 335 285 255 130 73 Un­pub­lished ex­per­iments by the writ­er give dE/dT. 106 = 350 for anid of den­si­ty 1.156. With stronger acid, a true cy­cle could not be ob­tained. Tak­ing Streintz’s val­ue, 335 for 25% acid, the sec­ond term of the equa­tion is TdE/dT = 290 X .000335 = 0.0971 volt. The first term gives 88800 calo­ries = 1.9304 volt. Adding the sec­ond term, 1.9304 + 0.0971 = 2.2075 volts. The ob­served val­ue is 2.030 volts (see fig. 10), a re­mark­ably good agree­ment. This cal­cu­la­tion and the gen­er­al re­la­tion shown in fig. 10 ren­der it high­ly prob­able that, if the tem­per­ature co­ef­fi­cient were known for all strengths of acid, the re­sult would be equal­ly good. It is worth ob­serv­ing that the re­ver­sal of re­la­tion­ship be­tween the ob­served and cal­cu­lat­ed curves, which takes place at 5% or 6%, sug­gests that the chem­istry must be on the point of al­ter­ing as the acid gets weak, a con­clu­sion which has been al­ready ar­rived at on pure­ly chem­ical grounds. The ther­mo­dy­nam­ical re­la­tions are thus seen to con­firm very strong­ly the chem­ical and phys­ical anal­yses.1

Ac­cu­mu­la­tors in Cen­tral Sta­tions.—As the ef­fi­cien­cy of ac­cu­mu­la­tors is not gen­er­al­ly high­er than 75%, and ma­chines must be used to charge them, it is not di­rect­ly eco­nom­ical to use cells alone for pub­lic sup­ply. Yet they play an im­por­tant and an in­creas­ing part in pub­lic work, be­cause they help to main­tain a con­stant volt­age on the mains, and can be used to dis­tribute the load on the run­ning ma­chin­ery over a much greater frac­tion of the day. Used in par­al­lel with the dy­namo, they quick­ly yield cur­rent when the load in­creas­es, and im­me­di­ate­ly be­gin to charge when the load di­min­ish­es, thus large­ly re­duc­ing the fluc­tu­at­ing stress on dy­namo and en­gine for sud­den vari­ations in load. Their use is ad­van­ta­geous if they can be charged and dis­charged at a time when the steam plant would oth­er­wise be work­ing at an un­eco­nom­ical load.

Fig. 21.

Reg­ula­tion of the po­ten­tial dif­fer­ence is man­aged in var­ious ways. More cells may be thrown in as the dis­charge pro­ceeds, and tak­en out dur­ing charge; but this method of­ten leads to trou­ble, as some cells get un­du­ly dis­charged, and the uni­ty of the bat­tery is dis­turbed. Some­times the num­ber of cells is kept fixed for sup­ply, but the P.D. they put on the mains is re­duced dur­ing charge by em­ploy­ing reg­ulat­ing cells in op­po­si­tion. Both these plans have proved un­sat­is­fac­to­ry, and the bat­tery is now prefer­ably joined across the mains in par­al­lel with the dy­namo. The cells take the peaks of the load and thus re­lieve the dy­namo and en­gine of sud­den changes, as shown in fig. 21. Here the line cur­rent (shown by the er­rat­ic curve) var­ied spas­mod­ical­ly from 0 to 375 am­peres, yet the dy­namo cur­rent var­ied from 100 to 150 am­peres on­ly (see line A). At the same time the line volt­age (535 volts nor­mal) was kept near­ly con­stant. In the late evening the cells be­came ex­haust­ed and the dy­namo charged them. Ex­tra volt­age was re­quired at the end of a “charge,’ and was pro­vid­ed by a “boost­er.” Orig­inal­ly a boost­er was an aux­il­iary dy­namo worked in se­ries with the chief ma­chine, and driv­en in any con­ve­nient way. It has

1 For the dis­cus­sion of lat­er elec­trolyt­ic the­ories as apolied to ac­cu­mu­la­tors, see Doleza­lek, The­ory of the Lead Ac­cu­mu­la­tor.

de­vel­oped in­to a ma­chine with two or more ex­cit­ing coils, and hav­ing its ar­ma­ture in se­ries with the cells (see fig. 22). The ex­cit­ing coils act in op­po­si­tion; the one car­ry­ing the main cur­rent sets up an E.M.F. in the same di­rec­tion as that of the cells, and helps the cells to dis­charge as the load ris­es. When the load is small, the volt­age on the mains is high­est and the shunt ex­cit­ing cur­rent great­est. The boost­er E.M.F. now acts with the dy­namo and against the cells, and caus­es them to take a full charge. Even this ar­range­ment did not suf­fice to keep the line volt­age as con­stant as seemed de­sir­able in some cas­es, as where light­ing and trac­tion work were put on the same plant. Fig. 23 is a di­agram of a com­plex boost­er which gives very good reg­ula­tion. The boost­er B has its ar­ma­ture in se­ries with the ac­cu­mu­la­tors A, and is kept run­ning in a giv­en di­rec­tion at a con­stant speed by means of a shunt-​wound mo­tor (not shown), so that the E.M.F. in­duced in the ar­ma­ture de­pends on the ex­ci­ta­tion. This is made

Fig. 22. to vary in val­ue and in di­rec­tion by means of four in­de­pen­dent encit­ing coils, C1, C2, C3, C4. The last is not es­sen­tial, as it mere­ly com­pen­sates for the small volt­age drop in the ar­ma­ture. It is ob­vi­ous that the ex­ci­ta­tion C3 will be pro­por­tion­ate to the dif­fer­ence in volt­age be­tween the bat­tery and the mains, and it is ar­ranged that bat­tery volts and boost­er volts shall equal the volts on the mains. Un­der this ex­ci­ta­tion there is no ten­den­cy for the bat­tery to charge or dis­charge. But any ad­di­tion­al ex­ci­ta­tion leads to strong cur­rents one way or the oth­er. Ex­ci­ta­tion C1 ris­es with the load on the line, and gives an E.M.F. help­ing the bat­tery to dis­charge most when the load is great­est. C2 is de­pen­dent on the bus-​bar volt­age, and is great­est when the gen­er­ator load is small: it op­pos­es C1 and there­fore ex­cites the boost­er to charge the bat­tery. The ex­act gen­er­ator load at which the boost­er shall re­verse its E.M.F. from a charg­ing to a dis­charg­ing val­ue is ad­just­ed by the re­sis­tance R2 in se­ries with C2. A sim­ilar re­sis­tance R6 al­lows the ex­ci­ta­tion of C3 to be ad­just­ed. Very re­mark­able reg­ula­tion can be ob­tained by re­versible boost­ers of this type. In trac­tion and light­ing sta­tions it is quite pos­si­ble to keep the vari­ation of bus-​bar pres­sure with­in 2% of the nor­mal val­ue, al­though the load may mo­men­tar­ily vary from a few am­peres up to 200 or 300.

J. B. Entz has in­tro­duced an aux­il­iary de­vice which en­ables him to use a much more sim­ple boost­er. The Entz boost­er has no se­ries coil and on­ly one shunt coil, the di­rec­tion and val­ue of ex­ci­ta­tion due to this be­ing con­trolled by a car­bon reg­ula­tor, it hav­ing two arms, the re­sis­tance of each of which can be var­ied by pres­sure due to the mag­net- iz­ing ac­tion of a solenoid. The main cur­rent from the gen­er­ator pass­es through the solenoid and caus­es one or oth­er of the two car­bon arms to have the less

FIG. 23.

re­sis­tance. This change in re­sis­tance de­ter­mines the di­rec­tion of the ex­citer field cur­rent, and there­fore the di­rec­tion of the boost. A pho­to­graph of the switch­board at Greenock where this boost­er is in use shows the volt­meter nee­dle as if it had been held rigid, al­though the ex­po­sure last­ed 90 min­utes. On the same pho­to­graph the am­me­ter nee­dle does not ap­pear, its in­ces­sant and large move­ments pre­vent­ing any pic­ture from be­ing formed.

Al­ka­line Ac­cu­mu­la­tors.–Ow­ing to the high elec­tro-​chem­ical equiv­alent of lead, a great sav­ing in weight would be se­cured by us­ing al­most any oth­er met­al. Un­for­tu­nate­ly no oth­er met­al and its com­pounds can re­sist the acid. Hence in­ven­tors have been in­cit­ed to try al­ka­line liq­uids as elec­trolytes. Many at­tempts have been made to con­struct ac­cu­mu­la­tors in this way, though with on­ly mod­er­ate suc­cess. The La­lande-​Chap­er­on, Des­mazures, Wad­dell-​Ent2 and Edi­son are the chief cells. T. A. Edi­son’s cell has been most de­vel­oped, and is in­tend­ed for trac­tion work. He made the plates of very thin sheets of nick­el-​plat­ed steel, in each of which 24 rect­an­gu­lar holes were stamped, leav­ing a mere frame­work of the met­al. Shal­low rect­an­gu­lar pock­ets of per­fo­rat­ed nick­el-​steel were fit­ted in the holes and then burred over the frame­work by high pres­sures. The pock­ets con­tained the ac­tive ma­te­ri­al. On the pos­itive plate this con­sist­ed of nick­el per­ox­ide mixed with flake graphite, and on the neg­ative plate of fine­ly di­vid­ed iron mixed with graphite. Both kinds of ac­tive ma­te­ri­al were pre­pared in a spe­cial way. The graphite gives greater con­duc­tiv­ity. The liq­uid was a 20% so­lu­tion of caus­tic potash. Dur­ing dis­charge the iron was ox­idized, and the nick­el re­duced to a low­er state of ox­ida­tion. This change was re­versed dur­ing charge. Fig. 24 shows the gen­er­al fea­tures.

Fig. 24.–Edi­son Ac­cu­mu­la­tor.

The chief re­sults ob­tained by Eu­ro­pean ex­perts showed that the E.M.F. was 1.33 volt, with a tran­sient high­er val­ue fol­low­ing charge. A cell weigh­ing 17.8 lb. had a re­sis­tance of 0.0013 ohm, and an out­put at 60 am­peres of 210 watt-​hours, or at 120 am­peres of 177 watt-​hours. An­oth­er and im­proved cell weighiog 12.7 lb. gave 14.6 watt-​hours per pound of cell at a 20-am­pere rate, and 13.5 watt-​hours per pound at a 60 am­pere rate. The cell could be charged and dis­charged at al­most any rate. A full charge could be giv­en in 1 hour, and it would stand a dis­charge rate of 200 am­peres (Journ. In­st. Elec. Eng., 1904, pp. 1-36).

Sub­se­quent­ly Edi­son found some de­gree of falling-​off in ca­pac­ity, due to an en­large­ment of the pos­itive pock­ets by pres­sure of gas. Most of the faults have been over­come by al­ter­ing the form of the pock­et and re­plac­ing the graphite by a metal­lic con­duc­tor in the form of flakes.

REF­ER­ENCES.—G. Plante, Recherch­es sur L’elec­tricite (Paris, 1879); Glad­stone and Tribe, Chem­istry of Sec­ondary Bat­ter­ies (Lon­don, 1884); Reynier, L’Ac­cu­mu­la­teur voltaique (Paris, 1888); Heim, Die Akku­mu­la­toren (Berlin, 1889); Hoppe, Die Akk. fur Elek­tric­itat (Berlin, 1892); Schoop, Hand­buch fur Akk. (Stuttgart, 1898): Sir E. Fran­kland, “Chem­istry of Stor­age Bat­ter­ies,” Proc. Roy. Soc., 1883; Reynier, Jour. Soc. Franc. de Phys., 1884; Heim, “U. d. Ein­fluss der Sauredichte auf die Ka­paz­itat der Akk.,” Elek. Zeits., 1889; Kohlrausch and Heim, “Ergeb­nisse von Ver­suchen an Akk. fur Sta­tions­be­trieb,” Elek. Zeits., 1889; Dar­rieus, Bull. Soc. In­tern. des Elect., 1892; F. Doleza­lek, The The­ory of the Lead Ac­cu­mu­la­tor (Lon­don, 1906); Sir D. Sa­lomons, Man­age­ment of ac­cu­mu­la­tors (Lon­don, 1906) E. J. Wade, Sec­ondary Bat­ter­ies (Lon­don, 1901); L. Ju­mau, Les Ac­cu­mu­la­teurs elec­triques (Paris, 1904). (W. HT.)

AC­CUR­SIUS Ital. AC­COR­SO), FRAN­CIS­CUS (1182-1260), Ital­ian ju­rist, was born at Flo­rence about 1182. A pupil of Azo, he first prac­tised law in his na­tive city, and was af­ter­wards ap­point­ed pro­fes­sor at Bologna, where he had great suc­cess as a teach­er. He un­der­took the great work of ar­rang­ing in­to one body the al­most in­nu­mer­able com­ments and re­marks up­on the Code, the In­sti­tutes and Di­gests, the con­fused dis­per­sion of which among the works of dif­fer­ent writ­ers caused much ob­scu­ri­ty and con­tra­dic­tion. This com­pi­la­tion, bear­ing the ti­tle Glos­sa or­di­nar­ia or magis­tralis, but usu­al­ly known as the Great Gloss, though writ­ten in bar­barous Latin, has more method than that of any pre­ced­ing writ­er on the sub­ject. The best edi­tion of it is that of De­nis Gode­froi (1549-1621), pub­lished at Lyons in 1589, in 6 vols. fo­lio. When Ac­cur­sius was em­ployed in this work, it is said that, hear­ing of a sim­ilar one pro­posed and be­gun by Odoiced, an­oth­er lawyer of Bologna, he feigned in­dis­po­si­tion, in­ter­rupt­ed his pub­lic lec­tures, and shut him­self up, till with the ut­most ex­pe­di­tion he had ac­com­plished his de­sign. Ac­cur­sius was great­ly ex­tolled by the lawyers of his own and the im­me­di­ate­ly suc­ceed­ing age, and he was even called the idol of ju­riscon­sults, but those of lat­er times formed a much low­er es­ti­mate of his mer­its. There can be no doubt that he dis­en­tan­gled the sense of many laws with much skill, but it is equal­ly un­de­ni­able that his ig­no­rance of his­to­ry and an­tiq­ui­ties of­ten led him in­to ab­sur­di­ties, and was the cause of many de­fects in his ex­pla­na­tions and com­men­taries. He died at Bologna in 1260. His el­dest son Fran­cis­cus (1225-1293), who al­so filled the chair of law at Bologna, was in­vit­ed to Ox­ford by King Ed­ward I., and in 1275 or 1276 read lec­tures on law in the uni­ver­si­ty.

AC­CU­SA­TION (Lat. ac­cu­sa­tio, ac­cusare, to chal­lenge to a causa, a suit or tri­al at law), a le­gal term sig­ni­fy­ing the charg­ing of an­oth­er with wrong-​do­ing, crim­inal or oth­er­wise. An ac­cu­sa­tion which is made in a court of jus­tice dur­ing le­gal pro­ceed­ings is priv­ileged (see PRIV­ILEGE), though, should the ac­cused have been ma­li­cious­ly pros­ecut­ed, he will have a right to bring an ac­tion for ma­li­cious pros­ecu­tion. An ac­cu­sa­tion made out­side a court of jus­tice would, if the ac­cu­sa­tion were false, ren­der the ac­cus­er li­able to an ac­tion for defama­tion of char­ac­ter, while, if the ac­cu­sa­tion be com­mit­ted to writ­ing, the writ­er of it is li­able to in­dict­ment, whether the ac­cu­sa­tion be made on­ly to the par­ty ac­cused or to a third per­son, A threat or con­spir­acy to ac­cuse an­oth­er of a crime or of mis­con­duct which does not amount to a crime for the pur­pose of ex­tor­tion is in it­self in­dictable.

AC­CUSATIVE (Lat. ac­cusativus, sc. ca­sus, a trans­la­tion of the Gr. aiti­atike pto­sis, the case con­cerned with cause and ef­fect, from aiti’a, a cause), in gram­mar, a case of the noun, de­not­ing pri­mar­ily the ob­ject of ver­bal ac­tion or the des­ti­na­tion of mo­tion.

ACE (de­rived through the Lat. as, from the Tar­en­tine form of the Gr. eis) the num­ber one at dice, or the sin­gle point on a die or card; al­so a point in the score of rac­quets, lawn-​ten­nis, ten­nis and oth­er court games.

ACEL­DAMA (ac­cord­ing to Acts i. 19, “the field of blood”), the name giv­en to the field pur­chased by Ju­das Is­car­iot with the mon­ey he re­ceived for the be­tray­al of Je­sus Christ. A dif­fer­ent ver­sion is giv­en in Matthew xxvii. 8, where Ju­das is said to have cast down the mon­ey in the Tem­ple, and the priests who had paid it to have re­cov­ered the pieces, with which they bought “the pot­ter’s field, to bury strangers in.” The MS. ev­idence is great­ly in favour of a form Acel­damach. This would seem to mean “the field of thy blood,” which is un­suit­able. Since, how­ev­er, we find else­where one name ap­pear­ing as both Sir­ach and Sira (ch = aleph), Acel­damach may be an­oth­er form of an orig­inal Acel­dama (aleph ka­matz mem shvah daleth lamedh tzareh qoph pat­ach heth), the “field of blood.” A. Kloster­mann, how­ev­er, takes the ch to be part of the Ara­ma­ic root demach, “to sleep,’; the word would then mean “field of sleep” or ceme­tery (Prob­leme im Apos­tel­texte, 1-8, 1883), an ex­pla­na­tion which fits in well with the ac­count in Matthew xxvii. The tra­di­tion­al site (now Hak el-​Dum), S. of Jerusalem on the N.E. slope of the “Hill of Evil Coun­sel” (Jebel Deir Abu Tor), was used as a buri­al place for Chris­tian pil­grims from the 6th cen­tu­ry A.D. till as late, ap­par­ent­ly, as 1697, and es­pe­cial­ly in the time of the Cru­sades. Near it there is a very an­cient char­nel­house, part­ly rock-​cut, part­ly of ma­son­ry, said to be the work of Cru­saders.

ACE­NAPH­THENE, C12H10, a hy­dro­car­bon iso­lat­ed from the frac­tion of coal-​tar boil­ing at 260 deg. -270 deg. by M. P. E. Berth­elot, who, in con­junc­tion with Bardy, af­ter­wards syn­the­sized it from a-​ethyl naph­tha­lene (Ann. Chem. Phys., 1873, Yol. xxix.). It forms white nee­dles (from al­co­hol), melts at 95 deg. and boils at 278 deg. . Ox­ida­tion gives naph­thal­ic acid (1.8 naph­tha­lene di­cathoxylic acid).

Ace­naph­tha­lene, C12 H8, a hy­dro­car­bon crys­tal­liz­ing in yel­low ta­bles and ob­tained by pass­ing the vapour of ace­naph­thene over heat­ed litharge. Sodi­um amal­gam re­duces it to ace­naph­thone; chromic acid ox­idizes it to naph­thal­ic acid.

ACEPHALI (from a’-, pri­va­tive, and ke­fale, head), a term ap­plied to sev­er­al sects as hav­ing no head or lead­er; and in par­tic­ular to a strict mono­physite sect that sep­arat­ed it­self, in the end of the 5th cen­tu­ry, from the rule of the pa­tri­arch of Alexan­dria (Pe­ter Mongus), and re­mained “with­out king or bish­op” till they were rec­on­ciled by Mark I. (799-819).1 The term is al­so used to de­note cleri­ci va­grantes, i.e. cler­gy with­out ti­tle or benefice, pick­ing up a liv­ing any­how (cf. Hin­schius i. p. 64). Cer­tain per­sons in Eng­land dur­ing the reign of King Hen­ry I. were called Acephali be­cause they had no lands by virtue of which they could ac­knowl­edge a su­pe­ri­or lord. The name is al­so giv­en to cer­tain leg­endary races de­scribed by an­cient nat­ural­ists and ge­og­ra­phers as hav­ing no heads, their mouths and eyes be­ing in their breasts, gen­er­al­ly iden­ti­fied with Pliny’s Blem­myae.

ACEPHALOUS, head­less, whether lit­er­al­ly or metaphor­ical­ly, lead­er­less. The word is used lit­er­al­ly in bi­ol­ogy; and metaphor­ical­ly in prosody or gram­mar for a verse or sen­tence with a be­gin­ning want­ing. In zo­ol­ogy, the mol­lus­ca are di­vid­ed in­to cephalous and acephalous (Acepha­la), ac­cord­ing as they have or have not an or­ga­nized part of their anato­my as the seat of the brain and spe­cial sens­es. The Acepha­la, or Lamel­li­branchi­ata (q.v.), are com­mon­ly known as bi­valve shell-​fish. In botany the word is used for ovaries not ter­mi­nat­ing in a stig­ma. Acephalo­cyst is the name giv­en by R. T. H. Laen­nec to the hy­datid, im­ma­ture or lar­val tape­worm.

AC­EREN­ZA (anc. Acerun­tia), a town of the province of Poten­za, Italy, the seat of an arch­bish­op, 15 1/2 m. N.E. of the sta­tion of Pietra­gal­la, which is 9 m. N.W. of Poten­za by rail, 2730 ft. above sea-​lev­el. Pop. (1901) 4499. Its sit­ua­tion is one of great strength, and it has on­ly one en­trance, on the south. It was oc­cu­pied as a colony at lat­est by the end of the Re­pub­lic, and its im­por­tance as a fortress was spe­cial­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed by the Goths and Lom­bards in the 6th and 7th cen­turies. It has a fine Nor­man cathe­dral, up­on the gable of which is one of the best ex­tant busts of Ju­lian the Apos­tate.

ACEROSE (from Lat. acus, nee­dle, or ac­er, sharp), nee­dle-​shaped, a term used in botany (since Lin­naeus) as de­scrip­tive of the leaves, e.g., of pines. From Lat. aeus, chaff, comes al­so the dis­tinct mean­ing of “mixed with chaff.”

AC­ER­RA, a town and epis­co­pal see of Cam­pa­nia, Italy, in the province of Caser­ta, 9 m. N.E. from Naples by rail. Pop. (1901) 16,443. The town lies on the right bank of the Ag­no, which di­vides the province of Naples from that of Caser­ta, 90 ft. above the sea, in a fer­tile but some­what marshy dis­trict, which in the mid­dle ages was very malar­ious. The an­cient name (Ac­er­rae) was al­so borne by a town in Um­bria and an­oth­er in Gal­lia Transpadana (the lat­ter now Pizzighet­tone on the Ad­da, 13 m. W.N.W. of Cre­mona). It be­came a city with Latin rights in 332 B.C. and lat­er a mu­nicip­ium. It was de­stroyed by Han­ni­bal in 216 B.C., but re­stored in 210; in 90 B.C. it served as the Ro­man head­quar­ters in the So­cial war, and was suc­cess­ful­ly held against the in­sur­gents. It re­ceived a colony un­der Au­gus­tus, but ap­pears to have suf­fered much from floods of the riv­er Clams. Un­der the Em­pire we hear no more of it, and no traces of an­tiq­ui­ty, be­yond in­scrip­tions, re­main.

AC­ER­RA, in Ro­man an­tiq­ui­ty, a small box or pot for hold­ing in­cense, as dis­tinct from the turibu­lum (thuri­ble) or censer in which in­cense was burned. The name was al­so giv­en by the Ro­mans to a lit­tle al­tar placed near the dead, on which in­cense was of­fered ev­ery day till the buri­al. In ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal Latin the term ac­er­ra is still ap­plied to the in­cense boats used in the Ro­man rit­ual.

AC­ETAB­ULUM, the Latin word for a vine­gar cup, an an­cient Ro­man ves­sel, used as a liq­uid mea­sure (equal to about half a gill); it is al­so a word used tech­ni­cal­ly in zo­ol­ogy, by anal­ogy for cer­tain cup-​shaped parts, e.g. the suck­ers of a mol­lusc, the sock­et of the thigh-​bone, &c.; and in botany for the re­cep­ta­cle of Fun­gi.

ACETIC ACID (acidum aceticum), CH3.CO2H, one of the most im­por­tant or­gan­ic acids. It oc­curs nat­ural­ly in the juice of

1 See Gib­bon, ch. xlvii. (vol. v. p. 129 in Pury’s ed.).

many plants, and as the es­ters of n-​hexyl and n-​octyl al­co­hols in the seeds of Her­acleum gi­gan­teum, and in the fruit of Her­acleum spho­ndyli­um, but is gen­er­al­ly ob­tained, on the large scale, from the ox­ida­tion of spoiled wines, or from the de­struc­tive dis­til­la­tion of wood. In the for­mer pro­cess it is ob­tained in the form of a di­lute aque­ous so­lu­tion, in which al­so the colour­ing mat­ters of the wine, salts, &c., are dis­solved; and this im­pure acetic acid is what we or­di­nar­ily term vine­gar (q.v.). Acetic acid (in the form of vine­gar) was known to the an­cients, who ob­tained it by the ox­ida­tion of al­co­holic liquors. Wood-​vine­gar was dis­cov­ered in the mid­dle ages. To­wards the close of the 18th cen­tu­ry, A. L. Lavoisi­er showed that air was nec­es­sary to the for­ma­tion of vine­gar from al­co­hol. In 1830 J. B. A. Du­mas con­vert­ed acetic acid in­to trichlo­racetic acid, and in 1842 L. H. F. Melsens re­con­vert­ed this deriva­tive in­to the orig­inal acetic acid by re­duc­tion with sodi­um amal­gam. The syn­the­sis of trichlo­racetic acid from its el­ements was ac­com­plished in 1843 by H. Kolbe; this tak­en in con­junc­tion with Melsens’s ob­ser­va­tion pro­vid­ed the first syn­the­sis of acetic acid. An­hy­drous acetic acid–glacial acetic acid–is a leafy crys­talline mass melt­ing at 16.7 deg. C., and pos­sess­ing an ex­ceed­ing­ly pun­gent smell. It boils at 118 deg. , giv­ing a vapour of ab­nor­mal spe­cif­ic grav­ity. It dis­solves in wa­ter in all pro­por­tions with at first a con­trac­tion and af­ter­wards an in­crease in vol­ume. It is de­tect­ed by heat­ing with or­di­nary al­co­hol and sul­phuric acid, which gives rise to acetic es­ter or ethyl ac­etate, rec­og­nized by its fra­grant odour; or by heat­ing with ar­se­nious ox­ide, which forms the pun­gent and poi­sonous ca­codyl ox­ide. It is a monoba­sic acid, form­ing one nor­mal and two acid potas­si­um salts, and ba­sic salts with iron, alu­mini­um, lead and cop­per. Fer­rous and fer­ric ac­etates are used as mor­dants; nor­mal lead ac­etate is known in com­merce as sug­ar of lead (q.v.); ba­sic cop­per ac­etates are known as verdi­gris (q.v.).

Phar­ma­col­ogy and Ther­apeu­tics.—Glacial acetic acid is oc­ca­sion­al­ly used as a caus­tic for corns. The di­lute acid, or vine­gar, may be used to bathe the skin in fever, act­ing as a pleas­ant re­frig­er­ant. Acetic acid has no valu­able prop­er­ties for in­ter­nal ad­min­is­tra­tion. Vine­gar, how­ev­er, which con­tains about 5% acetic acid, is fre­quent­ly tak­en as a cure for obe­si­ty, but there is no war­rant for this ap­pli­ca­tion. Its con­tin­ued em­ploy­ment may, in­deed, so in­jure the mu­cous mem­brane of the stom­ach as to in­ter­fere with di­ges­tion and so cause a mor­bid and dan­ger­ous re­duc­tion in weight.

The ac­etates con­sti­tute a valu­able group of medic­inal agents, the potas­si­um salt be­ing most fre­quent­ly em­ployed. Af­ter ab­sorp­tion in­to the blood, the ac­etates are ox­idized to car­bon­ates, and there­fore are re­mote al­ka­lies, and are ad­min­is­tered when­ev­er it is de­sired to in­crease the al­ka­lin­ity of the blood or to re­duce the acid­ity of the urine, with­out ex­ert­ing the dis­turb­ing in­flu­ence of alka­nes up­on the di­ges­tive tract. The cit­rates act in pre­cise­ly sim­ilar fash­ion, and may be sub­sti­tut­ed. They are some­what more pleas­ant but more ex­pen­sive.

ACE­TO-​ACETIC ES­TER, C6H10O3 or CH3.CO.CH2.COOC2H5, a chem­ical sub­stance dis­cov­ered in 1863 by A. Geuther, who showed that the chief prod­uct of the ac­tion of sodi­um on ethyl ac­etate was a sodi­um com­pound of com­po­si­tion C6H9O3Na, which on treat­ment with acids gave a colour­less, some­what oily liq­uid of com­po­si­tion C6H10O3. E. Fran­kland and B. F. Dup­pa in 1865 ex­am­ined the re­ac­tion and con­clud­ed that Geuther’s sodi­um salt was a deriva­tive of the ethyl es­ter of ace­tone car­boxylic acid and pos­sessed the con­sti­tu­tion CH6CO.CHNa.COOC2H5. This view was not ac­cept­ed by Geuther, who looked up­on his com­pound C6H10O3 as be­ing an acid. J. Wis­li­cenus al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ed the re­ac­tion very thor­ough­ly and ac­cept­ed the Fran­kland-​Dup­pa for­mu­la (An­nalen, 1877, 186, p. 163; 1877, 190, p. 257).

The sub­stance is best pre­pared by dry­ing ethyl ac­etate over cal­ci­um chlo­ride and treat­ing it with sodi­um wire, which is best in­tro­duced in one op­er­ation; the liq­uid boils and is then heat­ed on a wa­ter bath for some hours, un­til the sodi­um all dis­solves. Af­ter the re­ac­tion is com­plet­ed, the liq­uid is acid­ified with di­lute sul­phuric acid (1:5) and then shak­en with salt so­lu­tion, sep­arat­ed from the salt so­lu­tion, washed, dried and frac­tion­at­ed. The por­tion boil­ing bet­been 175 deg. and 185 deg. C. is re­dis­tilled. The yield amounts to about 30% of that re­quired by the­ory.

A. Laden­burg and J. A. Wanklyn have shown that pure ethyl ac­etate free from al­co­hol will not re­act with sodi­um to pro­duce ace­to-​acetic es­ter. L. Claisen, whose views are now ac­cept­ed, stud­ied the re­ac­tions of sodi­um ethy­late and showed that if sodi­um ethy­late be used in place of sodi­um in the above re­ac­tion the same re­sult is ob­tained. He ex­plains the re­ac­tions

/ONa CH3.C==O + NaOC2H5 = CH3.C-​OC2H5, \ OC2H5 \OC2H5

this re­ac­tion be­ing fol­lowed by

/ONa H\ CH3.C-​OC2H5 + CH.COOC2H5 = 2 C2 H5OH + \OC2H5 H/ CH3.C(ONa):CH.COOC2H5;

and on acid­ifi­ca­tion this last sub­stance gives ace­to-​acetic es­ter. Ace­to-​acetic es­ter is a colour­less liq­uid boil­ing at 181 deg. C.; it is slight­ly sol­uble in wa­ter, and when dis­tilled un­der­goes some de­com­po­si­tion form­ing de­hy­dracetic acid C8H8O4. It un­doubt­ed­ly con­tains a ke­to-​group, for it re­acts with hy­dro­cyan­ic acid, hy­drox­ylamine, phenyl­hy­drazine and am­mo­nia; sodi­um bisul­phite al­so com­bines with it to form a crys­talline com­pound, hence it con­tains the group­ing CH 3/0.CO-. J. Wis­li­cenus found that on­ly one hy­dro­gen atom in the–CH2- group is di­rect­ly re­place­able by sodi­um, and that if the sodi­um be then re­placed by an alkyl group, the sec­ond hy­dro­gen atom in the group can be re­placed in the same man­ner. These alkyl sub­sti­tu­tion prod­ucts are im­por­tant, for they lead to the syn­the­sis of many or­gan­ic com­pounds, on ac­count of the fact that they can be hy­drol­ysed in two dif­fer­ent ways, bar­ium hy­drox­ide or di­lute sodi­um hy­drox­ide so­lu­tion giv­ing the so-​called ke­tone hy­drol­ysis, whilst con­cen­trat­ed sodi­um hy­drox­ide gives the acid

Ke­tone hy­drol­ysis:- CH3.CO.C(XY).CO2C2H5 -> CH3.CO.CH(XY) + C2H5OH + CO2; Acid hy­drol­ysis:- CH3.CO.C(XY).CO2C2H5 -> CH3.CO2H + C2H5OH + CH(XY).COOH;

(where X and Y = alkyl groups).

Both re­ac­tions oc­cur to some ex­tent si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Ace­toacetic es­ter is a most im­por­tant syn­thet­ic reagent, hav­ing been used in the pro­duc­tion of pyridines (q.v.), quino­lines (q.v.), pyra­zolones, fur­furane (q.v.), pyrrols (q.v.), uric acid (q.v.), and many com­plex acids and ke­tones.

For a dis­cus­sion as to the com­po­si­tion, and whether it is to be re­gard­ed as pos­sess­ing the “ke­to’, form CH3.CO.CH2.COOC2H6 or the “enol” form CH3.C(OH): CH.COOC2H5, see ISO­MERISM, and al­so pa­pers by J. Wis­li­cenus (Ann., 1877, 186, p. 163; 1877, 190, p. 257), A. Michael (Journ. Prak. Chem., 1887, [2] 37, p. 473), L. Knorr (Ann., 1886, 238, p. 147), W. H. Perkin, senr. (Journ. of Chem. Soc., 1892, 61, p. 800) and J. U. Nef (Ann., 1891, 266, p. 70; 1892, 270, pp. 289, 333; 1893, 276, p. 212).

ACE­TONE, or DIMETHYL KE­TONE, CH3.CO.CH3, in chem­istry, the sim­plest rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the aliphat­ic ke­tones. It is present in very small quan­ti­ty in nor­mal urine, in the blood, and in larg­er quan­ti­ties in di­abet­ic pa­tients. It is found among the prod­ucts formed in the de­struc­tive dis­til­la­tion of wood, sug­ar, cel­lu­lose, &c., and for this rea­son it is al­ways present in crude wood spir­it, from which the greater por­tion of it may be re-​cov­ered by frac­tion­al dis­til­la­tion. On the large scale it is pre­pared by the dry dis­til­la­tion of cal­ci­um ac­etate (CH3CO2)2Ca = Ca­CO3 + CH3COCH3. E. R. Squibb (Journ. Amer. Chem. Soc., 1895, 17, p. 187) man­ufac­tures it by pass­ing the vapour of acetic acid through a ro­tat­ing iron cylin­der con­tain­ing a mix­ture of pumice and pre­cip­itat­ed bar­ium car­bon­ate, and kept at a tem­per­ature of from 500 deg. C. to 600 deg. C. The mixed vapours of ace­tone, acetic acid and wa­ter are then led through a con­dens­ing ap­pa­ra­tus so that the acetic acid and wa­ter are first con­densed, and then the ace­tone is con­densed in a sec­ond ves­sel. The bar­ium car­bon­ate used in the pro­cess acts as a con­tact sub­stance, since the tem­per­ature at which the op­er­ation is car­ried out is al­ways above the de­com­po­si­tion point of bar­ium ac­etate. Crude ace­tone may be pu­ri­fied by con­vert­ing it in­to the crys­talline sodi­um bisul­phite com­pound, which is sep­arat­ed by fil­tra­tion and then dis­tilled with sodi­um

CH3\ / OH CH3\ 2 C + Na2CO3 = 2 CO + 2 Na2SO3 + CH3/ \ SO3Na CH3/ CO2 + H2O

It is then de­hy­drat­ed and re­dis­tilled.

Ace­tone is large­ly used in the man­ufac­ture of cordite (q.v.) For this pur­pose the crude dis­til­late is re­dis­tilled over sul­phuric acid and then frac­tion­at­ed.

Ace­tone is a colour­less mo­bile liq­uid of pleas­ant smell, boil­ing at 56.53 deg. C., and has a spe­cif­ic grav­ity 0.819 (0 deg. /4 deg. C.). It is read­ily sol­uble in wa­ter, al­co­hol, ether, &c. In ad­di­tion to its ap­pli­ca­tion in the cordite in­dus­try it is used in the man­ufac­ture of chlo­ro­form (q.v.) and sulphonal, and as a sol­vent. It forms a hy­dra­zone with phenyl hy­drazine, and an oxime with hy­drox­ylamine. Re­duc­tion by sodi­um amal­gam con­verts it in­to iso­propyl al­co­hol; ox­ida­tion by chromic acid gives car­bon diox­ide and acetic acid. With am­mo­nia it re­acts to form di- and tri­ace­toneamines. It al­so unites di­rect­ly with hy­dro­cyan­ic acid to form the ni­trile of a-​oxy­isobu­tyric acid.

By the ac­tion of var­ious reagents such as lime, caus­tic potash, hy­drochlo­ric acid, &c., ace­tone is con­vert­ed in­to con­den­sa­tion prod­ucts, mesityl ox­ide C6H10O, phorone C9H14O, &c., be­ing formed. On dis­til­la­tion with sul­phuric acid, it is con­vert­ed in­to mesity­lene C9H12 (sym­met­ri­cal trimethyl ben­zene). Ace­tone has al­so been used in the ar­ti­fi­cial pro­duc­tion of in­di­go. In the pres­ence of io­dine and an al­ka­li it gives iod­oform. Ace­tone has been em­ployed medic­inal­ly in cas­es of dys­pnoea. With potas­si­um io­dide, glyc­erin and wa­ter, it forms the prepa­ra­tion spirone, which has been used as a spray in­hala­tion in parox­ys­mal sneez­ing and asth­ma.

ACE­TOPHE­NONE, or PHENYL-​METHYL KE­TONE, C8H8O or C6H5CO.CH3, in chem­istry, the sim­plest rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the class of mixed aliphat­ic-​aro­mat­ic ke­tones. It can be pre­pared by dis­till­ing a mix­ture of dry cal­ci­um ben­zoate and ac­etate, Ca(O2CC6H5)2 + (CH3CO2)2Ca = 2Ca­CO3 + 2 C6H5CO.CH3, or by con­dens­ing ben­zene with acetyl chlo­ride in the pres­ence of an­hy­drous alu­mini­um chlo­ride (C. Friedel and J. M. Crafts), C6H6+CH3CO­Cl == HCl + C6H5COCH3. It crys­tal­lizes in colour­less plates melt­ing at 20 deg. C. and bolling at 202 deg. C.; it is in­sol­uble in wa­ter, but read­ily dis­solves in the or­di­nary or­gan­ic sol­vents. It is re­duced by nascent hy­dro­gen to the sec­ondary al­co­hol C6H5.CH.OH.CH3 phenyl-​methyl-​carbinol, and on ox­ida­tion forms ben­zoic acid. On the ad­di­tion of phenyl­hy­drazine it gives a phenyl­hy­dra­zone, and with hy­drox­ylamine fur­nish­es an

C6H5\ C=N.OH CH3/

melt­ing at 59 deg. C. This oxime un­der­goes a pe­cu­liar re­ar­range­ment when it is dis­solved in ether and phos­pho­rus pen­tachlo­ride is added to the ethe­re­al so­lu­tion, the ex­cess of ether dis­tilled off and wa­ter added to the residue be­ing con­vert­ed in­to the iso­mer­ic sub­stance ac­etanilide, C6H5NHCOCH3, a be­haviour shown by many ke­toximes and known as the Beck­mann change (see Berichte, 1886, 19, p. 988). With sodi­um ethy­late in ethyl ac­etate so­lu­tion it forms the sodi­um deriva­tive of ben­zoyl ace­tone, from which ben­zoyl ace­tone, C6H5.CO.CH2.CO.CH3, can be ob­tained by acid­ifi­ca­tion with acetic acid. When heat­ed with the halo­gens, ace­tophe­none is sub­sti­tut­ed in the aliphat­ic por­tion of the nu­cle­us; thus bromine gives phenacyl bro­mide, C6H6CO.CH2Br. Nu­mer­ous deriva­tives of ace­tophe­none have been pre­pared, one of the most im­por­tant be­ing or­thoaminoace­tophe­none, NH2.C6H4.CO.CH3, which is ob­tained by boil­ing or­thoaminophenyl­pro­pi­olic acid with wa­ter. It is a thick yel­low­ish oil bolling be­tween 242 deg. C. and 250 deg. C. It con­dens­es with ace­tone in the pres­ence of caus­tic so­da to a quino­line. Acetonyl-​aee­to phe­none, C6H5 . CO . CH2 . CH2. CO . CH3, is pro­duced by con­dens­ing phenacyl bro­mide with sodi­um ace­toac­etate with sub­se­quent elim­ina­tion of car­bon diox­ide, and on de­hy­dra­tion gives aa-​phenyl-​methyl-​fur­furane. Ox­azoles (q.v.) are pro­duced on con­dens­ing phenacyl bro­mide with acid-​amides (M. Lewy, Berichte, 1887, 20, p. 2578). K. L. Paal has al­so ob­tained pyrrol deriva­tives by con­dens­ing ace­tophe­none-​ace­to- acetic-​es­ter with sub­stances of the type NH2R.

ACETY­LENE, klumene or ethine, a gaseous com­pound of car­bon and hy­dro­gen, rep­re­sent­ed by the for­mu­la C2H2.

Phys­ical prop­er­ties.

It is a colour­less gas, hav­ing a den­si­ty of 0.92. When pre­pared by the ac­tion of wa­ter up­on cal­ci­um car­bide, it has a very strong and pen­etrat­ing odour, but when it is thor­ough­ly pu­ri­fied from sul­phuret­ted and phos­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen, which are in­vari­ably present with it in minute traces, this ex­treme­ly pun­gent odour dis­ap­pears, and the pure gas has a not un­pleas­ant ethe­re­al smell. It can be con­densed in­to the liq­uid state by cold or by pres­sure, and ex­per­iments by G. Ans­dell show that if the gas be sub­ject­ed to a pres­sure of 21.53 at­mo­spheres at a tem­per­ature of 0 deg. C., it is con­vert­ed in­to the liq­uid state, the pres­sure need­ed in­creas­ing with the rise of tem­per­ature, and de­creas­ing with the low­er­ing of the tem­per­ature, un­til at–82 deg. C. it be­comes liq­uid un­der or­di­nary at­mo­spher­ic pres­sure. The crit­ical point of the gas is 37 C., at which tem­per­ature a pres­sure of 68 at­mo­spheres is re­quired for liq­ue­fac­tion. The prop­er­ties of liq­uid and sol­id acety­lene have been in­ves­ti­gat­ed by D. Mcin­tosh (Jour Chem. Soc., Abs., 1907, i. 458). A great fu­ture was ex­pect­ed from its use in the liq­uid state, since a cylin­der fit­ted with the nec­es­sary re­duc­ing valves would sup­ply the gas to light a house for a con­sid­er­able pe­ri­od, the liq­uid oc­cu­py­ing about 1/400 the vol­ume of the gas, but in the Unit­ed States and on the con­ti­nent of Eu­rope, where liq­ue­fied acety­lene was made on the large scale, sev­er­al fa­tal ac­ci­dents oc­curred ow­ing to its ex­plo­sion un­der not eas­ily ex­plained con­di­tions. As a re­sult of these ac­ci­dents M. P. E. Berth­elot and L. J. G. Vieille made a se­ries of valu­able re­search­es up­on the ex­plo­sion of acety­lene un­der var­ious con­di­tions. They found that if liq­uid acety­lene in a steel bot­tle be heat­ed at one point by a plat­inum wire raised to a red heat, the whole mass de­com­pos­es and gives rise to such tremen­dous pres­sures that no cylin­der would be able to with­stand them. These pres­sures var­ied from 71,000 to 100,000 lb. per square inch. They, more­over, tried the ef­fect of shock up­on the liq­uid, and found that the re­peat­ed drop­ping of the cylin­der from a height of near­ly 20 feet up­on a large steel anvil gave no ex­plo­sion, but that when the cylin­der was crushed un­der a heavy blow the im­pact was fol­lowed, af­ter a short in­ter­val of time, by an ex­plo­sion which was man­ifest­ly due to the frac­ture of the cylin­der and the ig­ni­tion of the es­cap­ing gas, mixed with air, from sparks caused by the break­ing of the met­al. A sim­ilar ex­plo­sion will fre­quent­ly fol­low the break­ing in the same way of a cylin­der charged with hy­dro­gen at a high pres­sure. Con­tin­uing these ex­per­iments, they found that in acety­lene gas un­der or­di­nary pres­sures the de­com­po­si­tion brought about in one por­tion of the gas, ei­ther by heat or the fir­ing in it of a small det­ona­tor, did not spread far be­yond the point at which the de­com­po­si­tion start­ed, while if the acety­lene was com­pressed to a pres­sure of more than 30 lb. on the square inch, the de­com­po­si­tion trav­elled through­out the mass and be­came in re­al­ity det­ona­tion. These re­sults showed clear­ly that liq­ue­fied acety­lene was far too dan­ger­ous for gen­er­al in­tro­duc­tion for do­mes­tic pur­pos­es, since, al­though the oc­ca­sions would be rare in which the req­ui­site tem­per­ature to bring about det­ona­tion would be reached, still, if this point were at­tained, the re­sults would be of a most dis­as­trous char­ac­ter. The fact that sev­er­al ac­ci­dents had al­ready hap­pened ac­cen­tu­at­ed the risk, and in Great Britain the stor­age and use of liq­ue­fied acety­lene are pro­hib­it­ed.

When liq­ue­fied acety­lene is al­lowed to es­cape from the cylin­der in which it is con­tained in­to or­di­nary at­mo­spher­ic pres­sure, some of the liq­uid as­sumes the gaseous con­di­tion with such ra­pid­ity as to cool the re­main­der be­low the tem­per­ature of -90 deg. C., and con­vert it in­to a sol­id snow-​like mass.

Sol­ubil­ity of acety­lene.

Acety­lene is read­ily sol­uble in wa­ter, which at nor­mal tem­per­ature and pres­sure takes up a lit­tle more than its own vol­ume of the gas, and yields a so­lu­tion giv­ing a pur­ple-​red pre­cip­itate with am­mo­ni­acal cuprous chlo­ride and a white pre­cip­itate with sil­ver ni­trate, these pre­cip­itates con­sist­ing of acetylides of the met­als. The sol­ubil­ity of the gas in var­ious liq­uids, as giv­en by dif­fer­ent ob­servers,

100 Vol­umes of Vol­umes of Acety­lene. Brine ab­sorb 5 Wa­ter ” 110 Al­co­hol ” 600 Paraf­fin ” 150 Car­bon disul­phide ” 100 Fusel oil ” 100 Ben­zene ” 400 Chlo­ro­form ” 400 Acetic acid ” 600 Ace­tone ” 2500

It will be seen from this ta­ble that where it is de­sired to col­lect and keep acety­lene over a liq­uid, brine, i.e. wa­ter sat­urat­ed with salt, is the best for the pur­pose, but in prac­tice it is found that, un­less wa­ter is ag­itat­ed with acety­lene, or the gas bub­bled through, the top lay­er soon gets sat­urat­ed, and the gas then dis­solves but slow­ly. The great sol­ubil­ity of acety­lene in ace­tone was point­ed out by G. Claude and A. Hess, who showed that ace­tone will ab­sorb twen­ty-​five times its own vol­ume of acety­lene at a tem­per­ature of 15 deg. C. un­der at­mo­spher­ic pres­sure, and that, pro­vid­ing the tem­per­ature is kept con­stant, the liq­uid ace­tone will go on ab­sorb­ing acety­lene at the rate of twen­ty-​five times its own vol­ume for ev­ery at­mo­sphere of pres­sure to which the gas is sub­ject­ed.

At first it seemed as if this dis­cov­ery would do away with all the trou­bles con­nect­ed with the stor­age of acety­lene un­der pres­sure, but it was soon found that there were se­ri­ous dif­fi­cul­ties still to be over­come. The chief trou­ble was that ace­tone ex­pands a small per­cent­age of its own vol­ume while it is ab­sorb­ing acety­lene; there­fore it is im­pos­si­ble to fill a cylin­der with ace­tone and then force in acety­lene, and still more im­prac­ti­ca­ble on­ly part­ly to fill the cylin­der with ace­tone, as in that case the space above the liq­uid would be filled with acety­lene un­der high pres­sure, and would have all the dis­ad­van­tages of a cylin­der con­tain­ing com­pressed acety­lene on­ly. This dif­fi­cul­ty was over­come by first fill­ing the cylin­der with porous bri­quettes and then soak­ing them with a fixed per­cent­age of ace­tone, so that af­ter al­low­ing for the space tak­en up by the bricks the quan­ti­ty of ace­tone soaked in­to the brick will ab­sorb ten times the nor­mal vol­ume of the cylin­der in acety­lene for ev­ery at­mo­sphere of pres­sure to which the gas is sub­ject­ed, whilst all dan­ger of ex­plo­sion is elim­inat­ed.

This fact hav­ing been ful­ly demon­strat­ed, acety­lene dis­solved in this way was ex­empt­ed from the Ex­plo­sives Act, and con­se­quent­ly up­on this ex­emp­tion a large busi­ness has grown up in the prepa­ra­tion and use of dis­solved acety­lene for light­ing mo­tor om­nibus­es, mo­tor cars, rail­way car­riages, light­hous­es, buoys, yachts, &c., for which it is par­tic­ular­ly adapt­ed.

Poi­sonous prop­er­ties.

Acety­lene was at one time sup­posed to be a high­ly poi­sonous gas, the re­search­es of A. Bistrow and O. Liebre­ich hav­ing apoar­ent­ly shown that it acts up­on the blood in the same way as car­bon monox­ide to form a sta­ble com­pound. Very ex­ten­sive ex­per­iments, how­ev­er, made by Drs N. Gre­hant, A. L. Brocin­er, L. Crismer, and oth­ers, all con­clu­sive­ly show that acety­lene is much less tox­ic than car­bon monox­ide, and in­deed than coal gas.

Chem­ical prop­er­ties.

When acety­lene was first in­tro­duced on a Com­mer­cial scale grave fears were en­ter­tained as to its safe­ty, it be­ing rep­re­sent­ed that it had the pow­er of com­bin­ing with cer­tain met­als, more es­pe­cial­ly cop­per and sil­ver, to form acetylides of a high­ly ex­plo­sive char­ac­ter, and-​that even with coal gas, which con­tains less than 1%, such cop­per com­pounds had been known to be formed in cas­es where the gas-​dis­tribut­ing mains were com­posed of cop­per, and that ac­ci­dents had hap­pened from this cause. It was there­fore pre­dict­ed that the in­tro­duc­tion of acety­lene on a large scale would be fol­lowed by nu­mer­ous ac­ci­dents un­less cop­per and its al­loys were rigid­ly ex­clud­ed from con­tact with the gas. These fears have, how­ev­er, for­tu­nate­ly proved to be un­found­ed, and or­di­nary gas fit­tings can be used with per­fect safe­ty with this gas.

Acety­lene has the prop­er­ty of in­flam­ing spon­ta­neous­ly when brought in con­tact with chlo­rine. If a few pieces of car­bide be dropped in­to sat­urat­ed chlo­rine wa­ter the bub­bles of gas take fire as they reach the sur­face, and if a jet of acety­lene be passed up in­to a bot­tle of chlo­rine it takes fire and burns with a heavy red flame, de­posit­ing its car­bon in the form of soot. If chlo­rine be bub­bled up in­to a jar of acety­lene stand­ing over wa­ter, a vi­olent ex­plo­sion, at­tend­ed with a flash of in­tense light and the de­po­si­tion of car­bon, at once takes place. When the gas is kept in a small glass hold­er ex­posed to di­rect sun­light, the sur­face of the glass soon be­comes dimmed, and W. A. Bone has shown that when ex­posed for some time to the sun’s rays it un­der­goes cer­tain poly­mer­iza­tion changes which lead to the de­po­si­tion of a film of heavy hy­dro­car­bons on the sur­face of the tube. It has al­so been ob­served by L. Cail­letet and lat­er by P. Vil­lard that when al­lowed to stand in the pres­ence of wa­ter at a low tem­per­ature a sol­id hy­drate is formed.

The poly­mer­iza­tion of acety­lene.

Acety­lene is read­ily de­com­posed by heat, poly­mer­iz­ing un­der its in­flu­ence to form an enor­mous num­ber of or­gan­ic com­pounds; in­deed the gas, which can it­self be di­rect­ly pre­pared from its con­stituents, car­bon and hy­dro­gen, un­der the in­flu­ence of the elec­tric arc, can be made the start­ing point for the con­struc­tion of an enor­mous num­ber of dif­fer­ent or­gan­ic com­pounds of a com­plex char­ac­ter. In con­tact with nascent hy­dro­gen it bunds up ethy­lene; ethy­lene act­ed up­on by sul­phuric acid yields ethyl sul­phuric acid; this can again be de­com­posed in the pres­ence of wa­ter to yield al­co­hol, and it has al­so been pro­posed to man­ufac­ture sug­ar from this body. Pi­cric acid can al­so be ob­tained from it by first treat­ing acety­lene with sul­phuric acid, con­vert­ing the prod­uct in­to phe­nol by so­lu­tion in potash and then treat­ing the phe­nol with fum­ing ni­tric acid.

En­dother­mic na­ture of acety­lene.

Acety­lene is one of those bod­ies the for­ma­tion of which is at­tend­ed with the dis­ap­pear­ance of heat, and it is for this rea­son termed an “en­dother­mic” com­pound, in con­tradis­tinc­tion to those bod­ies which evolve heat in their for­ma­tion, and which are called “exother­mic.” Such en­dother­mic bod­ies are near­ly al­ways found to show con­sid­er­able vi­olence in their de­com­po­si­tion, as the heat of for­ma­tion stored up with­in them is then lib­er­at­ed as sen­si­ble heat, and it is un­doubt­ed­ly this prop­er­ty of acety­lene gas which leads to its easy det­ona­tion by ei­ther heat or a shock from an ex­plo­sion of ful­mi­nat­ing mer­cury when in con­tact with it un­der pres­sure. The ob­ser­va­tion that acety­lene can be re­solved in­to its con­stituents by det­ona­tion is due to Berth­elot, who start­ed an ex­plo­sive wave in it by fir­ing a charge of 0.1 gram of mer­cury ful­mi­nate. It has since been shown, how­ev­er, that un­less the gas is at a pres­sure of more than two at­mo­spheres this wave soon dies out, and the de­com­po­si­tion is on­ly prop­agat­ed a few inch­es from the det­ona­tor. Heat­ed in con­tact with air to a tem­per­ature of 480 deg. C., acety­lene ig­nites and burns with a flame, the ap­pear­ance of which varies with the way in which it is brought in con­tact with the air. With the gas in ex­cess a heavy lurid flame emit­ting dense vol­umes of smoke re­sults, whilst if it be driv­en out in a suf­fi­cient­ly thin sheet, it burns with a flame of in­tense bril­lian­cy and ul­most per­fect white­ness, by the light of which colours can be judged as well as they can by day­light. Hav­ing its ig­ni­tion point be­low that of or­di­nary gas, it can be ig­nit­ed by any red-​hot car­bona­ceous mat­ter, such as the bright­ly glow­ing end of a cigar. For its com­plete com­bus­tion a vol­ume of acety­lene needs ap­prox­imate­ly twelve vol­umes of air, form­ing as prod­ucts of com­bus­tion car­bon diox­ide and wa­ter vapour. When, how­ev­er, the air is present in much small­er ra­tio the com­bus­tion is in­com­plete, and car­bon, car­bon monox­ide, car­bon diox­ide, hy­dro­gen and wa­ter vapour are pro­duced. This is well shown by tak­ing a cylin­der one-​half full of acety­lene and one-​half of air; on ap­ply­ing a light to the mix­ture a lurid flame runs down the cylin­der and a cloud of soot is thrown up, the cylin­der al­so be­ing thick­ly coat­ed with it, and of­ten con­tain­ing a ball of car­bon. If now, af­ter a few mo­ments’ in­ter­val to al­low some air to dif­fuse in­to the cylin­der, a ta­per again be ap­plied, an ex­plo­sion takes place, due to a mix­ture of car­bon monox­ide and air. It is prob­able that when a flame is smok­ing bad­ly, dis­tinct traces of car­bon monox­ide are be­ing pro­duced, but when an acety­lene flame burns prop­er­ly the prod­ucts are as harm­less as those of coal gas, and, light for light, less in amount. Mixed with air, like ev­ery oth­er com­bustible gas, acety­lene forms an ex­plo­sive mix­ture. F. Clowes has shown that it has a wider range of ex­plo­sive pro­por­tions when mixed with air than any of the oth­er com­bustible gas­es, the lim­it­ing per­cent­ages be­ing as

Acety­lene . . . . . . . 3 to 82 Hy­dro­gen . . . . . . . 5 to 72 Car­bon monox­ide . . . . 13 to 75 Ethy­lene . . . . . . . 4 to 22 Methane . . . . . . . . 5 to 13

Meth­ods of pro­duc­tion.

The meth­ods which can be and have been em­ployed from time to time for the for­ma­tion of acety­lene in small quan­ti­ties are ex­ceed­ing­ly nu­mer­ous. Be­fore the com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion of cal­ci­um car­bide made it one of the most eas­ily ob­tain­able gas­es, the pro­cess­es which were most large­ly adopt­ed for its prepa­ra­tion in lab­ora­to­ries were:-first, the de­com­po­si­tion of ethy­lene bro­mide by drop­ping it slow­ly in­to a boil­ing so­lu­tion of al­co­holic potash, and pu­ri­fy­ing the evolved gas from the volatile bromethy­lene by wash­ing it through a sec­ond flask con­tain­ing a boil­ing so­lu­tion of al­co­holic potash, or by pass­ing it over mod­er­ate­ly heat­ed so­da lime; and, sec­ond, the more or­di­nar­ily adopt­ed pro­cess of pass­ing the prod­ucts of in­com­plete com­bus­tion from a Bun­sen burn­er, the flame of which had struck back, through an am­mo­ni­acal so­lu­tion of cuprous chlo­ride, when the red cop­per acetylide was pro­duced. This on be­ing washed and de­com­posed with hy­drochlo­ric acid yield­ed a stream of acety­lene gas. This sec­ond method of pro­duc­tion has the great draw­back that, un­less prop­er pre­cau­tions are tak­en to pu­ri­fy the gas ob­tained from the cop­per acetylide, it is al­ways con­tam­inat­ed with cer­tain chlo­rine deriva­tives of acety­lene. Ed­mund Davy first made acety­lene in 1836 from a com­pound pro­duced dur­ing the man­ufac­ture of potas­si­um from potas­si­um tar­trate and char­coal, which un­der cer­tain con­di­tions yield­ed a black com­pound de­com­posed by wa­ter with con­sid­er­able vi­olence and the evo­lu­tion of acety­lene. This com­pound was af­ter­wards ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed by J. J. Berzelius, who showed it to be potas­si­um car­bide. He al­so made the cor­re­spond­ing sodi­um com­pound and showed that it evolved the same gas, whilst in 1862 F. Wohler first made cal­ci­um car­bide, and found that wa­ter de­com­posed it in­to lime and acety­lene. It was not, how­ev­er, un­til 1892 that the al­most si­mul­ta­ne­ous dis­cov­ery was made by T. L. Will­son in Amer­ica and H. Moissan in France that if lime and car­bon be fused to­geth­er at the tem­per­ature of the elec­tric fur­nace, the lime is re­duced to cal­ci­um, which unites with the ex­cess of car­bon present to form cal­ci­um car­bide.

Man­ufac­ture of cal­ci­um car­bide.

The cheap pro­duc­tion of this ma­te­ri­al and the easy lib­er­ation by its aid of acety­lene at once gave the gas a po­si­tion of com­mer­cial im­por­tance. In the man­ufac­ture of cal­ci­um car­bide in the elec­tric fur­nace, lime and an­thracite of the high­est pos­si­ble de­gree of pu­ri­ty are em­ployed. A good work­ing mix­ture of these ma­te­ri­als may be tak­en as be­ing 100 parts by weight of lime with 68 parts by weight of car­bona­ceous ma­te­ri­al. About 1.8 lb. of this is used up for each pound of car­bide pro­duced. The two prin­ci­pal pro­cess­es uti­lized in mak­ing cal­ci­um car­bide by elec­tri­cal pow­er are the in­got pro­cess and the tap­ping pro­cess. In the for­mer, the an­thracite and lime are ground and care­ful­ly mixed in the right pro­por­tions to suit the chem­ical ac­tions in­volved. The arc is struck in a cru­cible in­to which the mix­ture is al­lowed to flow, par­tial­ly fill­ing it. An in­got grad­ual­ly builds up from the bot­tom of the cru­cible, the car­bon elec­trode be­ing raised from time to time au­to­mat­ical­ly or by hand to suit the diminu­tion of re­sis­tance due to the short­en­ing of the arc by the ris­ing in­got. The cru­cible is of met­al and con­sid­er­ably larg­er than the in­got, the lat­ter be­ing sur­round­ed by a mass of unre­duced ma­te­ri­al which pro­tects the cru­cible from the in­tense heat. When the in­got has been made and the cru­cible is full, the lat­ter is with­drawn and an­oth­er sub­sti­tut­ed. The pro­cess is not con­tin­uous, but a change of cru­cibles on­ly takes two or three min­utes un­der the best con­di­tions, and on­ly oc­curs ev­ery ten or fif­teen hours. The essence of this pro­cess is that the coke and lime are on­ly heat­ed to the point of com­bi­na­tion, and are not “boiled” af­ter be­ing formed. It is found that the in­got of cal­ci­um car­bide formed in the fur­nace, al­though it­self con­sist­ing of pure crys­talline cal­ci­um car­bide, is near­ly al­ways sur­round­ed by a crust which con­tains a cer­tain pro­por­tion of im­per­fect­ly con­vert­ed con­stituents, and there­fore gives a low­er yield of acety­lene than the car­bide it­self. In break­ing up and send­ing out the car­bide for com­mer­cial work, packed in air-​tight drums, the crust is re­moved by a sand blast. A state­ment of the amount made per kilo­watt hour may be mis­lead­ing, since a cer­tain amount of loss is of ne­ces­si­ty en­tailed dur­ing this pro­cess. For in­stance, in prac­ti­cal work­ing it has been found that a fur­nace re­turn of 0.504 lb. per kilo­watt hour is brought down to 0.406 lb. per kilo­watt hour when the ma­te­ri­al has been bro­ken up, sort­ed and packed in air-​tight drums. In the tap­ping pro­cess a fixed cru­cible is used, lined with car­bon, the elec­trode is near­ly as big as the cru­cible and a much high­er cur­rent den­si­ty is used. The car­bide is heat­ed to com­plete liq­ue­fac­tion and tapped at short in­ter­vals. There is no unre­duced ma­te­ri­al, and the pro­cess is con­sid­er­ably sim­pli­fied, while less ex­pen­sive plant is re­quired. The run car­bide, how­ev­er, is nev­er so rich as the in­got car­bide, since an ex­cess of lime is near­ly al­ways used in the mix­ture to act as a flux, and this re­main­ing in the car­bide low­ers its gas-​yield­ing pow­er. Many at­tempts have been made to pro­duce the sub­stance with­out elec­tric­ity, but have met with no com­mer­cial suc­cess.

Prop­er­ties of cal­ci­um car­bide.

Cal­ci­um car­bide, as formed in the elec­tric fur­nace, is a beau­ti­ful crys­talline se­mi-​metal­lic sol­id, hav­ing a den­si­ty of 2.22, and show­ing a frac­ture which is of­ten shot with iri­des­cent colours. It can be kept un­al­tered in dry air, but the small­est trace of mois­ture in the at­mo­sphere leads to the evo­lu­tion of minute quan­ti­ties of acety­lene and gives it a dis­tinc­tive odour. It is in­fusible at tem­per­atures up to 2000 deg. C., but can he fused in the elec­tric arc. When heat­ed to a tem­per­ature of 245 deg. C. in a stream of chlo­rine gas it be­comes in­can­des­cent, form­ing cal­ci­um chlo­ride and lib­er­at­ing car­bon, and it can al­so be made to burn in oxy­gen at a dull red heat, leav­ing be­hind a residue of cal­ci­um car­bon­ate. Un­der the same con­di­tions it be­comes in­can­des­cent in the vapour of sul­phur, yield­ing cal­ci­um sul­phide and car­bon disul­phide; the vapour of phos­pho­rus will al­so unite with it at a red heat. Act­ed up­on by wa­ter it is at once de­com­posed, yield­ing acety­lene and cal­ci­um hy­drate. Pure crys­talline cal­ci­um car­bide yields 5.8 cu­bic feet of acety­lene per pound at or­di­nary tem­per­atures, but the car­bide as sold com­mer­cial­ly, be­ing a mix­ture of the pure crys­talline ma­te­ri­al with the crust which in the elec­tric fur­nace sur­rounds the in­got, yields at the best 5 cu­bic feet of gas per pound un­der prop­er con­di­tions of gen­er­ation. The vol­ume of gas ob­tained; how­ev­er, de­pends very large­ly up­on the form of ap­pa­ra­tus used, and while some will give the full vol­ume, oth­er ap­pa­ra­tus will on­ly yield, with the same car­bide, 3 3/4 feet.

Im­pu­ri­ties.

The pu­ri­ty of the car­bide en­tire­ly de­pends on the pu­ri­ty of the ma­te­ri­al used in its man­ufac­ture, and be­fore this fact had been ful­ly grasped by man­ufac­tur­ers, and on­ly the purest ma­te­ri­al ob­tain­able em­ployed, it con­tained no­table quan­ti­ties of com­pounds which dur­ing its de­com­po­si­tion by wa­ter yield­ed a some­what high por­tion of im­pu­ri­ties in the acety­lene gen­er­at­ed from it. Al­though at the present time a mar­vel­lous im­prove­ment has tak­en place all round in the qual­ity of the car­bide pro­duced, the acety­lene near­ly al­ways con­tains minute traces of hy­dro­gen, am­mo­nia, sul­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen, phos­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen, sil­icon hy­dride, ni­tro­gen and oxy­gen, and some­times minute traces of car­bon monox­ide and diox­ide. The for­ma­tion of hy­dro­gen is caused by small traces of metal­lic cal­ci­um oc­ca­sion­al­ly found free in the car­bide, and cas­es have been known where this was present in such quan­ti­ties that the evolved gas con­tained near­ly 20% of hy­dro­gen. This takes place when in the man­ufac­ture of the car­bide the ma­te­ri­al is kept too long in con­tact with the arc, since this over­heat­ing caus­es the dis­so­ci­ation of some of the cal­ci­um car­bide and the so­lu­tion of metal­lic cal­ci­um in the re­main­der. The pres­ence of free hy­dro­gen is near­ly al­ways ac­com­pa­nied by sil­icon hy­dride formed by the com­bi­na­tion of the nascent hy­dro­gen with the sil­icon in the car­bide. The am­mo­nia found in the acety­lene is prob­ably part­ly due to the pres­ence of mag­ne­sium ni­tride in the car­bide.

On de­com­po­si­tion by wa­ter, am­mo­nia is pro­duced by the ac­tion of steam or of nascent hy­dro­gen on the ni­tride, the quan­ti­ty formed de­pend­ing very large­ly up­on the tem­per­ature at which the car­bide is de­com­posed. The for­ma­tion of ni­trides and cyanamides by ac­tions of this kind and their easy con­ver­sion in­to am­mo­nia is a use­ful method for fix­ing the ni­tro­gen of the at­mo­sphere and ren­der­ing it avail­able for ma­nuri­al pur­pos­es. Sul­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen, which is in­vari­ably present in com­mer­cial acety­lene, is formed by the de­com­po­si­tion of alu­mini­um sul­phide. A. Mour­lot has shown that alu­mini­um sul­phide, zinc sul­phide and cad­mi­um sul­phide are the on­ly sul­phur com­pounds which can re­sist the heat of the elec­tric fur­nace with­out de­com­po­si­tion or volatiliza­tion, and of these alu­mini­um sul­phide is the on­ly one which is de­com­posed by wa­ter with the evo­lu­tion of sul­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen. In the ear­ly sam­ples of car­bide this com­pound used to be present in con­sid­er­able quan­ti­ty, but now rarely more than 1/10 % is to be found. Phos­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen, one of the most im­por­tant im­pu­ri­ties, which has been blamed for the haze formed by the com­bus­tion of acety­lene un­der cer­tain con­di­tions, is pro­duced by the ac­tion of wa­ter up­on traces of cal­ci­um phos­phide found in car­bide. Al­though at first it was no un­com­mon thing to find 1/2% of phos­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen present in the acety­lene, this has now been so re­duced by the use of pure ma­te­ri­als that the quan­ti­ty is rarely above 0.15%, and it is of­ten not one-​fifth of that amount.

Gen­er­ation of acety­lene from car­bide.

In the gen­er­ation of acety­lene from cal­ci­um car­bide and wa­ter, all that has to be done is to bring these two com­pounds in­to con­tact, when they mu­tu­al­ly re­act up­on each oth­er with the for­ma­tion of lime and acety­lene, while, if there be suf­fi­cient wa­ter present, the lime com­bines with it to form cal­ci­um hy­drate.

Cal­ci­um car­bide. Wa­ter. Acety­lene. Lime. CaC2 + H2O = C2H2 + CaO Lime. Wa­ter. Cal­ci­um hy­drate. CaO + H2O = Ca(HO)2

The de­com­po­si­tion of the car­bide by wa­ter may be brought about ei­ther by bring­ing the wa­ter slow­ly in­to con­tact with an ex­cess of car­bide, or by drop­ping the car­bide in­to an ex­cess of wa­ter, and these two main op­er­ations again may be var­ied by in­nu­mer­able in­ge­nious de­vices by which the ra­pid­ity of the con­tact may be mod­ified or even even­tu­al­ly stopped. The re­sult is that al­though the forms of ap­pa­ra­tus uti­lized for this pur­pose are all based on the one fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of bring­ing about the con­tact of the car­bide with the wa­ter which is to en­ter in­to dou­ble de­com­po­si­tion with it, they have been mul­ti­plied in num­ber to a very large ex­tent by the meth­ods em­ployed in or­der to en­sure con­trol in work­ing, and to get away from the dan­gers and in­con­ve­niences which are in­sep­ara­ble from a too rapid gen­er­ation.

Gen­er­ators.

In at­tempt­ing to clas­si­fy acety­lene gen­er­ators some au­thor­ities have di­vid­ed them in­to as many as six dif­fer­ent class­es, but this is hard­ly nec­es­sary, as they may be di­vid­ed in­to two main class­es—first, those in which wa­ter is brought in con­tact with the car­bide, the car­bide be­ing in ex­cess dur­ing the first por­tion of the op­er­ation; and, sec­ond, those in which the car­bide is thrown in­to wa­ter, the amount of wa­ter present be­ing al­ways in ex­cess. The first class may again be sub­di­vid­ed in­to gen­er­ators in which the wa­ter ris­es in con­tact with the car­bide, in which it drips up­on the car­bide, and in which a ves­sel full of car­bide is low­ered in­to wa­ter and again with-​drawn as gen­er­ation be­comes ex­ces­sive. Some of these gen­er­ators are con­struct­ed to make the gas on­ly as fast as it is con­sumed at the burn­er, with the ob­ject of sav­ing the ex­pense and room which would be in­volved by a stor­age-​hold­er. Gen­er­ators with de­vices for reg­ulat­ing and stop­ping at will the ac­tion go­ing on are gen­er­al­ly termed “au­to­mat­ic.” An­oth­er set mere­ly aims at de­vel­op­ing the gas from the car­bide and putting it in­to a stor­age­hold­er with as lit­tle loss as pos­si­ble, and these are termed “non-​au­to­mat­ic.” The points to be at­tained in a good gen­er­ator are:–

1. Low tem­per­ature of gen­er­ation. 2. Com­plete de­com­po­si­tion of the car­bide. 3. Max­imum evo­lu­tion of the gas. 4. Low pres­sure in ev­ery part of the ap­pa­ra­tus. 5. Ease in charg­ing and re­moval of residues. 6. Re­moval of all air from the ap­pa­ra­tus be­fore gen­er­ation of the gas. When car­bide is act­ed up­on by wa­ter con­sid­er­able heat is evolved; in­deed, the ac­tion de­vel­ops about one-​twen­ti­eth of the heat evolved by the com­bus­tion of car­bon. As, how­ev­er, the tem­per­ature de­vel­oped is a func­tion of the time need­ed to com­plete the ac­tion, the de­gree of heat at­tained varies with ev­ery form of gen­er­ator, and while the wa­ter in one form may nev­er reach the boil­ing-​point, the car­bide in an­oth­er may be­come red-​hot and give a tem­per­ature of over 800 deg. C. Heat­ing in a gen­er­ator is not on­ly a source of dan­ger, but al­so lessens the yield of gas and de­te­ri­orates its qual­ity. The best forms of gen­er­ator are ei­ther those in which wa­ter ris­es slow­ly in con­tact with the car­bide, or the sec­ond main di­vi­sion in which the car­bide falls in­to ex­cess of wa­ter.

Pu­rifi­ca­tion

It is clear that acety­lene, if it is to be used on a large scale as a do­mes­tic il­lu­mi­nant, must un­der­go such pro­cess­es of pu­rifi­ca­tion as will ren­der it harm­less and in­nocu­ous to health and prop­er­ty, and the soon­er it is rec­og­nized as ab­so­lute­ly es­sen­tial to pu­ri­fy acety­lene be­fore con­sum­ing it the soon­er will the gas ac­quire the pop­ular­ity it de­serves. The on­ly one of the im­pu­ri­ties which of­fers any dif­fi­cul­ty in re­moval is the phos­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen. There are three sub­stances which can be re­lied on more or less to re­move this com­pound, and the gas to be pu­ri­fied may be passed ei­ther through acid cop­per salts, through bleach­ing pow­der or through chromic acid. In ex­per­iments with those var­ious bod­ies it is found that they are all of them ef­fec­tive in al­so rid­ding the acety­lene of the am­mo­nia and sul­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen, pro­vid­ed on­ly that the sur­face area pre­sent­ed to the gas is suf­fi­cient­ly large. The method of wash­ing the gas with acid so­lu­tions of cop­per has been patent­ed by A. Frank of Char­lot­ten­burg, who finds that a con­cen­trat­ed so­lu­tion of cuprous chlo­ride in an acid, the liq­uid be­ing made in­to a paste with kiesel­guhr, is the most ef­fec­tive. Where the pro­duc­tion of acety­lene is go­ing on on a small scale this method of pu­rifi­ca­tion is un­doubt­ed­ly the most con­ve­nient one, as the acid present ab­sorbs the am­mo­nia, and the cop­per salt con­verts the phos­phuret­ted and sul­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen in­to phos­phates and sul­phides. The ves­sel, how­ev­er, which con­tains this mix­ture has to be of earth­en­ware, porce­lain or enam­elled iron on ac­count of the free acid present; the gas must be washed af­ter pu­rifi­ca­tion to re­move traces of hy­drochlo­ric acid, and care must be tak­en to pre­vent the com­plete neu­tral­iza­tion of the acid by the am­mo­nia present in the gas. The sec­ond pro­cess is one patent­ed by Fritz Ull­mann of Gene­va, who uti­lizes chromic acid to ox­idize the phos­phuret­ted and sul­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen and ab­sorb the am­mo­nia, and this method of pu­rifi­ca­tion has proved the most suc­cess­ful in prac­tice, the chromic acid be­ing ab­sorbed by kiesel­guhr and the ma­te­ri­al sold un­der the name of “Her­atol.”

The third pro­cess owes its in­cep­tion to G. Lunge, who rec­om­mends the use of bleach­ing pow­der. Dr P. Wolff has found that when this is used on the large scale there is a risk of the am­mo­nia present in the acety­lene form­ing traces of chlo­ride of ni­tro­gen in the pu­ri­fy­ing-​box­es, and as this is a com­pound which det­onates with con­sid­er­able lo­cal force, it oc­ca­sion­al­ly gives rise to ex­plo­sions in the pu­ri­fy­ing ap­pa­ra­tus. If, how­ev­er, the gas be first passed through a scrub­ber so as to wash out the am­mo­nia this dan­ger is avoid­ed. Dr Wolff em­ploys pu­ri­fiers in which the gas is washed with wa­ter con­tain­ing cal­ci­um chlo­ride, and then passed through bleach­ing-​pow­der so­lu­tion or oth­er ox­idiz­ing ma­te­ri­al.

When acety­lene is burnt from a 000 union jet burn­er, at all or­di­nary pres­sures a smoky flame is ob­tained, but on the pres­sure be­ing in­creased to 4 inch­es a mag­nif­icent flame re­sults, free from smoke, and de­vel­op­ing an il­lu­mi­nat­ing val­ue of 240 can­dles per 5 cu­bic feet of gas con­sumed. Slight­ly high­er val­ues have been ob­tained, but 240 may be tak­en as the av­er­age val­ue un­der these con­di­tions.

Burn­ers.

When acety­lene was first in­tro­duced as a com­mer­cial il­lu­mi­nant in Eng­land, very small union jet nip­ples were uti­lized for its con­sump­tion, but af­ter burn­ing for a short time these nip­ples be­gan to car­bonize, the flame be­ing dis­tort­ed, and then smok­ing oc­curred with the for­ma­tion of a heavy de­posit of soot. While these trou­bles were be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced in Eng­land, at­tempts had been made in Amer­ica to use acety­lene di­lut­ed with a cer­tain pro­por­tion of air which per­mit­ted it to be burnt in or­di­nary flat flame nip­ples; but the dan­ger of such ad­mix­ture be­ing rec­og­nized, nip­ples of the same class as those used in Eng­land were em­ployed, and the same trou­bles en­sued. In France, sin­gle jets made of glass were first em­ployed, and then P. Re­sen­er, H. Luchaire, G. Ragot and oth­ers made burn­ers in which two jets of acety­lene, com­ing from two tubes placed some lit­tle dis­tance apart, im­pinged and splayed each oth­er out in­to a but­ter­fly flame. Soon af­ter­wards, J. S. Bill­willer in­tro­duced the idea of suck­ing air in­to the flame at or just be­low the burn­er tip, and at this junc­ture the Naphey or Dolan burn­er was in­tro­duced in Amer­ica, the prin­ci­ple em­ployed be­ing to use two small and wide­ly sep­arat­ed jets in­stead of the two open­ings of the union jet burn­er, and to make each a minute bun­sen, the acety­lene drag­ging in from the base of the nip­ple enough air to sur­round and pro­tect it while burn­ing from con­tact with the steatite. This class of burn­er forms a ba­sis on which all the lat­er con­struc­tions of burn­er have been found­ed, but had the draw­back that if the flame was turned low, in­suf­fi­cient air to pre­vent car­boniza­tion of the burn­er tips was drawn in, ow­ing to the re­duced flow of gas. This fault has now been re­duced by a cage of steatite round the burn­er tip, which draws in suf­fi­cient air to pre­vent de­po­si­tion.

Oxy-​acety­lene blow­pipe. When acety­lene was first in­tro­duced on a com­mer­cial scale at­tempts were made to uti­lize its great heat of com­bus­tion by us­ing it in con­junc­tion with oxy­gen in the oxy­hy­dro­gen blow­pipe. It was found, how­ev­er, that when us­ing acety­lene un­der low pres­sures, the burn­er tip be­came so heat­ed as to cause the de­com­po­si­tion of some of the gas be­fore com­bus­tion, the jet be­ing choked up by the car­bon which de­posit­ed in a very dense form; and as the use of acety­lene un­der pres­sures greater than one hun­dred inch­es of wa­ter was pro­hib­it­ed, no ad­vance was made in this di­rec­tion. The in­tro­duc­tion of acety­lene dis­solved un­der pres­sure in ace­tone con­tained in cylin­ders filled with porous ma­te­ri­al drew at­ten­tion again to this use of the gas, and by us­ing a spe­cial con­struc­tion of blow­pipe an oxy-​acety­lene flame is pro­duced, which is far hot­ter than the oxy-​hy­dro­gen flame, and at the same time is so re­duc­ing in its char­ac­ter that it can be used for the di­rect au­to­ge­nous weld­ing of steel and many mi­nor met­al­lur­gi­cal pro­cess­es.

REF­ER­ENCES.—F. H. Leeds and W. A. But­ter­field, Cal­ci­um Car­bide and Acety­lene (1903); F. Dom­mer, L’Acety­lene et ses ap­pli­ca­tions (1896); V. B. Lewes, Acety­lene (1900); F. Liebe­tanz, Cal­ci­um-​car­bid und Acetylen (1899); G. Pelissier, L’Eclairage a l’acety­lene (1897); C. de Per­rodil, Le car­bu­re de cal­ci­um et l’acety­lene (1897). For a com­plete list of the var­ious pa­pers and mem­oirs on Acety­lene, see A. Lud­wig’s Fuhrer durch die gesammte Cal­ci­um car­bid-​und-​Acetylen-​Lit­er­atur, Berlin. (V. B. L.)

ACHAEA, a dis­trict on the north­ern coast of the Pelo­pon­nese, stretch­ing from the moun­tain ranges of Ery­man­thus and Cyl­lene on the S. to a nar­row strip of fer­tile land on the N., bor­der­ing the Corinthi­an Gulf, in­to which the moun­tain Panachaicus projects. Achaea is bound­ed on the W. by the ter­ri­to­ry of Elis, on the E. by that of Sicy­on, which, how­ev­er, was some­times in­clud­ed in it. The ori­gin of the name has giv­en rise to much spec­ula­tion; the cur­rent the­ory is that the Achaeans (q.v.) were driv­en back in­to this re­gion by the Do­ri­an in­vaders of the Pelo­pon­nese. An­oth­er Achaea, in the south of Thes­saly, called some­times Achaea Ph­thi­otis, has been sup­posed to be the cra­dle of the race. In Ro­man times the name of the province of Achaea was giv­en to the whole of Greece, ex­cept Thes­saly, Epirus, and Acar­na­nia. Herodotus (i. 145) men­tions the twelve cities Of Achaea; three met as a re­li­gious con­fed­er­acy in the tem­ple of Po­sei­don He­li­co­nius at He­lice; for their lat­er his­to­ry see ACHAEAN LEAGUE. Dur­ing the mid­dle ages, af­ter the Latin con­quest of the East­ern Em­pire, Achaea was a Latin prin­ci­pal­ity, the first prince be­ing William de Cham­plitte (d. 1209). It sur­vived, with var­ious dis­mem­ber­ments, un­til 1430, when the last prince, Cen­tu­ri­one Za­ccaria, ced­ed the rem­nant of it to his son-​in-​law, Theodor­us II., despot of Mis­tra. In 1460 it was con­quered, with the rest of the Morea, by the Turks. In mod­ern times the coast of Achaea is main­ly giv­en up to the cur­rant in­dus­try; the cur­rants are shipped from Pa­tras, the sec­ond town of Greece, and from Ae­gion (Vos­titza).

ACHAEAN LEAGUE, a con­fed­er­ation of the an­cient towns of Achaea. Stand­ing iso­lat­ed on their nar­row strips of plain, these towns were al­ways ex­posed to the raids of pi­rates is­su­ing from the re­cess­es of the north coast of the Corinthi­an Gulf. It was no doubt as a pro­tec­tion against such dan­gers that the ear­li­est league of twelve Achaean cities arose, though we are nowhere ex­plic­it­ly in­formed of its func­tions oth­er than the com­mon wor­ship of Zeus Amar­ius at Aegium and an oc­ca­sion­al ar­bi­tra­tion be­tween Greek bel­liger­ents. Its im­por­tance grew in the 4th cen­tu­ry, when we find it fight­ing in the The­ban wars (368-362 B.C.), against Philip (338) and An­tipa­ter (330). About 288 Antigonus Go­natas dis­solved the league, which had fur­nished a use­ful base for pre­tenders against Cas­sander’s re­gen­cy; but by 280 four towns com­bined again, and be­fore long the ten sur­viv­ing cities of Achaea had re­newed their fed­er­ation. Antigonus’ pre­oc­cu­pa­tion dur­ing the Celtic in­va­sions, Spar­ta’s pros­tra­tion af­ter the Chre­monidean cam­paigns, the wealth amassed by Achaean ad­ven­tur­ers abroad and the sub­si­dies of Egypt, the stand­ing foe of Mace­do­nia, all en­hanced the league’s im­por­tance. Most of all did it prof­it by the states­man­ship of Ara­tus (q.v.), who ini­ti­at­ed its ex­pan­sive pol­icy, un­til in 228 it com­prised Ar­ca­dia, Ar­go­lis, Corinth and Aegi­na.

Ara­tus prob­ably al­so or­ga­nized the new fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion, the char­ac­ter of which, ow­ing to the scanty and some­what per­plex­ing na­ture of our ev­idence, we can on­ly ap­prox­imate­ly de­ter­mine. The league em­braced an in­def­inite num­ber of city-​states which main­tained their in­ter­nal in­de­pen­dence prac­ti­cal­ly undi­min­ished, and through their sev­er­al mag­is­trates, as­sem­blies and law-​courts ex­er­cised all tra­di­tion­al pow­ers of self-​gov­ern­ment. On­ly in mat­ters of for­eign pol­itics and war was their com­pe­tence re­strict­ed.

The cen­tral gov­ern­ment, like that of the con­stituent cities, was of a demo­crat­ic cast. The chief leg­isla­tive pow­ers resid­ed in a pop­ular as­sem­bly in which ev­ery mem­ber of the league over thir­ty years of age could speak and vote. This body met for three days in spring and au­tumn at Aegium to dis­cuss the league’s pol­icy and elect the fed­er­al mag­is­trates. What­ev­er the num­ber of its at­ten­dant burgess­es, each city count­ed but one on a di­vi­sion. Ex­traor­di­nary as­sem­blies could be con­voked at any time or place on spe­cial emer­gen­cies. A coun­cil of 120 un­paid del­egates, se­lect­ed from the lo­cal coun­cils, served part­ly as a com­mit­tee for prepar­ing the as­sem­bly’s pro­gramme, part­ly as an ad­min­is­tra­tive board which re­ceived em­bassies, ar­bi­trat­ed be­tween con­tend­ing cities and ex­er­cised pe­nal ju­ris­dic­tion over of­fend­ers against the con­sti­tu­tion. But per­haps some of these du­ties con­cerned the di­cas­tae and ger­ou­sia, whose func­tions are nowhere de­scribed. The chief mag­is­tra­cy was the strate­gia (ten­able ev­ery sec­ond year), which com­bined with an un­re­strict­ed com­mand in the field a large mea­sure of civ­il au­thor­ity. Be­sides be­ing au­tho­rized to ve­to mo­tions, the strate­gus (gen­er­al) had prac­ti­cal­ly the sole pow­er of in­tro­duc­ing mea­sures be­fore the as­sem­bly. The ten elec­tive demi­ur­gi, who presid­ed over this body, formed a kind of cab­inet, and pethaps act­ed as de­part­men­tal chiefs. We al­so hear of an un­der-​strate­gus, a sec­re­tary, a cav­al­ry com­man­der and an ad­mi­ral. All these high­er of­fi­cers were un­paid. Philopo­emen (q.v.) trans­ferred the seat of as­sem­bly from town to town by ro­ta­tion, and placed de­pen­dent com­mu­ni­ties on an equal foot­ing with their for­mer suzerains.

The league pre­scribed uni­form laws, stan­dards and coinage; it sum­moned con­tin­gents, im­posed tax­es and fined or co­erced re­frac­to­ry mem­bers.

The first fed­er­al wars were di­rect­ed against Mace­do­nia; in 266-263 the league fought in the Chre­monidean league, in 243-241 against Antigonus Go­natas and Ae­to­lia, be­tween 239 and 229 with Ae­to­lia against Demetrius. A greater dan­ger arose (227-223) from the at­tacks of Cleomenes III. (q.v.). Ow­ing to Ara­tus’s ir­res­olute gen­er­al­ship, the in­do­lence of the rich burghers and the in­ad­equate pro­vi­sion for levy­ing troops and pay­ing mer­ce­nar­ies, the league lost sev­er­al bat­tles and much of its ter­ri­to­ry; but rather than com­pro­mise with the Spar­tan Grac­chus the as­sem­bly ne­go­ti­at­ed with Antigonus Do­son, who re­cov­ered the lost dis­tricts but re­tained Corinth for him­self (223-221). Sim­ilar­ly the Achaeans could not check the in­cur­sions of Ae­to­lian ad­ven­tur­ers in 220-218, and when Philip V. came to the res­cue he made them trib­utary and an­nexed much of the Pelo­pon­nese. Un­der Philopo­emen the league with a re­or­ga­nized army rout­ed the Ae­to­lians (210) and Spar­tans (207, 201). Af­ter their benev­olent neu­tral­ity dur­ing the Mace­do­nian war the Ro­man gen­er­al, T. Quinc­tius Flamin­inus, re­stored all their lost pos­ses­sions and sanc­tioned the in­cor­po­ra­tion of Spar­ta and Messene (191), thus bring­ing the en­tire Pelo­pon­nese un­der Achaean con­trol. The league even sent troops to Perga­mum against An­ti­ochus (190). The an­nex­ation of Ae­to­lia and Za­cyn­thus was for­bid­den by Rome. More­over, Spar­ta and Messene al­ways re­mained un­will­ing mem­bers. Af­ter Philopo­emen’s death the aris­to­crats ini­ti­at­ed a strong­ly phi­lo-​Ro­man pol­icy, de­clared war against King Perseus and de­nounced all sym­pa­thiz­ers with Mace­do­nia. This ag­ita­tion in­duced the Ro­mans to de­port 1000 promi­nent Achaeans, and, fail­ing proof of trea­son against Rome, to de­tain them sev­en­teen years. These hostages, when re­stored in 150, swelled the ranks of the pro­le­tari­ate op­po­si­tion, whose lead­ers, to cov­er their mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion at home, pre­cip­itat­ed a war by at­tack­ing Spar­ta in de­fi­ance of Rome. The fed­er­al troops were rout­ed in cen­tral Greece by Q. Cae­cil­ius Metel­lus Mase­donicus, and again near Corinth by L. Mum­mius Achaicus (146). The Ro­mans now dis­solved the league (in ef­fect, if not in name), and took mea­sures to iso­late the com­mu­ni­ties (see POLY­BIUS). Au­gus­tus in­sti­tut­ed an Achaean syn­od com­pris­ing the de­pen­dent cities of Pelo­pon­nese and cen­tral Greece; this body sat at Ar­gos and act­ed as guardian of Hel­lenic sen­ti­ment.

The chief de­fect of the league lay in its lack of prop­er pro­vi­sion for se­cur­ing ef­fi­cient armies and reg­ular pay­ment of im­posts, and for deal­ing with dis­af­fect­ed mem­bers. More­over, ow­ing to dif­fi­cul­ties of trav­el, the as­sem­bly and mag­is­tra­cies were prac­ti­cal­ly mo­nop­olized by the rich, who shaped the fed­er­al pol­icy in their own in­ter­est. But their rule was most­ly ju­di­cious, and when at last they lost con­trol the en­su­ing mob-​rule soon ru­ined the coun­try. On the oth­er hand, it is the glo­ry of the Achaean league to have com­bined city au­ton­omy with an or­ga­nized cen­tral ad­min­is­tra­tion, and in this way to have post­poned the en­tire de­struc­tion of Greek lib­er­ty for over a cen­tu­ry.

CHIEF SOURCES.–Poly­bius (esp. bks. ii., iv., v., xxi­ii., xxvi­ii.),who is fol­lowed by Livy (bks. xxxii.-xxxv., xxxvi­ii., &c.); Pau­sa­nias vii. 9-24; Stra­bo vi­ii. 384; F. Free­man, Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, i. (ed. 1893, Lon­don), chs. v.-ix.; M. Dubois, Les lignes Etoli­enne et Acheenne (Paris, 1885); A. Holm, Greek His­to­ry, iv.; G. Hertzberg, Geschichte Griechen­lands unter den Romern, i. (Leipzig, 1866); L. War­ren, Greek Fed­er­al Coinage (Lon­don, 1863); E. Hicks, Greek His­tor­ical In­scrip­tions (Ox­ford, 1892), 169, 187, 198, 201; W.. Dit­ten­berg­er, Syl­loge In­scrip­tio­nunn Grae­carum (Leipzig, 1898–1901), 236, 282, 316; H. Fran­cotte in Musee Belge (1906), pp. 4-20. See al­so art. ROME, His­to­ry, ii. “The Re­pub­lic,” sect. B(b). (M. O. B. C.)

ACHAEANS (’Achaioi, Lat. Achivi), one of the four chief di­vi­sions of the an­cient greek peo­ples, de­scend­ed, ac­cord­ing to leg­end, from Achaeus, son of Xuthus, son of Hellen. This Hes­iod­ic ge­neal­ogy con­nects the Achaeans close­ly with the Io­ni­ans, but his­tor­ical­ly they ap­proach near­er to the Ae­olians. Some even hold that Ae­olus is on­ly a form of Achaeus. In the Home­ric po­ems (1000 B.C.) the Achaeans are the mas­ter race in Greece; they are rep­re­sent­ed both in Homer and in all lat­er tra­di­tions as hav­ing come in­to Greece about three gen­er­ations be­fore the Tro­jan war (1184 B.C.), i.e. about 1300 B.C. They found the land oc­cu­pied by a peo­ple known by the an­cients as Pelas­gians, who con­tin­ued down to clas­si­cal times the main el­ement in the pop­ula­tion even in the states un­der Achaean and lat­er un­der Do­ri­an rule. In some cas­es it formed a serf class, e.g. the Pen­es­tae in Thes­saly, the Helots in La­co­nia and the Gym­ne­sii at Ar­gos, whilst it prac­ti­cal­ly com­posed the whole pop­ula­tion of Ar­ca­dia and At­ti­ca, which nev­er came un­der ei­ther Achaean or Do­ri­an rule. This peo­ple had dwelt in the Aegean from the Stone Age, and, though still in the Bronze Age at the Achaean con­quest, had made great ad­vances in the use­ful and or­na­men­tal arts. They were of short stature, with dark hair and eyes, and gen­er­al­ly dolicho­cephal­ic. Their chief cen­tres were at Cnos­sus (Crete), in Ar­go­lis, La­co­nia and At­ti­ca, in each be­ing ruled by an­cient lines of kings. In Ar­go­lis Proe­tus built Tiryns, but lat­er, un­der Perseus, Myce­nae took the lead un­til the Achaean con­quest. All the an­cient dy­nas­ties traced their de­scent from Po­sei­don, who at the time of the Achaean con­quest was the chief male di­vin­ity of Greece and the is­lands. The Pelas­gians prob­ably spoke an In­do-​Eu­ro­pean lan­guage adopt­ed by their con­querors with slight mod­ifi­ca­tions. (See fur­ther PELAS­GIANS for a dis­cus­sion of oth­er views.)

The Achaeans, on the oth­er hand, were tall, fair-​haired and grey-​eyed, and their chiefs traced their de­scent from Zeus, Who with the Hy­per­bore­an Apol­lo was their chief male di­vin­ity. They first ap­pear at Dodona, whence they crossed Pin­dus in­to Ph­thi­otis. The lead­ers of the Achaean in­va­sion were Pelops, who took pos­ses­sion of Elis, and Aea­cus, who be­came mas­ter of Aegi­na and was said to have in­tro­duced there the wor­ship of Zeus Pan­hel­le­nius, whose cult was al­so set up at Olympia. They brought with them iron, which they used for their long swords and for their cut­ting im­ple­ments; the cos­tume of both sex­es was dis­tinct from that of the Pelas­gians; they used round shields with a cen­tral boss in­stead of the 8-shaped or rec­taogu­lar shields of the lat­ter; they fas­tened their gar­ments with brooches, and burned their dead in­stead of bury­ing them as did the Pelas­gians. They in­tro­duced a spe­cial style of or­na­ment (“ge­omet­ric”) in­stead of that of the Bronze Age, char­ac­ter­ized by spi­rals and ma­rine an­imals and plants. The Achaeans, or Hel­lenes, as they were lat­er termed, were on this hy­poth­esis one of the fair-​haired tribes of up­per Eu­rope known to the an­cients as Kel­toi (Celts), who from time to time have pressed down over the Alps in­to the south­ern lands, suc­ces­sive­ly as Achaeans, Gauls, Goths and Franks, and af­ter the con­quest of the in­dige­nous small dark race in no long time died out un­der cli­mat­ic con­di­tions fa­tal to their physique and morale. The cul­ture of the Home­ric Achaeans cor­re­sponds to a large ex­tent with that of the ear­ly Iron Age of the up­per Danube (Hall­statt) and to the ear­ly Iron Age of up­per Italy (Vil­lano­va).

See W. Ridge­way, The Ear­ly Age of Greece (1901), for a de­tailed dis­cus­sion of the ev­idence; ar­ti­cles by Ridge­way and J. L. Myres in the Clas­si­cal Re­view, vol. xvi. 1902, pp. 68-93, 135. See al­so J. B. Bury’s His­to­ry of Greece (1902) and art. in Jour­nal of Hel­lenic Stud­ies, xv., 1895, pp. 217 foll.; G. G. A. Mur­ray, Rise of the Greek Epic (1907), chap. ii.; An­drew Lang, Homer and his Age (1906); G. Bu­solt, Griech. Gesch. ed. 2, vol. i. p. 190 (1893); D. B. Mon­ro’s ed. of the Il­iad (1901), pp. 484-488. (W. RI.)

ACHAEMENES (HAKHAMANI), the epony­mous an­ces­tor of the roy­al house of Per­sia, the Achaemenidae, “a clan fre­tre of the Pasar­gadae” (Herod. i. 125), the lead­ing Per­sian tribe. Ac­cord­ing to Dar­ius in the Be­his­tun in­scrip­tion and Herod. iii. 75, vii. 11, he was the fa­ther of Teis­pes, the great-​grand­fa­ther of Cyrus. Cyrus him­self, in his procla­ma­tion to the Baby­lo­ni­ans af­ter the con­quest of Baby­lon, does not men­tion his name. Whether he re­al­ly was a his­tor­ical per­son­age, or mere­ly the myth­ical an­ces­tor of the fam­ily can­not be de­cid­ed. Ac­cord­ing to Aelian (Hist. an­im. xii. 21), he was bred by an ea­gle. We learn from Cyrus’s procla­ma­tion that Teis­pes and his suc­ces­sors had be­come kings of An­shan, i.e. a part of Elam (Su­siana), Where they ruled as vas­sals of the Me­di­an kings, un­til Cyrus the Great in 550 B.C. found­ed the Per­sian em­pire. Af­ter the death of Cam­by­ses, the younger line of the Achaemenidae came to the throne with Dar­ius, the son of Hys­taspes, who was, like Cyrus, the great-​grand­son of Teis­pes. Cyrus, Dar­ius and all the lat­er kings of Per­sia call them­selves Achaemenides (Hakhaman­ishiya). With Dar­ius III. Codoman­nus the dy­nasty be­came ex­tinct and the Per­sian em­pire came to an end (330). The ad­jec­tive Achaeme­nius is used by the Latin po­ets as the equiv­alent of “Per­sian” (Ho­race, Odes, ii. 12, 21). See PER­SIA.

The name Achaemenes is borne by a son of Dar­ius I., broth­er of Xerx­es. Af­ter the first re­bel­lion of Egypt, he be­came satrap of Egypt (484 B.C.); he com­mand­ed the Per­sian fleet at Salamis, and was (460 B.C.) de­feat­ed and slain by Inarus, the lead­er of the sec­ond re­bel­lion of Egypt.

ACHARD, FRANZ CARL (1753–1821), Prus­sian chemist, was born at Berlin on the 28th of April 1753, and died at Kunern, in Sile­sia, on the 20th of April 1821. He was a pi­oneer in turn­ing to prac­ti­cal ac­count A. S. Marggraf’s dis­cov­ery of the pres­ence of sug­ar in beet­root, and by the end of the 18th cen­tu­ry he was pro­duc­ing con­sid­er­able quan­ti­ties of beet-​sug­ar, though by a very im­per­fect pro­cess, at Kunern, on an es­tate which was grant­ed him about 1800 by the king of Prus­sia. There too he car­ried on a school of in­struc­tion in sug­ar-​man­ufac­ture, which had an in­ter­na­tion­al rep­uta­tion. For a time he was di­rec­tor of the physics class of the Berlin Acade­my of Sci­ences, and he pub­lished sev­er­al vol­umes of chem­ical and phys­ical re­search­es, dis­cov­er­ing among oth­er things a method of work­ing plat­inum.

ACHAR­IUS, ERIK (1757-1819), Swedish botanist, was born On the 10th of Oc­to­ber 1757, and in 1773 en­tered Up­sala Uni­ver­si­ty, where he was a pupil of Lin­naeus. He grad­uat­ed M.D. at Lund in 1782, and in 1801 was ap­point­ed pro­fes­sor of botany at Wad­ste­na Acade­my. He de­vot­ed him­self to the study of lichens, and all his pub­li­ca­tions were con­nect­ed with that class of plants, his Lichenographia Uni­ver­salis (Got­tin­gen, 1804) be­ing the most im­por­tant. He died at Wad­ste­na on the 13th of Au­gust 1819.

ACHATES, the com­pan­ion of Ae­neas in Vir­gil’s Aeneid. The ex­pres­sion “fidus Achates” has be­come prover­bial for a loy­al and de­vot­ed com­pan­ion.

ACH­ELOUS (mod. As­propota­mo, “white riv­er”), the largest riv­er in Greece (130 m.). It ris­es in Mt. Pin­dus, and, di­vid­ing Ae­tol­la from Acar­na­nia, falls in­to the Io­ni­an Sea. In the low­er part of its course the riv­er winds through fer­tile, marshy plains. Its wa­ter is charged with fine mud, which is de­posit­ed along its banks and at its mouth, where a num­ber of small is­lands (Echi­nades) have been formed. It was for­mer­ly called Thoas, from its im­petu­os­ity; and its up­per por­tion was called by some In­achus, the name Acholous be­ing re­strict­ed to the short­er east­ern branch. Acholous is cou­pled with Ocean by Homer (Il. xxi. 193) as chief of rivers, and the name is giv­en to sev­er­al oth­er rivers in Greece. The Dame ap­pears in cult and in mythol­ogy as that of the typ­ical riv­er-​god; a fa­mil­iar leg­end is that of his con­test with Her­acles for Deiani­ra.

ACHEN­BACH, AN­DREAS (1815– ), Ger­man land­scape painter, was born at Cas­sel in 1815. He be­gan his art ed­uca­tion in 1827 in Dus­sel­dorf un­der W. Schad­ow and at the acade­my. In his ear­ly work he fol­lowed the pseu­do-​ide­al­ism of the Ger­man ro­man­tic school, but on re­mov­ing to Mu­nich in 1835, the strooger in­flu­ence of L. Gurlitt turned his tal­ent in­to new chan­nels, and he be­came the founder of the Ger­man re­al­is­tic school. Al­though his land­scapes evince too much of his aim at pic­ture-​mak­ing and lack per­son­al tem­per­ament, he is a mas­ter of tech­nique, and is his­tor­ical­ly im­por­tant as a re­former. A num­ber of his finest works are to be found at the Berlin Na­tion­al Gallery, the New Pinakothek in Mu­nich, and the gal­leries at Dres­den, Darm­stadt, Cologne, Dus­sel­dorf, Leipzig and Ham­burg.

His broth­er, OS­WALD ACHEN­BACH (1827–1905), was born at Dus­sel­dorf and re­ceived his art ed­uca­tion from An­dreas. His land­scapes gen­er­al­ly dwell on the rich and glow­ing ef­fects of colour which drew him to the Bay of Naples and the neigh­bour­hood of Rome. He is rep­re­sent­ed at most of the im­por­tant Ger­man gal­leries of mod­ern art.

ACHEN­WALL, GOT­TFRIED (1719-1772), Ger­man statis­ti­ciao, was born at El­bing, in East Prus­sia, in Oc­to­ber 1719. He stud­ied at Je­na, Halle and Leipzig, and took a de­gree at the last-​named uni­ver­si­ty. He re­moved to Mar­burg in 1746, where for two years he read lec­tures on his­to­ry and on the law of na­ture and of na­tions. Here, too, he com­menced those in­quiries in statis­tics by which his name be­came known. In 1748 he was giv­en a pro­fes­sor­ship at Got­tin­gen, where he resid­ed till his death in 1772. His chief works were con­nect­ed with statis­tics. The Staatsver­fas­sung der heuti­gen vornehm­sten eu­ropais­chen Re­iche ap­peared first in 1749, and re­vised edi­tions were pub­lished in 1762 and 1768.

ACHERON, in Greek mythol­ogy, the son of Gaea or Deme­ter. As a pun­ish­ment for sup­ply­ing the Ti­tans with wa­ter in their con­test with Zeus, he was turned in­to a riv­er of Hades, over which de­part­ed souls were fer­ried by Charon. The name (mean­ing the riv­er of “woe”) was even­tu­al­ly used to des­ig­nate the whole of the low­er world (Sto­baeus, Ecl. Phys. i. 41, sec. sec. 50, 54).

ACHI­ACHARUS, a name oc­cur­ring in the book of To­bit (i. 21 f.) as that of a nephew of To­bit and an of­fi­cial at the court of Esarhad­don at Nin­eveh. There are ref­er­ences in Ru­ma­ni­an, Slavon­ic, Ar­me­ni­an, Ara­bic and Syr­iac lit­er­ature to a leg­end, of which the hero is Ahikar (for Ar­me­ni­an, Ara­bic and Syr­iac, see The Sto­ry of Ahikar, F. C. Cony­beare, Ron­del Har­ris and Agnes Lewis, Camb. 1898), and it was point­ed out by George Hoff­mann in 1880 that this Ahikar and the Achi­acharus of To­bit are iden­ti­cal. It has been con­tend­ed that there are traces of the leg­end even in the New Tes­ta­ment, and there is a strik­ing sim­ilar­ity be­tween it and the Life of Ae­sop by Max­imus Planudes (ch. xxi­ii.-xxxii.). An east­ern sage Achaicarus is men­tioned by Stra­bo. It would seem, there­fore, that the leg­end was un­doubt­ed­ly ori­en­tal in ori­gin, though the re­la­tion­ship of the var­ious ver­sions can scarce­ly be re­cov­ered.

See the Jew­ish En­cy­clopae­dia and the En­cy­clopae­dia Bib­li­ca; al­so M. R. James in The Guardian, Feb. 2, 1898, p. 163 f.

ACHILL (“Ea­gle”), the largest is­land off Ire­land, sep­arat­ed from the Cur­raun penin­su­la of the west coast by the nar­row Achill Sound. Pop. (1901) 4929. It is in­clud­ed in the coun­ty Mayo, in the west­ern par­lia­men­tary di­vi­sion. Its shape is tri­an­gu­lar, and its ex­tent is 15 m. from E. to W. and 12 from N. to S. The area is 57 sq. m. The is­land is moun­tain­ous, the high­est points be­ing Slieve Croaghaun (2192 ft.) in the west, and Sheve­more (2204 ft.) in the north; the ex­treme west­ern point is the bold and rugged promon­to­ry of Achill Head, and the north­west­ern and south-​west­ern coasts con­sist of ranges of mag­nif­icent cliffs, reach­ing a height of 800 ft. in the cliffs of Minaun, near the vil­lage of Keel on the south. The sea­ward slope of Croaghaun is abrupt and in parts pre­cip­itous, and its jagged flanks, to­geth­er with the ser­rat­ed ridge of the Head and the view over the bro­ken coast-​line and is­lands of the coun­ties Mayo and Gal­way, at­tract many vis­itors to the is­land dur­ing sum­mer. Des­olate bogs, in­ca­pable of cul­ti­va­tion, al­ter­nate with the moun­tains; and the in­hab­itants earn a scanty sub­sis­tence by fish­ing and tillage, or by seek­ing em­ploy­ment in Eng­land and Scot­land dur­ing the har­vest­ing. The Con­gest­ed Dis­tricts Board, how­ev­er, have made ef­forts to im­prove the Con­di­tion of the peo­ple, and a branch of the Mid­land Great West­ern rail­way to Achill Sound, to­geth­er with a swiv­el bridge across the sound, im­proved com­mu­ni­ca­tions and make for pros­per­ity. Dugort, the prin­ci­pal vil­lage, con­tains sev­er­al ho­tels. Here is a Protes­tant colony. known as “the Set­tle­ment” and found­ed in 1834. There are an­ti­quar­ian re­mains (crom­lechs, stone cir­cles and the like) at Slieve­more and else­where.

ACHILLES (Gr. ‘Achilleus), one of the most fa­mous of the hegendary heroes of an­cient Greece and the cen­tral fig­ure of Homer’s Il­iad. He was said to have been the son of Peleus, king of the Myr­mi­dones of Ph­thia in Thes­saly, by Thetis, one of the Nerei­ds. His grand­fa­ther Aea­cus was, ac­cord­ing to the leg­end, the son of Zeus him­self. The sto­ry of the child­hood of Achilles in Homer dif­fers from that giv­en by lat­er writ­ers. Ac­cord­ing to Homer, he was brought up by his moth­er at Ph­thia with his cousin and in­ti­mate friend Pa­tro­clus, and learned the arts of war and elo­quence from Phoenix, while the Cen­taur Ch­iron taught him mu­sic and medicine. When sum­moned to the war against Troy, he set sail at once with his Myr­mi­dones in fifty ships.

Post-​Home­ric sources add to the leg­end cer­tain pic­turesque de­tails which bear all the ev­idence of their prim­itive ori­gin, and which in some cas­es be­long to the com­mon stock of In­do-​Ger­man­ic myths. Ac­cord­ing to one of these sto­ries Thetis used to lay the in­fant Achilles ev­ery night un­der live coals, anoint­ing him by day with am­brosia, in or­der to make him im­mor­tal. Peleus, hav­ing sur­prised her in the act, in alarm snatched the boy from the flames; where­upon Thetis fled back to the sea in anger (Apol­lodor­us iii. 13; Apol­lo­nius Rhodius iv. 869). Ac­cord­ing to an­oth­er sto­ry Thetis dipped the child in the wa­ters of the riv­er Styx, by which his whole body be­came in­vul­ner­able, ex­cept that part of his heel by which she held him; whence the prover­bial “heel of Achilles” (Statius, Achilleis, i. 269). With this may be com­pared the sim­ilar sto­ry told of the north­ern hero Sig­urd. The boy was af­ter­wards en­trust­ed to the care of Ch­iron, who, to give him the strength nec­es­sary for war, fed him with the en­trails of li­ons and the mar­row of bears and wild boars. To pre­vent his go­ing to the siege of Troy, Thetis dis­guised him in fe­male ap­par­el, and hid him among the maid­ens at the court of King Ly­comedes in Scy­ros; but Odysseus, com­ing to the is­land in the dis­guise of a ped­lar, spread his wares, in­clud­ing a spear and shield, be­fore the king’s daugh­ters, among whom was Achilles. Then he caused an alarm to be sound­ed; where­upon the girls fled, but Achilles seized the arms, and so re­vealed him­self, and was eas­ily per­suad­ed to fol­low the Greeks (Hy­gi­nus, Fab. 96; Statius, Ach. i.; Apol­lodor­us, l.c.). This sto­ry may be com­pared with the Celtic leg­end of the boy­hood of Pere­dur or Perce­val.

Dur­ing the first nine years of the war as de­scribed in the Il­iad, Achilles rav­aged the coun­try round Troy, and took twelve cities. In the tenth year oc­curred the quar­rel with Agamem­non. In or­der to ap­pease the wrath of Apol­lo, who had vis­it­ed the camp with a pesti­lence, Agamem­non had re­stored Chry­seis, his prize of war, to her fa­ther, a priest of the god, but as a com­pen­sa­tion de­prived Achilles, who had open­ly de­mand­ed this restora­tion, of his favourite slave Bri­seis. Achilles with­drew in wrath to his tent, where he con­soled him­self with mu­sic and singing, and re­fused to take any fur­ther part in the war. Dur­ing his ab­sence the Greeks were hard pressed, and at last he so far re­laxed his anger as to al­low his friend Pa­tro­clus to per­son­ate him, lend­ing him his char­iot and ar­mour. The slay­ing of Pa­tro­clus by the Tro­jan hero Hec­tor roused Achilles from his in­dif­fer­ence; ea­ger to avenge his beloved com­rade, he sal­lied forth, equipped with new ar­mour fash­ioned by Hep­haes­tus, slew Hec­tor, and, af­ter drag­ging his body round the walls of Troy, re­stored it to the aged King Pri­am at his earnest en­treaty. The Il­iad con­cludes with the fu­ner­al rites of Hec­tor. It makes no men­tion of the death of Achilles, but hints at its tak­ing place “be­fore the Scaean gates.” In the Odyssey (xxiv. 36. 72) his ash­es are said to have been buried in a gold­en urn, to­geth­er with those of Pa­tro­clus, at a place on the Helle­spont, where a tomb was erect­ed to his mem­ory; his soul dwells in the low­er world, where it is seen by Odysseus. The con­test be­tween Ajax and Odysseus for his arms is al­so men­tioned. The Aethiopis of Arct­inus of Mile­tus took up the sto­ry of the Il­iad. It told how Achilles, hav­ing slain the Ama­zon Penthe­sileia and Mem­non, king of the Aethiopi­ans, who had come to the as­sis­tance of the Tro­jans, was him­self slain by Paris (Alexan­der), whose ar­row was guid­ed by Apol­lo to his vul­ner­able heel (Vir­gil, Aen. vi. 57; Ovid, Met. xii. 600). Again, it is said that Achilles, en­am­oured of Polyx­ena, the daugh­ter of Pri­am, of­fered to join the Tro­jans on con­di­tion that he re­ceived her hand in mar­riage. This was agreed to; Achilles went un­armed to the tem­ple of Apol­lo Thym­braeus, and was slain by Paris (Di­etys iv. 11). Ac­cord­ing to some, he was slain by Apol­lo him­self (Quint. Smyrn. iii. 61; Ho­race, Odes, iv. 6, 3). Hy­gi­nus (Fab. 107) makes Apol­lo as­sume the form of Paris.

Lat­er sto­ries say that Thetis snatched his body from the pyre and con­veyed it to the is­land of Leuke, at the mouth of the Danube, where he ruled with Iphi­geneia as his wife; or that he was car­ried to the Elysian fields, where his wife was Medea or He­len. He was wor­shipped in many places: at Leuke, where he was hon­oured with of­fer­ings and games; in Spar­ta, Elis, and es­pe­cial­ly Sigeum on the Helle­spont, where his fa­mous tu­mu­lus was erect­ed.

Achilles is a typ­ical Greek hero; hand­some, brave, cel­ebrat­ed for his fleet­ness of foot, prone to ex­cess of wrath and grief, at the same time he is com­pas­sion­ate, hos­pitable, full of af­fec­tion for his moth­er and re­spect for the gods. In works of art he is rep­re­sent­ed, like Ares, as a young man of splen­did phys­ical pro­por­tions, with bristling hair like a horse’s mane and a slen­der neck. Al­though the fig­ure of the hero fre­quent­ly oc­curs in groups—such as the work of Sco­pas show­ing his re­moval to the is­land of Leuke by Po­sei­don and Thetis, es­cort­ed by Neroids and Tri­tons, and the com­bat over his dead body in the Aegine­tan sculp­tures–no iso­lat­ed stat­ue or bust can with cer­tain­ty be iden­ti­fied with him; the stat­ue in the Lou­vre (from the Vil­la Borgh­ese), which was thought to have the best claim, is gen­er­al­ly tak­en for Ares or pos­si­bly Alexan­der. There are many vase and wall paint­ings and bas-​re­liefs il­lus­tra­tive of in­ci­dents in his life. Var­ious et­ymolo­gies of the name have been sug­gest­ed: “with­out a lip” (a’, chei­los), Achilles be­ing re­gard­ed as a riv­er-​god, a stream which over­flows its banks, or, re­fer­ring to the sto­ry that, when Thetis laid him in the fire, one of his lips, which he had licked, was con­sumed (Tzet­zes on Ly­cophron, 178); “re­strain­er of the peo­ple,’ (eche-​laos); “heal­er of sor­row” (ache-​loios); “the ob­scure” (con­nect­ed with achlus, “mist”); “snake­born” (echis), the snake be­ing one of the chief forms tak­en by Thetis. The most gen­er­al­ly re­ceived view makes him a god of light, es­pe­cial­ly of the sun or of the light­ning.

See E. H. Mey­er, In­doger­man­is­che Mythen, ii., Achilleis, 1887; F. G. Wel­ck­er, Der epis­che Cy­clus, 1865–1882; ar­ti­cles in Pauly-​Wis­sowa, Rcal-​En­cy­clopadie der clas­sis­chen Al­ter­tum­swis­senschait, Darem­berg and Saglio’s Dic­tio­nnaire des An­tiq­uites and Rosch­er’s Lexikon der Mytholo­gie; see al­so T. W. Allen in Clas­si­cal Re­view, May 1906; A. E. Craw­ley, J. G. Fraz­er, A. Lang, Ibid., June, Ju­ly 1893, on Achilles in Scy­ros. In the ar­ti­cle GREEK ART, fig. 12 rep­re­sents the con­flict over the dead body of Achilles.

ACHILLES TATIUS, of Alexan­dria, Greek rhetori­cian, au­thor of the erot­ic ro­mance, the Ad­ven­tures of Leu­cippe and Cleitophon, flour­ished about A.D. 450, per­haps lat­er. Suidas, who alone calls him Statius, says that he be­came a Chris­tian and even­tu­al­ly a bish­op–like Hel­lodor­us, whom he im­itat­ed–but there is no ev­idence of this. Photius, while severe­ly crit­iciz­ing his laps­es in­to in­de­cen­cy, high­ly prais­es the con­cise­ness and clear­ness of his style, which, how­ev­er, is ar­ti­fi­cial and laboured. Many of the in­ci­dents of the ro­mance are high­ly im­prob­able, and the char­ac­ters, ex­cept the hero­ine, fail to en­list sym­pa­thy. The de­scrip­tive pas­sages and di­gres­sions, al­though te­dious and in­tro­duced with­out ad­equate rea­sons, are the best part of the work. The large num­ber of ex­ist­ing MSS. at­tests its pop­ular­ity. (Edi­tio prin­ceps, 1601; first im­por­tant crit­ical edi­tion by (Ja­cobs, 1821; lit­ter edi­tions by Hirschig, 1856; Hercher, 1858. There are trans­la­tions in many lan­guages; in En­glish by An­tho­ny Hodges], 1638, and R. Smith, 1855. See al­so RO­MANCE.)

Suidas al­so as­cribes to this au­thor an Et­ymol­ogy, a Mis­cel­la­neous His­to­ry af Fa­mous Men, and a trea­tise On the Sphere. Part of the last is ex­tant un­der the ti­tle of An In­tro­duc­tion to the Phaenom­ena of Ara­tus. But if the writ­er is the pru­den­tis­simus Achilles re­ferred to by Fir­mi­cus Mater­nus (about 336) in his Math­eseos lib­ri, iv. 10, 17 (ed. Krolf), he must have lived long be­fore the au­thor of Leu­cippe. The frag­ment was first pub­lished in 1567, then in the Ura­nolo­gion of Petavius, with a Latin trans­la­tion, 1630. Noth­ing def­inite is known as to the au­thor­ship of the oth­er works, which are lost.

ACHILLI­NI, ALESSAN­DRO (1463-1512), Ital­ian philoso­pher, born on the 29th of Oc­to­ber 1463 at Bologna, was cel­ebrat­ed as a lec­tur­er both in medicine and in phi­los­ophy at Bologna and Pad­ua, and was styled the sec­ond Aris­to­tle. His philo­soph­ical works were print­ed in one vol­ume fo­lio, at Venice, in 1508, and reprint­ed with con­sid­er­able ad­di­tions in 1545, 1551 and 1568. He was al­so dis­tin­guished as an anatomist (see ANATO­MY), among his writhigs be­ing Cor­poris hu­mani Anato­mia (Venice, 1516-1524), and Anatom­icae An­no­ta­tiones (Bologna, 1520). He died at Bologna on the 2nd of Au­gust 1512.

His broth­er, GIO­VAN­NI FILO­TEO ACHILLI­NI (1466–1533), was the au­thor of Il Viri­dario and oth­er writ­ings, verse and prose, and his grand-​nephew, CLAU­DIO ACHILLI­NI (1574–1640), was a lawyer who achieved some no­to­ri­ety as a ver­si­fi­er of the school of the Se­cen­tisti.

ACHIMENES (per­haps from the Gr. achaimie­nis, an In­di­an plant used in mag­ic), a genus of plants, nat­ural or­der Ges­ner­aceae (to which be­long al­so Glox­inia and Strep­to­car­pus), na­tives of trop­ical Amer­ica, and well known in cul­ti­va­tion as stove or warm green­house plants. They are herba­ceous peren­ni­als, gen­er­al­ly with hairy ser­rat­ed leaves and hand­some flow­ers. The corol­la is tubu­lar with a spread­ing limb, and varies wide­ly in colour, be­ing white, yel­low, or­ange, crim­son, scar­let, blue or pur­ple. A large num­ber of hy­brids ex­ist in cul­ti­va­tion. The plants are grown in the stove till the flow­er­ing pe­ri­od, when they may be re­moved to the green­house. They are prop­agat­ed by cut­tings, or from the leaves, which are cut off and pricked in well-​drained pots of sandy soil, or by the scales from the un­der­ground tubes, which are rubbed off and sown like seeds, or by the seeds, which are very small.

ACHIN (Dutch At­jeh), a Dutch gov­ern­ment form­ing the north­ern ex­trem­ity of the is­land of Suma­tra, hav­ing an es­ti­mat­ed area of 20,544 sq. m. The gov­ern­ment is di­vid­ed in­to three as­sis­tant-​res­iden­cien–the east coast, the west coast and Great Achin. The phys­ical ge­og­ra­phy (see SUMA­TRA) is im­per­fect­ly un­der­stood. Ranges of moun­tains, rough­ly par­al­lel to the long ax­is of the is­land, and char­ac­ter­is­tic of the whole of it, ap­pear to oc­cu­py the in­te­ri­or, and reach an ex­treme height of about 12,000 ft. in the south-​west of the gov­ern­ment. The coasts are low and the rivers in­signif­icant, ris­ing in the coast ranges and flow­ing through the coast states (the chief of which are Pedir, Gighen and Samalan­ga on the N.; Edi, Per­lak and Langsar on the E.; Kluwah, Rigas and Melabuh on the W.). The chief ports are Olehleh, the port of Ko­tara­ja or Achin (for­mer­ly Kra­ton, now the seat of the Dutch gov­ern­ment), Segli on the N., Edi on the E., and Anal­abu or Melabuh on the W. Ko­tara­ja lies near the north­ern ex­trem­ity of the is­land, and con­sists of de­tached hous­es of tim­ber and thatch, clus­tered ill en­closed groups called kam­pongs, and buried in a for­est of fruit-​trees. It is sit­uat­ed near­ly 3 m. from the sea, in the val­ley of the Achin 1iv­er, which in its up­per part, near Sehmun, is 3 m. broad, the riv­er hav­ing a breadth of 99 ft. and a depth of 1 1/2 ft.; but in its low­er course, north of its junc­tion with the Krung Darn, the val­ley broad­ens to 12 1/2 m. The marshy soil is cov­ered by rice-​fields, and on high­er ground by kam­pongs full of trees. The riv­er at its mouth is 327 ft. broad and 20-33 ft. deep, but be­fore it lies a sand­bank cov­ered at low wa­ter by a depth of on­ly 4 ft. The Dutch gar­ri­son in Ko­tara­ja oc­cu­pies the old Achi­nese citadel. The town is con­nect­ed by rail with Olehleh, and the line al­so ex­tends up the val­ley. The con­struc­tion of an­oth­er rail­way has been un­der­tak­en along the east coast. The fol­low­ing in­dus­tries are of some im­por­tance –gold-​work­ing, weapon-​mak­ing, silk-​weav­ing, the mak­ing of pot­tery, fish­ing and coast­ing trade. The an­nu­al val­ue of the ex­ports (chiefly pep­per) is about L. 58,000; of the im­ports, from L. 165,000 to L. 250,000. The pop­ula­tion of Achin in 1898 was es­ti­mat­ed at 535,432, of whom 328 were Eu­ro­peans, 3933 Chi­nese, 30 Arabs, and 372 oth­er for­eign Asi­at­ics.

The Achi­nese, a peo­ple of Malayan stock but dark­er, some­what taller and not so pleas­ant-​fea­tured as the true Malays, re­gard them­selves as dis­tinct from the oth­er Suma­trans. Their no­bles claim Arab de­scent. They were at one time Hin­duized, as is ev­ident from their tra­di­tions, the many San­skrit words in their lan­guage, and their gen­er­al ap­pear­ance, which sug­gests Hin­du as well as Arab blood. They are Ma­hommedans, and al­though Arab in­flu­ence has de­clined, their no­bles still wear the Moslem flow­ing robe and tur­ban (though the wom­en go un­veiled), and they use Ara­bic script. The chief char­ac­ter­is­tic is their love of fight­ing; ev­ery man is a sol­dier and ev­ery vil­lage has its army. They are in­dus­tri­ous and skil­ful agri­cul­tur­ists, met­al-​work­ers and weavers. They build ex­cel­lent ships. Their chief amuse­ments are gam­bling and opi­um-​smok­ing. Their so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion is com­mu­nal. They live in kam­pongs, which com­bine to form mukims, dis­tricts or hun­dreds (to use the near­est En­glish term), which again com­bine to form sagis, of which there are three. Achin lit­er­ature, un­like the lan­guage, is en­tire­ly Malay; it in­cludes po­et­ry, a good deal of the­ol­ogy and sev­er­al chron­icles. North­ern Suma­tra was vis­it­ed by sev­er­al Eu­ro­pean trav­ellers in the mid­dle ages, such as Mar­co Po­lo, Fri­ar Odori­co and Ni­co­lo Con­ti. Some of these as well as Asi­at­ic writ­ers men­tion Lam­bri, a state which must have near­ly oc­cu­pied the po­si­tion of Achin. But the first voy­ager to vis­it Achin, by that name, was Al­varo Tellez, a cap­tain of Tris­tan d’Acun­ha’s fleet, in 1506. It was then a mere de­pen­den­cy of the ad­join­ing state of Pedir; and the lat­ter, with Pa­sei, formed the on­ly states on the coast whose chiefs claimed the ti­tle of sul­tan. Yet be­fore twen­ty years had passed Achin had not on­ly gained in­de­pen­dence, but had swal­lowed up all oth­er states of north­ern Suma­tra. It at­tained its cli­max of pow­er in the time of Sul­tan Iskan­dar Mu­da (1607–1636), un­der whom the sub­ject coast ex­tend­ed from Aru op­po­site Malac­ca round by the north to Benkulen on the west coast, a sea-​board of not less than 1100 miles; and be­sides this, the king’s suprema­cy was owned by the large is­land of Nias, and by the con­ti­nen­tal Malay states of Jo­hor, Pa­hang, Kedah and Per­ak.

The chief at­trac­tion of Achin to traders in the 17th cen­tu­ry must have been gold. No place in the East, un­less Japan, was so abun­dant­ly sup­plied with gold. The great re­pute of Achin as a place of trade is shown by the fact that to this port the first Dutch (1599) and first En­glish (1602) com­mer­cial ven­tures to the In­dies were di­rect­ed. Sir James Lan­cast­er, the En­glish com­modore, car­ried let­ters from Queen Eliz­abeth to the king of Achin, and was well re­ceived by the prince then reign­ing, Alaud­din Shah. An­oth­er ex­change of let­ters took place be­tween King James I. and Iskan­dar Mu­da in 1613. But na­tive caprice and jeal­ousy of the grow­ing force of the Eu­ro­pean na­tions in these seas, and the ri­val­ries be­tween those na­tions them­selves, were de­struc­tive of sound trade; and the En­glish fac­to­ry, though sev­er­al times set up, was nev­er long main­tained. The French made one great ef­fort (1621) to es­tab­lish re­la­tions with Achin, but noth­ing came of it. Still the for­eign trade of Achin, though sub­ject to in­ter­rup­tions, was im­por­tant. William Dampi­er (c. 1688) and oth­ers speak of the num­ber of for­eign mer­chants set­tled there–En­glish, Dutch, Danes, Por­tuguese, Chi­nese, &c. Dampi­er says the an­chor­age was rarely with­out ten or fif­teen sail of dif­fer­ent na­tions, bring­ing vast quan­ti­ties of rice, as well as silks, chintzes, muslins and opi­um. Be­sides the Chi­nese mer­chants set­tled at Achin, oth­ers used to come an­nu­al­ly with the junks, ten or twelve in num­ber, which ar­rived in June. A reg­ular fair was then es­tab­lished, which last­ed two months, and was known as the Chi­na camp, a great re­sort of for­eign­ers.

Hos­til­ities with the Por­tuguese be­gan from the time of the first in­de­pen­dent king of Achin; and they had lit­tle re­mis­sion till the pow­er of Por­tu­gal fell with the loss of Malac­ca (1641). Not less than ten times be­fore that event were ar­ma­ments despatched from Achin to re­duce Malac­ca, and more than once its gar­ri­son was hard pressed. One of these ar­madas, equipped by Iskan­dar Mu­da in 1615, gives an idea of the king’s re­sources. It con­sist­ed of 500 sail, of which 250 were gal­leys, and among these a hun­dred were greater than any then used in Eu­rope. Six­ty thou­sand men were em­barked.

On the death of Iskan­dar’s suc­ces­sor in 1641, the wid­ow was placed on the throne; and as a fe­male reign favoured the oli­garchi­cal ten­den­cies of the Malay chiefs, three more queens were al­lowed to reign suc­ces­sive­ly. In 1699 the Arab or fa­nat­ical par­ty sup­pressed fe­male gov­ern­ment, and put a chief of Arab blood on the throne. The re­main­ing his­to­ry of Achin was one of rapid de­cay.

Af­ter the restora­tion of Ja­va to the Nether­lands in 1816, a good deal of weight was at­tached by the neigh­bour­ing British colonies to the main­te­nance of in­flu­ence in Achin; and in 1819 a treaty of friend­ship was con­clud­ed with the Cal­cut­ta gov­ern­ment which ex­clud­ed oth­er Eu­ro­pean na­tion­al­ities from fixed res­idence in Achin. When the British gov­ern­ment, in 1824, made a treaty with the Nether­lands, sur­ren­der­ing the re­main­ing British set­tle­ments in Suma­tra in ex­change for cer­tain pos­ses­sions on the con­ti­nent of Asia, no ref­er­ence was made in the ar­ti­cles to the In­di­an treaty of 1819; but an un­der­stand­ing was ex­changed that it should be mod­ified, while no pro­ceed­ings hos­tile to Achin should be at­tempt­ed by the Dutch.

This reser­va­tion was for­mal­ly aban­doned by the British gov­ern­ment in a con­ven­tion signed at the Hague on the 2nd of Novem­ber 1871; and in March 1873 the gov­ern­ment of Batavia de­clared war up­on Achin. Doubt­less there was provo­ca­tion, for the sul­tan of Achin had not kept to the un­der­stand­ing that he was to guar­an­tee im­mu­ni­ty from pira­cy to for­eign traders; but the ne­ces­si­ty for war was great­ly doubt­ed, even in Hol­land. A Dutch force land­ed at Achin in April 1873, and at­tacked the palace. It was de­feat­ed with con­sid­er­able loss, in­clud­ing that of the gen­er­al (Kohler).The ap­proach of the south-​west mon­soon pre­clud­ed the im­me­di­ate re­new­al of the at­tempt; but hos­til­ities were re­sumed, and Achin fell in Jan­uary 1874. The na­tives, how­ev­er, main­tained them­selves in the in­te­ri­or, in­ac­ces­si­ble to the Dutch troops, and car­ried on a gueril­la war­fare. Gen­er­al van der Hoy­den ap­peared to have sub­dued them in 1878-81, but they broke out again in 1896 un­der the traitor Taku Umar, who had been in al­liance with the Dutch. He died short­ly af­ter­wards, but the trou­ble was not end­ed. Gen­er­al van Hentsz car­ried on a suc­cess­ful cam­paign in 1898 seq., but in 1901, the prin­ci­pal Achi­nese chiefs on the north coast hav­ing sur­ren­dered, the pre­tender-​sul­tan fled to the Gajoes, a neigh­bour­ing in­land peo­ple. Sev­er­al ex­pe­di­tions in­volv­ing heavy fight­ing were nec­es­sary against these in 1901-4, and a cer­tain amount of suc­cess was achieved, but the pre­tender es­caped, re­volt still smoul­dered and hos­til­ities were con­tin­ued.

See P. J. Vein, At­chi­ni en zi­jne be­trekkin­gen tot Ned­er­land (Ley­den, 1873); J. A. Krui­jt, At­jeh en de At­je­hers (Ley­den, 1877); Kiel­stra, Beschri­jv­ing van dcn At­jeh-​oor­log (The Hague, 1883); Van Lan­gen, At­jeh’s Wesskust, Ti­jd­schrift Aardr­jjko, Genotk­tsch. (Am­ster­dam, 1888), p. 226; Re­naud, Jaar­boek van het Myn­wezen (1882); J. Ja­cobs, Het famille-​en Kam­pon­gleven op Groot At­jeh (Ley­den, 1894); C. Snouck Hur­gron­je, De At­je­hers (Batavia, 1894).

ACHOLI, a ne­gro peo­ple of the up­per Nile val­ley, dwelling on the east bank of the Bahr-​el-​Jebel, about a hun­dred miles north of Al­bert Nyan­za. They are akin to the Shilluks of the White Nile. They fre­quent­ly dec­orate the tem­ples or cheeks with wavy or zigzag scars, and al­so the thighs with scrolls; some pierce the ears. Their dwelling-​places are cir­cu­lar huts with a high peak, fur­nished with a mud sleep­ing-​plat­form, jars of grain and a sunk fire­place. The in­te­ri­or walls are daubed with mud and dec­orat­ed with ge­omet­ri­cal or con­ven­tion­al de­signs in red, white or grey. The Acholi are good hunters, us­ing nets and spears, and keep goats, sheep and cat­tle. In war they use spears and long, nar­row shields of gi­raffe or ox hide. Their di­alect is close­ly al­lied to those of the Alur, Lan­go and ja-​Luo tribes, all four be­ing prac­ti­cal­ly pure Nilot­ic. Their re­li­gion is a vague fetishism. By ear­ly ex­plor­ers the Acholi were called Shuli, a name now ob­so­lete.

ACHRO­MA­TISM (Gr. a-, pri­va­tive, chro­ma, colour), in op­tics, the prop­er­ty of trans­mit­ting white light, with­out de­com­pos­ing it in­to the colours of the spec­trum; “achro­mat­ic lens­es” are lens­es which pos­sess this prop­er­ty. (See LENS, ABER­RA­TION and PHO­TOG­RA­PHY.)

ACID (from the Lat. root ac-, sharp; acere, to be sour), the name loose­ly ap­plied to any sour sub­stance; in chem­istry it has a more pre­cise mean­ing, de­not­ing a sub­stance con­tain­ing hy­dro­gen which may be re­placed by met­als with the for­ma­tion of salts. An acid may there­fore be re­gard­ed as a salt of hy­dro­gen. Of the gen­er­al char­ac­ters of acids we may here no­tice that they dis­solve al­ka­line sub­stances, cer­tain met­als, &c., neu­tral­ize al­ka­lies and red­den many blue and vi­olet veg­etable colour­ing mat­ters.

The an­cients prob­ably pos­sessed lit­tle knowl­edge in­deed of acids. Vine­gar (or im­pure acetic acid), which is pro­duced when wine is al­lowed to stand, was known to both the Greeks and Ro­mans, who con­sid­ered it to be typ­ical of acid sub­stances; this is philo­log­ical­ly il­lus­trat­ed by the words oxus, acidus, sour, and ox­os, ace­tus, vine­gar. Oth­er acids be­came known dur­ing the al­chemistic pe­ri­od; and the first at­tempt at a gen­er­al­ized con­cep­tion of these sub­stances was made by Paracel­sus, who sup­posed them to con­tain a prin­ci­ple which con­ferred the prop­er­ties of sour­ness and sol­ubil­ity. Some­what sim­ilar views were pro­mot­ed by Bech­er, who named the prin­ci­ple acidum pri­mo­ge­ni­um, and held that it was com­posed of the Paracel­sian el­ements “earth” and “wa­ter.” At about the same time Boyle in­ves­ti­gat­ed sev­er­al acids; he es­tab­lished their gen­er­al red­den­ing of lit­mus, their sol­vent pow­er of met­als and ba­sic sub­stances, and the pro­duc­tion of neu­tral bod­ies, or salts, with al­ka­lies. The­oret­ical con­cep­tions were re­vived by Stahl, who held that acids were the fun­da­men­tals of all salts, and the er­ro­neous idea that sul­phuric acid was the prin­ci­ple of all acids.

The phlo­gis­tic the­ory of the pro­cess­es of cal­ci­na­tion and com­bus­tion ne­ces­si­tat­ed the view that many acids, such as those pro­duced by com­bus­tion, e.g. sul­phurous, phos­pho­ric, car­bon­ic, &c., should be re­gard­ed as el­emen­tary sub­stances. This prin­ci­ple more or less pre­vailed un­til it was over­thrown by Lavoisi­er’s doc­trine that oxy­gen was the acid-​pro­duc­ing el­ement; Lavoisi­er be­ing led to this con­clu­sion by the al­most gen­er­al ob­ser­va­tion that acids were pro­duced when non-​metal­lic el­ements were burnt. The ex­is­tence of acids not con­tain­ing oxy­gen was, in it­self, suf­fi­cient to over­throw this idea, but, al­though Berthol­let had shown, in 1789, that sul­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen (or hy­dro­sul­phuric acid) con­tained no oxy­gen, Lavoisi­er’s the­ory held its own un­til the re­search­es of Davy, Gay-​Lus­sac and Thenard on hy­drochlo­ric acid and chlo­rine, and of Gay-​Lus­sac on hy­dro­cyan­ic acid, es­tab­lished be­yond all cav­il that oxy­gen was not es­sen­tial to acidic prop­er­ties.

In the Lavoisieri­an nomen­cla­ture acids were re­gard­ed as bi­na­ry oxy­genat­ed com­pounds, the as­so­ci­at­ed wa­ter be­ing rel­egat­ed to the po­si­tion of a mere sol­vent. Some­what sim­ilar views were held by Berzelius, when de­vel­op­ing his du­al­is­tic con­cep­tion of the com­po­si­tion of sub­stances. In lat­er years Berzelius re­nounced the “oxy­gen acid” the­ory, but not be­fore Davy, and, al­most si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, Du­long, had sub­mit­ted that hy­dro­gen and not oxy­gen was the acid­ify­ing prin­ci­ple. Op­po­si­tion to the “hy­dro­gen-​acid” the­ory cen­tred main­ly about the hy­po­thet­ical rad­icals which it pos­tu­lat­ed; more­over, the elec­tro­chem­ical the­ory of Berzelius ex­ert­ed a stul­ti­fy­ing in­flu­ence on the cor­rect views of Davy and Du­long. In Berzelius’ sys­tem potas­si­um sul­phate is to be re­gard­ed as K2O+.SO3-; elec­trol­ysis should sim­ply ef­fect the dis­rup­tion of the pos­itive and neg­ative com­po­nents, potash pass­ing with the cur­rent, and sul­phuric acid against the cur­rent. Ex­per­iment showed, how­ev­er, that in­stead of on­ly potash ap­pear­ing at the neg­ative elec­trode, hy­dro­gen is al­so lib­er­at­ed; this is in­ex­pli­ca­ble by Berzelius’s the­ory, but read­ily ex­plained by the “hy­dro­gen-​acid” the­ory. By this the­ory potas­si­um is lib­er­at­ed at the neg­ative elec­trode and com­bines im­me­di­ate­ly with wa­ter to form potash and hy­dro­gen.

Fur­ther and stronger sup­port was giv­en when J. Liebig pro­mot­ed his doc­trine of poly­ba­sic acids. Dal­ton’s idea that el­ements pref­er­en­tial­ly com­bined in equiatom­ic pro­por­tions had as an im­me­di­ate in­fer­ence that metal­lic ox­ides con­tained one atom of the met­al to one atom of oxy­gen, and a sim­ple ex­pan­sion of this con­cep­tion was that one atom of ox­ide com­bined with one atom of acid to form one atom of a neu­tral salt. This view, which was spe­cial­ly sup­port­ed by Gay-​Lus­sac and Leopold Gmelin and ac­cept­ed by Berzelius, ne­ces­si­tat­ed that all acids were monoba­sic. The un­ten­abil­ity of this the­ory was proved by Thomas Gra­ham’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the phos­pho­ric acids; for he then showed that the or­tho- (or­di­nary), py­ro- and metaphos­pho­ric acids con­tained re­spec­tive­ly 3, 2 and 1 molecules of “ba­sic wa­ter” (which were re­place­able by metal­lic ox­ides) and one molecule of phos­pho­ric ox­ide, P2 O5. Gra­ham’s work was de­vel­oped by Liebig, who called in­to ser­vice many or­gan­ic acids—cit­ric, tar­tar­ic, cya­nuric, comenic and mecon­ic—and showed that these re­sem­bled phos­pho­ric acid; and he es­tab­lished as the cri­te­ri­on of poly­ba­sic­ity the ex­is­tence of com­pound salts with dif­fer­ent metal­lic ox­ides. In for­mu­lat­ing these facts Liebig at first re­tained the du­al­is­tic con­cep­tion of the struc­ture of acids; but he short­ly af­ter­wards per­ceived that this view lacked gen­er­al­ity since the halo­gen acids, which con­tained no oxy­gen but yet formed salts ex­act­ly sim­ilar in prop­er­ties to those con­tain­ing oxy­gen, could not be so re­gard­ed. This and oth­er rea­sons led to his re­jec­tion of the du­al­is­tic hy­poth­esis and the adop­tion, on the ground of prob­abil­ity, and much more from con­ve­nience, of the tenet that “acids are par­tic­ular com­pounds of hy­dro­gen, in which the lat­ter can be re­placed by met­als”; while, on the con­sti­tu­tion of salts, he held that “neu­tral salts are those com­pounds of the same class in which the hy­dro­gen is re­placed by its equiv­alent in met­al. The sub­stances which we at present term an­hy­drous acids (acid ox­ides) on­ly be­come, for the most part, ca­pa­ble of form­ing salts with metal­lic ox­ides af­ter the ad­di­tion of wa­ter, or they are com­pounds which de­com­pose these ox­ides at some­what high tem­per­atures.”

The hy­dro­gen the­ory and the doc­trine of poly­ba­sic­ity as enun­ci­at­ed by Liebig is the fun­da­men­tal char­ac­ter­is­tic of the mod­ern the­ory. A poly­ba­sic acid con­tains more than one atom of hy­dro­gen which is re­place­able by met­als; more­over, in such an acid the re­place­ment may be en­tire with the for­ma­tion of nor­mal salts, par­tial with the for­ma­tion of acid salts, or by two or more dif­fer­ent met­als with the for­ma­tion of com­pound salts (see SALTS). These facts may be il­lus­trat­ed with the aid of or­thophos­pho­ric acid, which is trib­asic:– Acid. Nor­mal salt. Acid salts. H3PO4 Ag3PO4 Na2HPO4; NaH2PO4 Phos­pho­ric Sil­ver phos­phate. Acid sodi­um acid. phos­phates. Com­pound salts. Mg(NH4)PO4; Na(NH4)HPO4. Mag­ne­sium am­mo­ni­um Mi­cro­cos­mic phos­phate; salt. Ref­er­ence should be made to the ar­ti­cles CHEM­ICAL AC­TION, THER­MO­CHEM­ISTRY and SO­LU­TIONS, for the the­ory of the strength or avid­ity of acids.

Or­gan­ic Acids.—Or­gan­ic acids are char­ac­ter­ized by the pres­ence of the mono­va­lent group–CO.OH, termed the car­boxyl group, in which the hy­dro­gen atom is re­place­able by met­als with the for­ma­tion of salts, and by alkyl rad­icals with the for­ma­tion of es­ters. The ba­sic­ity of an or­gan­ic acid, as above de­fined, is de­ter­mined by the num­ber of car­boxyl groups present. Oxy-​acids are car­boxyllc acids which al­so con­tain a hy­drox­yl group; sim­ilar­ly we may have alde­hyde-​acids, ke­tone-​acids, &c. Since the more im­por­tant acids are treat­ed un­der their own head­ings, or un­der sub­stances close­ly al­lied to them, we shall here con­fine our­selves to gen­er­al re­la­tions.

Clas­si­fi­ca­tion.–It is con­ve­nient to dis­tin­guish be­tween aliphat­ic and aro­mat­ic acids; the first named be­ing de­rived from open-​chain hy­dro­car­bons, the sec­ond from ringed hy­dro­car­bon nu­clei. Aliphat­ic monoba­sic acids are fur­ther di­vid­ed ac­cord­ing to the na­ture of the par­ent hy­dro­car­bon. Methane and its ho­mo­logues give ori­gin to the “paraf­fin” or “fat­ty se­ries” of the gen­er­al for­mu­la Cn H2n+1COOH, ethy­lene gives ori­gin to the acrylic acid se­ries, CnH2n-1COOH, and soon. Diba­sic acids of the paraf­fin se­ries of hy­dro­car­bons have the gen­er­al for­mu­la CnH2(COOH)2n; mal­onic and suc­cinic acids are im­por­tant mem­bers. The iso­merism which oc­curs as soon as the molecule con­tains a few car­bon atoms ren­ders any clas­si­fi­ca­tion based on em­pir­ical molec­ular for­mu­lae some­what in­ef­fec­tive; on the oth­er hand, a scheme based on molec­ular struc­ture would in­volve more de­tail than it is here pos­si­ble to give. For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, the read­er is re­ferred to any stan­dard work on or­gan­ic chem­istry. A list of the acids present in fats and oils is giv­en in the ar­ti­cle OILS.

Syn­the­ses of Or­gan­ic Acids.—The sim­plest syn­the­ses are un­doubt­ed­ly those in which a car­boxyl group is ob­tained di­rect­ly from the ox­ides of car­bon, car­bon diox­ide and car­bon monox­ide. The sim­plest of all in­clude: (1) the syn­the­sis of sodi­um ox­alate by pass­ing car­bon diox­ide over metal­lic sodi­um heat­ed to 350 deg. -360 deg. ; (2) the syn­the­sis of potas­si­um for­mate from moist car­bon diox­ide and potas­si­um, potas­si­um car­bon­ate be­ing ob­tained si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly; (3) the syn­the­sis of potas­si­um ac­etate and pro­pi­onate from car­bon diox­ide and sodi­um me­thide and sodi­um ethide; (4) the syn­the­sis of aro­mat­ic acids by the in­ter­ac­tion of car­bon diox­ide, sodi­um and a bromine sub­sti­tu­tion deriva­tive; and (5) the syn­the­sis of aro­mat­ic oxy-​acids by the in­ter­ac­tion of car­bon diox­ide and sodi­um phe­no­lates (see SAL­ICYLIC ACID). (Car­bon monox­ide takes part in the syn­the­ses of sodi­um for­mate from sodi­um hy­drate, or so­da lime (at 200 deg. -220 deg. ), and of sodi­um ac­etate and pro­pi­onate from sodi­um methy­late and sodi­um ethy­late at 160 deg. –200 deg. . Oth­er re­ac­tions which in­tro­duce car­boxyl groups in­to aro­mat­ic groups ave: the ac­tion of car­bonyl chlo­ride on aro­mat­ic hy­dro­car­bons in the pres­ence of alu­mini­um chlo­ride, acid-​chlo­rides be­ing formed which are read­ily de­com­posed by wa­ter to give the acid; the ac­tion of urea chlo­ride Cl.CO.NH2, cya­nuric acid (CONH)3, nascent cyan­ic acid, or car­ban­ile on hy­dro­car­bons in the pres­ence of alu­mini­um chlo­ride, acid-​amides be­ing ob­tained which are read­ily de­com­posed to give the acid. An im­por­tant nu­cle­us-​syn­thet­ic re­ac­tion is the saponi­fi­ca­tion of ni­triles, which may be ob­tained by the in­ter­ac­tion of potas­si­um cyanide with a halo­gen sub­sti­tu­tion deriva­tive or a sul­phon­ic acid.

Acids fre­quent­ly re­sult as ox­ida­tion prod­ucts, be­ing al­most in­vari­ably formed in all cas­es of en­er­get­ic ox­ida­tion. There are cer­tain re­ac­tions, how­ev­er, in which ox­ida­tion can be suc­cess­ful­ly ap­plied to the syn­the­sis of acids. Thus pri­ma­ry al­co­hols and alde­hy­des, both of the aliphat­ic and aro­mat­ic se­ries, read­ily yield on ox­ida­tion acids con­tain­ing the same num­ber of car­bon atoms. These re­ac­tions may be shown thus:- R.CH2OH -> R.CHO -> R.CO.OH. In the case of aro­mat­ic alde­hy­des, acids are al­so ob­tained by means of “Can­niz­zaro’s re­ac­tion” (see BEN­ZALDE­HYDE). An im­por­tant ox­ida­tion syn­the­sis of aro­mat­ic acids is from hy­dro­car­bons with aliphat­ic side chains; thus toluene, or methyl­ben­zene, yields ben­zoic acid, the xylenes, or dimethyl-​ben­zene, yield methyl-​ben­zoic acids and ph­thal­ic acids. Ke­tones, sec­ondary al­co­hols and ter­tiary al­co­hols yield a mix­ture of acids on ox­ida­tion. We may al­so no­tice the dis­rup­tion of un­sat­urat­ed acids at the dou­ble link­age in­to a mix­ture of two acids, when fused with potash.

In the pre­ced­ing in­stances the car­boxyl group has been syn­the­sized or in­tro­duced in­to a molecule; we have now to con­sid­er syn­the­ses from sub­stances al­ready con­tain­ing car­boxyl groups. Of fore­most im­por­tance are the re­ac­tions termed the mal­onic acid and the ace­to-​acetic es­ter syn­the­ses; these are dis­cussed un­der their own head­ings. The elec­trosyn­the­ses call for men­tion here. It is ap­par­ent that metal­lic salts of or­gan­ic acids would, in aque­ous so­lu­tion, be ion­ized, the pos­itive ion be­ing the met­al, and the neg­ative ion the acid residue. Es­ters, how­ev­er, are not ion­ized. It is there­fore ap­par­ent that a mixed salt and es­ter, for ex­am­ple KO2C.CH2.CH2.CO2C2H5, would give on­ly two ions, viz. potas­si­um and the rest of the molecule. If a so­lu­tion of potas­si­um ac­etate be elec­trol­ysed the prod­ucts are ethane, car­bon diox­ide, potash and hy­dro­gen; in a sim­ilar man­ner, nor­mal potas­si­um suc­ci­nate gives ethy­lene, car­bon diox­ide, potash and hy­dro­gen; these re­ac­tions may be rep­re­sent­ed:- CH3.CO2 K CH3 CO2 K* CH2.CO K CH2 CO2 K. | -> | + + | | ->|| + + CH3.CO2 K CH3 CO2 K* CH2.CO K CH2 CO2 K. By elec­trolysing a so­lu­tion of potas­si­um ethyl suc­ci­nate, KO2C.(CH2)2CO2C2H5, the KO2C. groups are split off and the two residues .(CH2)2CO2C2H5 com­bine to form the es­ter (CH2)4(CO2C2H5)2. In the same way, by elec­trolysing a mix­ture of a metal­lic salt and an es­ter, oth­er nu­clei may be con­densed; thus potas­si­um ac­etate and potas­si­um ethyl suc­ci­nate yield CH3.CH2.CH2.CO2C2H5.

Re­ac­tions.–Or­gan­ic acids yield metal­lic salts with bases, and ethe­re­al salts or es­ters (q.v.), R.CO.OR’, with al­co­hols. Phos­pho­rus chlo­rides give acid chlo­rides, R.CO.Cl, the hy­drox­yl group be­ing re­placed by chlo­rine, and acid an­hy­drides, (R.CO)2O, a molecule of wa­ter be­ing split off be­tween two car­boxyl groups. The am­mo­ni­um salts when heat­ed lose one mobecule of wa­ter and are con­vert­ed in­to acid-​amides, R.CO.NH2, which by fur­ther de­hy­dra­tion yield ni­triles, R.CN. The cal­ci­um salts dis­tilled with cal­ci­um for­mate yield alde­hy­des (q.v.); dis­tilled with so­da-​lime, ke­tones (q.v.) re­sult.

ACI­DAL­IUS, VALENS (1567-1595), Ger­man schol­ar and crit­ic, was born at Witt­stock in Bran­den­burg. Af­ter study­ing at Ro­stock, Grelf­swald and Helm­st­edt, and re­sid­ing about three years in Italy, he set­tled at Bres­lau, where he is said to have em­braced the Ro­man Catholic re­li­gion. Ear­ly in 1595 he ac­cept­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to Neisse, about fifty miles from Bres­lau, where he died of brain fever on the 25th of May, at the age of twen­ty-​eight. His ex­ces­sive ap­pli­ca­tion to study, and the at­tacks made up­on him in con­nex­ion with a pam­phlet of which he was re­put­ed the au­thor, doubt­less has­tened his pre­ma­ture end. Aci­dal­ius wrote notes on Velleius Pa­ter­cu­lus (1590), Cur­tius (1594), the pan­egyrists, Tac­itus and Plau­tus, pub­lished af­ter his death.

See Leuschn­er, Com­meu­ta­tio de A. V. Vi­ta, Moribus, et Scrip­tis (1757); F. Adam, “Der Neiss­er Rek­tor,” in Bericht der Philo­math­ic in Neisse (1872).

ACID-​AMIDES, chem­ical com­pounds which may be con­sid­ered as de­rived from am­mo­nia by re­place­ment of its hy­dro­gen with acidyl residues, the sub­stances pro­duced be­ing known as pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary or ter­tiary amides, ac­cord­ing to the num­ber of hy­dro­gen atoms re­placed. Of these com­pounds, the pri­ma­ry amides of the type R.CO.NH2 are the most im­por­tant. They may be pre­pared by the dry dis­til­la­tion of the am­mo­ni­um salts of the acids (A. W. Hof­mann, Ber., 1882, 15, p. 977), by the par­tial hy­drol­ysis of the ni­triles, by the ac­tion of am­mo­nia or am­mo­ni­um car­bon­ate on acid chlo­rides or an­hy­drides, or by heat­ing the es­ters (q.v.) with am­mo­nia. They are sol­id crys­talline com­pounds (for­mamide ex­cept­ed) which are at first sol­uble in wa­ter, the sol­ubil­ity, how­ev­er, de­creas­ing as the car­bon con­tent of the molecule in­creas­es. They are eas­ily hy­drol­ysed, break­ing up in­to their com­po­nents when boiled with acids or alka­nes. They form com­pounds with hy­drochlo­ric acid when this gas is passed in­to their ethe­re­al so­lu­tion; these com­pounds, how­ev­er, are very un­sta­ble, be­ing read­ily de­com­posed by wa­ter. On the oth­er hand, they show faint­ly acid prop­er­ties since the hy­dro­gen of the amide group can be re­placed by met­als to give such com­pounds as mer­cury ac­etamide (CH3CONH)2Hg. Ni­trous acid de­com­pos­es them, with elim­ina­tion of ni­tro­gen and the for­ma­tion of the cor­re­spond­ing acid, RCO.NH2 + ONOH = R.COOH + N2 + H2O. When dis­tilled with phos­pho­ric an­hy­dride they yield ni­triles. By the ac­tion of bromine and al­co­holic potash on the amides, they are con­vert­ed in­to amines con­tain­ing one car­bon atom less than the orig­inal amide, a re­ac­tion which pos­sess­es great the­oret­ical im­por­tance (A. W. Hof­mann), R.CONH2 -> R.CON­HBr -> R.NH2 + K2CO3 + KBr + H2O. For­mamide, H.CONH2, is a liq­uid read­ily sol­uble in wa­ter, boill­ng at about 195 deg. C. with par­tial de­com­po­si­tion. Ac­etamide, CH3.CONH2, is a white del­iques­cent crys­talline sol­id, which melts at 82-83 deg. C. and boils at 222 deg. C. It is usu­al­ly pre­pared by dis­till­ing am­mo­ni­um ac­etate. It is read­ily sol­uble in wa­ter and al­co­hol, but in­sol­uble in ether. Ben­za­mide, C6H5.CONH2, crys­tal­lizes in leaflets which melt at 130 deg. C. It is pre­pared by the ac­tion of am­mo­ni­um car­bon­ate on ben­zoyl chlo­ride. It yields a sil­ver salt which with ethyl io­dide forms ben­zimi­doethyl ether, C6H5C: (NH).OC2H5, a be­haviour which points to the sil­ver salt as be­ing de­rived from the tau­tomer­ic imi­doben­zoic acid, C6H5C: (NH).OH (J. Tafel, Ber., 1890, 23, p. 104). On the prepa­ra­tion of the sub­sti­tut­ed amides from the cor­re­spond­ing so­damides see A. W. Tither­ley (Journ. Chem. Soc., 1901, 59, p. 391). The sec­ondary and ter­tiary amides of the types (RCO)2NH and (RCO)3N may be pre­pared by heat­ing the pri­ma­ry amides or the ni­triles with acids or acid an­hy­drides to 200 deg. C. Thi­amides of the type R.CSNH2 are known, and re­sult by the ad­di­tion of sul­phuret­ted hy­dro­gen to the ni­triles, or by the ac­tion of phos­pho­rus pen­ta­sul­phide on the acid-​amides. They read­ily de­com­pose on heat­ing, and are eas­ily hy­drol­ysed by alka­nes; they pos­sess a some­what more acid char­ac­ter than the acid-​amides.

ACI­NACES (from the Greek), an an­cient Per­sian sword, short and straight, and worn, con­trary to the Ro­man fash­ion, on the right side, or some­times in front of the body, as shown in the bas-​re­liefs found at Perse­po­lis. Among the Per­sian no­bil­ity it was fre­quent­ly made of gold, be­ing worn as a badge of dis­tinc­tion. The aci­naces was an ob­ject of re­li­gious wor­ship with the Scythi­ans and oth­ers (Herod. iv. 62).

ACINE­TA (so named by C. G. Ehren­berg), a genus of suc­to­ri­al In­fu­so­ria char­ac­ter­ized by the pos­ses­sion of a stalk and cup-​shaped sheath or the­ca for the body, and en­doge­nous bud­ding. O. Butschli has sep­arat­ed off the genus Metacine­ta (for A. mystaci­na), which re­pro­duces by di­rect bud-​fis­sion.

AC­INUS (Lat. for a berry), a term in botany ap­plied to such fruits as the black­ber­ry or rasp­ber­ry, com­posed of small seed­like berries, and al­so to those berries them­selves, or to grape­stones. By anal­ogy, ac­inus is ap­plied in anato­my to sim­ilar gran­ules or glands, or lob­ules of a gland.

ACIREALE, a town and epis­co­pal see of the province of Cata­nia, Sici­ly; from the town of the same name it is dis­tant 9 m. N. by E. Pop. (1901) 35,418. It has some im­por­tance as a ther­mal sta­tion, and the springs were used by the Ro­mans. It takes its name from the riv­er Acis, in­to which, ac­cord­ing to the leg­end, Acis, the lover of Galatea, was changed af­ter he had been slain by Polyphe­mus. The rocks which Polyphe­mus hurled at Ulysses are iden­ti­fied with the sev­en Scogli de’ Ci­clopi, or Faraglioni, a lit­tle to the south of Acireale.

ACIS, in Greek mythol­ogy, the son of Pan (Faunus) and the nymph Syn­taethis, a beau­ti­ful shep­herd of Sici­ly, was the lover of the Nereid Galatea. His ri­val the Cy­clops Polyphe­mus sur­prised them to­geth­er, and crushed him to pieces with a rock. His blood, gush­ing forth from be­neath, was meta­mor­phosed by Galatea in­to the riv­er bear­ing his name (now Fi­ume di Jaci), which was cel­ebrat­ed for the cold­ness of its wa­ters (Ovid, Met. xi­ii. 750; Sil­ius Itali­cus, Puni­ca, xiv. 221).

ACK­ER­MAN, FRAN­CIS (c. 1335–1387), Flem­ish sol­dier and diplo­ma­tist, was born at Ghent, and about 1380 be­came promi­nent dur­ing the strug­gle be­tween the burghers of that town and Louis II. (de Male), count of Flan­ders. He was part­ly re­spon­si­ble for in­duc­ing Philip van Artevelde to be­come first cap­tain of the city of Ghent in 1382, and at the head of some troops scoured the sur­round­ing coun­try for pro­vi­sions and thus saved Ghent from be­ing starved in­to sub­mis­sion. By his diplo­mat­ic abil­ities he se­cured the as­sis­tance of the cit­izens of Brus­sels, Lou­vain and Liege, and, hav­ing been made ad­mi­ral of the Flem­ish fleet, vis­it­ed Eng­land and ob­tained a promise of help from King Richard II. Af­ter Artevelde’s death in Novem­ber 1382, he act­ed as lead­er of the Flem­ings, gained sev­er­al vic­to­ries and in­creased his fame by skil­ful­ly con­duct­ing a re­treat from Damme to Ghent in Au­gust 1385. He took part in the con­clu­sion of the treaty of peace be­tween Ghent and Philip the Bold, duke of Bur­gundy, the suc­ces­sor of Count Louis, in De­cem­ber 1385. Trust­ing in Philip, and ig­nor­ing the warn­ings of his friends, Ack­er­man re­mained in Flan­ders, and was mur­dered at Ghent on the 22nd of Ju­ly 1387, leav­ing a mem­ory of chival­ry and gen­eros­ity.

See Jean Frois­sart, Chroniques, edit­ed by S. Luce and G. Ray­naud (Paris, 1869-1897); Jo­hannes Bran­don, Chron­odromon, edit­ed hy K. de Let­ten­hove in the Chroniques ro­ta­tives a L’his­toire de La Bel­gique sous la dom­ina­tion des ducs de Bour­gogne (Brus­sels, 1870).

ACK­ER­MANN, JO­HANN CHRIS­TIAN GOT­TLIEB (1756-1801), Ger­man physi­cian, was born at Zeil­len­ro­da, in Up­per Sax­ony, on the 17th of Febru­ary 1756, and died at Alt­dorf on the 9th of March 1801. At the age of fif­teen he be­came a stu­dent of medicine at Je­na un­der E. G. Baldinger, whom he fol­lowed to Got­tin­gen in 1773, and af­ter­wards he stud­ied for two years at Halle. A few years’ prac­tice at Sten­dal (1778-1799), where there were nu­mer­ous fac­to­ries, en­abled him to add many valu­able orig­inal ob­ser­va­tions to his trans­la­tion (1780-1783) of Bernardi­no Ra­mazz­ini’s (1633-1714) trea­tise on dis­eases of ar­ti­fi­cers. In 1786 he be­came pro­fes­sor of medicine at the uni­ver­si­ty of Alt­dorf, in Fran­co­nia, oc­cu­py­ing first the chair of chem­istry, and then, from 1794 till his death in 1801, that of pathol­ogy and ther­apeu­tics. He wrote In­sti­tu­tiones His­to­ri­ae Medic­inae (Nurem­berg, 1792) and In­sti­tu­tiones Ther­api­ae Gen­er­alls (Nurem­berg and Alt­dorf, 1784-1795), be­sides var­ious hand­books and trans­la­tions.

ACK­ER­MANN, LOUISE VIC­TORINE CHO­QUET (1813-1890), French po­et, was born in Paris on the 30th of Novem­ber 1813. Ed­ucat­ed by her fa­ther in the phi­los­ophy of the En­cy­clopaedists, Vic­torine Cho­quet went to Berlin in 1838 to study Ger­man, and there mar­ried in 1843 Paul Ack­er­mann, an Al­sa­tian philol­ogist. Af­ter lit­tle more than two years of hap­py mar­ried life her hus­band died, and Madame Ack­er­mann went to live at Nice with a favourite sis­ter. In 1855 she pub­lished Con­tes en vers, and in 1862 Con­tes et poe­sies. Very dif­fer­ent from these sim­ple and charm­ing con­tes is the work on which Madame Ack­er­mann’s re­al rep­uta­tion rests. She pub­lished in 1874 Poe­sies, pre­mieres poe­sies, poe­sies philosophiques, a vol­ume of som­bre and pow­er­ful verse, ex­press­ing her re­volt against hu­man suf­fer­ing. The vol­ume was en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly re­viewed in the Re­vue des deux mon­des for May 1871 by E. Caro, who, though he dep­re­cat­ed the impi­ete de­ses­peree of the vers­es, did full jus­tice to their vigour and the ex­cel­lence of their form. Soon af­ter the pub­li­ca­tion of this vol­ume Madame Ack­er­mann re­moved to Paris,where she gath­ered round her a cir­cle of friends, but pub­lished noth­ing fur­ther ex­cept a prose vol­ume, the Pensees d’un soli­taire (1883), to which she pre­fixed a short au­to­bi­og­ra­phy. She died at Nice on the 2nd of Au­gust 1890.

See al­so Ana­tole France, La vie lit­teraire, 4th se­ries (1892); the comte d’Haus­sonville, Mme. Ack­er­mann (1882); M. Citoleux, La poe­sie philosophique au XIXe. siecle (vol. i., Mme. Ack­er­mann d’apres de nom­breux doc­uments ined­its, Paris, 1906).

ACK­ER­MANN, RUDOLPH (1764-1834), An­glo-​Ger­man in­ven­tor and pub­lish­er, was born on the 20th of April 1764 at Schnee­berg, in Sax­ony. He had been a sad­dler and coach­builder in dif­fer­ent Ger­man cities, Paris and Lon­don for ten years be­fore, in 1795, he es­tab­lished a print-​shop and draw­ing-​school in the Strand. Ack­er­mann set up a litho­graph­ic press, and ap­plied it in 1817 to the il­lus­tra­tion of his Repos­ito­ry of Arts, Lit­er­ature, Fash­ions,; &c. (month­ly un­til 1828 when forty vol­umes had ap­peared). Row­land­son and oth­er dis­tin­guished artists were reg­ular con­trib­utors. He al­so in­tro­duced the fash­ion of the once pop­ular En­glish An­nu­als, be­gin­ning in 1825 with For­get-​me-​not; and he pub­lished many il­lus­trat­ed vol­umes of to­pog­ra­phy and trav­el, The Mi­cro­cosm of Lon­don (3 vols., 1808-1811), West­min­ster Abbey (2 vols., 1812), Pine Rhine (1820), The World in Minia­ture (43 vols., 1821–1826), &c. Ack­er­mann was an en­ter­pris­ing man; he patent­ed (1801) a method for ren­der­ing pa­per and cloth wa­ter­proof, erect­ed a fac­to­ry at Chelsea for the pur­pose and was one of the first to il­lu­mi­nate his own premis­es with gas. In­deed the in­tro­duc­tion of light­ing by gas owed much to him. Af­ter the bat­tle of Leipzig Ack­er­mann col­lect­ed near­ly a quar­ter of a mil­lion ster­ling for the Ger­man suf­fer­ers. He died at Finch­ley, near Lon­don, on the 30th of March 1834.

AC­KNOWL­EDG­MENT (from the old ac­know, a com­pound of on- and know, to know by the sens­es, which passed through the forms oknow, aknow and ac­know; ac­knowl­edge is formed on anal­ogy of “knowl­edge”), an ad­mis­sion that some­thing has been giv­en or done, a term used in law in var­ious con­nex­ions. The ac­knowl­edg­ment of a debt, if in writ­ing signed by the debtor or his agent, is suf­fi­cient to take it out of the Statutes of Lim­ita­tions. The sig­na­ture to a will by a tes­ta­tor, if not made in the pres­ence of two wit­ness­es, may be af­ter­wards ac­knowl­edged in their pres­ence. The ac­knowl­edg­ment by a wom­an mar­ried be­fore 1882 of deeds for the con­veyance of re­al prop­er­ty not her sep­arate prop­er­ty, re­quires to be made by her be­fore a judge of the High Court or of a coun­ty court or be­fore a per­pet­ual or spe­cial com­mis­sion­er. Be­fore such an ac­knowl­edg­ment can be re­ceived, the judge or com­mis­sion­er is re­quired to ex­am­ine her apart from her hus­band, touch­ing her knowl­edge of the deed, and to as­cer­tain whether she freely and vol­un­tar­ily con­sents to it. An ac­knowl­edg­ment to the right of the pro­duc­tion of deeds of con­veyance is an obli­ga­tion on the ven­dor, when he re­tains any por­tion of the prop­er­ty to which the deeds re­late, and is en­ti­tled to re­tain the deeds, to pro­duce them from time to time at the re­quest of the per­son to whom the ac­knowl­edg­ment is giv­en, to al­low copies to be made, and to un­der­take for their safe cus­tody (Con­veyanc­ing Act 1881, s. 9). The term “ac­knowl­edg­ment” is, in the Unit­ed States, ap­plied to the cer­tifi­cate of a pub­lic of­fi­cer that an in­stru­ment was ac­knowl­edged be­fore him to be the deed or act of the per­son who ex­ecut­ed it. .

“Ac­knowl­edg­ment mon­ey” is the sum paid in some parts of Eng­land by copy­hold ten­ants on the death of the lord of the manor.

ACLAND, CHRIS­TIAN HEN­RI­ET­TA CAR­OLINE (1750-1815), usu­al­ly called La­dy Har­ri­et Acland, was born on the 3rd of Jan­uary 1750, the daugh­ter of the first earl of Ilch­ester. In 1770 she mar­ried John Dyke Acland, who as a mem­ber of par­lia­ment be­came a vig­or­ous sup­port­er of Lord North’s pol­icy to­wards the Amer­ican colonies, and, en­ter­ing the British army in 1774, served with Bur­goyne’s ex­pe­di­tion as ma­jor in the 20th reg­iment of foot. La­dy Hur­ri­et ac­com­pa­nied her hus­band, and, when he was wound­ed at Ticon­dero­ga, nursed him in his tent at the front. In the sec­ond bat­tle of Sarato­ga Ma­jor Acland was again bad­ly wound­ed and sub­se­quent­ly tak­en pris­on­er. La­dy Har­ri­et was de­ter­mined to be with him, and un­der­went great hard­ship to ac­com­plish her ob­ject, prov­ing her­self a coura­geous and de­vot­ed wife. A sto­ry has been told that be­ing pro­vid­ed with a let­ter from Gen­er­al Bur­goyne to the Amer­ican gen­er­al Gates, she went up the Hud­son riv­er in an open boat to the en­emy’s lines, ar­riv­ing late in the evening. The Amer­ican out­posts threat­ened to fire in­to the boat if its oc­cu­pants stirred, and La­dy Hn­rri­et had to wait eight “dark and cold hours,” un­til the sun rose, when she at last re­ceived per­mis­sion to join her hus­band. Ma­jor Acland died in 1778, and La­dy Har­ri­et on the 21st of Ju­ly 1815.

ACLAND, SIR HEN­RY WENT­WORTH, BART. (1815-1900), En­glish physi­cian and man of learn­ing, was born near Ex­eter on the 23rd of Au­gust 1815, and was the fourth son of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland (1787-1871). Ed­ucat­ed at Har­row and at Christ Church, Ox­ford, he was elect­ed fel­low of All Souls in 1840, and then stud­ied medicine in Lon­don and Ed­in­burgh. Re­turn­ing to Ox­ford, he was ap­point­ed Lee’s read­er in anato­my at Christ Church in 1845, and in 1851 Rad­cliffe li­brar­ian and physi­cian to the Rad­cliffe in­fir­mary. Sev­en years lat­er he be­came regius pro­fes­sor of medicine, a post which he re­tained till 1894. He was al­so a cu­ra­tor of the uni­ver­si­ty gal­leries and of the Bodleian Li­brary, and from 1858 to 1887 he rep­re­sent­ed his uni­ver­si­ty on the Gen­er­al Med­ical Coun­cil, of which he served as pres­ident from 1874 to 1887. Hn was cre­at­ed a baronet in 1890, and ten years lat­er, on the 16th of Oc­to­ber 1900, he died at his house in Broad Street, Ox­ford. Acland took a lead­ing part in the re­vival of the Ox­ford med­ical school and in in­tro­duc­ing the study of nat­ural sci­ence in­to the uni­ver­si­ty. As Lee’s read­er he be­gan to form a col­lec­tion of anatom­ical and phys­io­log­ical prepa­ra­tions on the plan of John Hunter, and the es­tab­lish­ment of the Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty mu­se­um, opened in 1861, as a cen­tre for the en­cour­age­ment of the study of sci­ence, es­pe­cial­ly in re­la­tion to medicine, was large­ly due to his ef­forts. “To Hen­ry Acland,” said his life­long friend, John Ruskin, “phys­iol­ogy was an en­trust­ed gospel of which he was the soli­tary preach­er to the hea­then,” but on the oth­er hand his thor­ough clas­si­cal train­ing pre­served sci­ence at Ox­ford from too abrupt a sev­er­ance from the hu­man­ities. In con­junc­tion with Dean Lid­dell, he rev­olu­tion­ized the study of art and ar­chae­ol­ogy, so that the cul­ti­va­tion of these sub­jects, for which, as Ruskin de­clared, no one at Ox­ford cared be­fore that time, be­gan to flour­ish in the uni­ver­si­ty. Acland was al­so in­ter­est­ed in ques­tions of pub­lic health. He served on the roy­al com­mis­sion on san­itary laws in Eng­land and Wales in 1869, and pub­lished a study of the out­break of cholera at Ox­ford in 1854, to­geth­er with var­ious pam­phlets on san­itary mat­ters. His mem­oir on the to­pog­ra­phy of the Troad, with panoram­ic plan (1839), was among the fruits of a cruise which he made in the Mediter­ranean for the sake of his health.

ACME (Gr. akme, point), the high­est point at­tain­able; first used as an En­glish word by Ben Jon­son.

ACMITE, or AE­GIRITE, a min­er­al of the py­rox­ene (q.v.) group, which may be de­scribed as a so­da-​py­rox­ene, be­ing es­sen­tial­ly a sodi­um and fer­ric metasil­icate, NAFe(SiO3)2. In its crys­tal­lo­graph­ic char­ac­ters it is close to or­di­nary py­rox­ene (augite and diop­side), be­ing mon­oclin­ic and hav­ing near­ly the same an­gle be­tween the pris­mat­ic cleav­ages. There are, how­ev­er, im­por­tant dif­fer­ences in the op­ti­cal char­ac­ters: the bire­frin­gence of acmite is neg­ative, the pleochro­ism is strong and the ex­tinc­tion an­gle on the plane of sym­me­try mea­sured to the ver­ti­cal ax­is is small (3 deg. -5 deg. ). (The hard­ness is 6-6 1/2, and the spe­cif­ic grav­ity 3.55. Crys­tals are elon­gat­ed in the di­rec­tion of the ver­ti­cal ax­is, and are black­ish green (ae­girite) or dark brown (acmite) in colour. Be­ing iso­mor­phous with augite, crys­tals in­ter­me­di­ate in com­po­si­tion be­tween augite or diop­side and ae­girite are not un­com­mon, and these are known as ae­girine-​augite or ae­girine-​diop­side.

Acmite is a char­ac­ter­is­tic con­stituent of ig­neous rocks rich in so­da, such as nepheline-​syen­ites, phono­lites, &c. It was first dis­cov­ered as slen­der crys­tals, some­times a foot in length, in the peg­matite veins of the gran­ite of Run­de­myr, near Kongs­beig in Ror­way, and was named by F. Stromey­er in 1821 from the Gr. akme, a point, in al­lu­sion to the point­ed ter­mi­na­tions of the crys­tals. Ae­girite (named from Ae­gir, the Scan­di­na­vian sea-​god) was de­scribed in 1835 from the elae­olite-​syen­ite of south­ern Nor­way. Al­though ex­hibit­ing cer­tain va­ri­etal dif­fer­ences, the es­sen­tial iden­ti­ty of acmite and ae­girite has long been es­tab­lished, but the lat­ter and more re­cent name is pethaps in more gen­er­al use, es­pe­cial­ly among petrol­ogists.

AC­NE, a skin erup­tion pro­duced by in­flam­ma­tion of the se­ba­ceous glands and hair fol­li­cles, the es­sen­tial point in the dis­ease be­ing the plug­ging of the mouths of the se­ba­ceous fol­li­cles by a “come­do,” fa­mil­iar­ly known as “black­head.” It is now gen­er­al­ly ac­knowl­edged that the cause of this dis­ease is the or­gan­ism known as bacil­lus ac­nes. It shows it­self in the form of red pim­ples or papules, which may be­come pus­tu­lar and be at­tend­ed with con­sid­er­able sur­round­ing ir­ri­ta­tion of the skin. This af­fec­tion is like­wise most com­mon in ear­ly adult life, and oc­curs on the chest and back as well as on the face, where it may, when of much ex­tent, pro­duce con­sid­er­able dis­fig­ure­ment. It is apt to per­sist for months or even years, but usu­al­ly in time dis­ap­pears en­tire­ly, al­though slight traces may re­main in the form of scars or stains up­on the skin. Erup­tions of this kind are some­times pro­duced by the con­tin­ued in­ter­nal use of cer­tain drugs, such as the io­dide or bro­mide of potas­si­um. In treat­ing this con­di­tion the face should first of all be held over steam­ing wa­ter for sev­er­al min­utes, and then thor­ough­ly bathed. The black­heads should next be re­moved, not with the fin­ger-​nail, but with an in­ex­pen­sive lit­tle in­stru­ment known as the “come­do ex­pres­sor.” When the more no­tice­able of the black­heads have been ex­pressed, the face should be firm­ly rubbed for three or four min­utes with a lath­er made from a spe­cial soap com­posed of sul­phur, cam­phor and bal­sam of Pe­ru. Any lath­er re­main­ing on the face at the end of this time should be wiped off with a soft hand­ker­chief. As this treat­ment might give rise to some ir­ri­ta­tion of the skin, it should be re­placed ev­ery fourth night by a sim­ple ap­pli­ca­tion of cold cream. Of drugs used in­ter­nal­ly sul­phate of cal­ci­um, in pill, 1/6 grain three times a day, is a very use­ful ad­junct to the pre­ced­ing. The pa­tient should take plen­ty of ex­er­cise in the fresh air, a very sim­ple but nour­ish­ing di­et, and, if present, con­sti­pa­tion and anaemia must be suit­ably treat­ed.

Rosacea, pop­ular­ly known as ac­ne rosacea, is a more se­vere and trou­ble­some dis­or­der, a true der­mati­tis with no re­la­tion to the fore­go­ing, and in most cas­es sec­ondary to se­bor­rhea of the scalp. It is char­ac­ter­ized by great red­ness of the nose and cheeks, ac­com­pa­nied by pus­tu­lar en­large­ments on the sur­face of the skin, which pro­duce marked dis­fig­ure­ment. Al­though of­ten seen in per­sons who live too freely, it is by no means con­fined to such, but may arise in con­nex­ion with dis­tur­bances of the gen­er­al health, es­pe­cial­ly of the func­tion of di­ges­tion, and in fe­males with men­stru­al dis­or­ders. It is apt to be ex­ceed­ing­ly in­tractable to treat­ment, which is here too, as in the pre­ced­ing form, part­ly lo­cal and part­ly con­sti­tu­tion­al. Of in­ter­nal reme­dies prepa­ra­tions of io­dine and of ar­senic are some­times found of ser­vice.

ACOEMETI (Gr. akoime­tos, sleep­less), an or­der of East­ern monks who cel­ebrat­ed the di­vine ser­vice with­out in­ter­mis­sion day or night. This was done by di­vid­ing the com­mu­ni­ties in­to choirs, which re­lieved each oth­er by turn in the church. Their first monastery was es­tab­lished on the Eu­phrates, in the be­gin­ning of the 5th cen­tu­ry, and soon af­ter­wards one was found­ed in Con­stantino­ple. Here al­so, c. 460, was found­ed by the con­sular Studius the fa­mous monastery of the Studi­um, which was put in the hands of the Acoemeti and be­came their chief house, so that they were some­times called Stu­dites. At Agaunum (St Mau­rice in the Valais) a monastery was found­ed by the Bur­gun­di­an king Sigis­mund, in 515, in which the per­pet­ual of­fice was kept up; but it is doubt­ful whether this had any con­nex­ion with the East­ern Acoemeti.

The Con­stanti­nop­oli­tan Acoemeti took a promi­nent part in the Chris­to­log­ical con­tro­ver­sies of the 5th and 6th cen­turies, at first stren­uous­ly op­pos­ing Acacius, pa­tri­arch of Con­stantino­ple, in his at­tempt­ed com­pro­mise with the mono­physites; but af­ter­wards, in Jus­tini­an’s reign, falling un­der ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal cen­sure for Nesto­ri­an ten­den­cies.

See the ar­ti­cle in Dic­tio­nary of Chris­tian An­tiq­ui­ties; Wet­zer und Welte, Kirchen­lex­icon (2nd ed.); and Her­zog-​Hauck, Realen­cyk­lopadie (3rd ed.); al­so the gen­er­al his­to­ries of the time. (E. C. B.)

ACOLYTE (Gr.akolouthos, fol­low­er), the last of the four mi­nor or­ders in the Ro­man Church. As an of­fice it ap­pears to be of lo­cal ori­gin, and is en­tire­ly un­known in the East­ern Church, with the ex­cep­tion of the Ar­me­ni­ans who bor­rowed it from the West. Be­fore the coun­cil of Nicaea (325) it was on­ly to be found at Rome and Carthage. When in 251 Pope Cor­nelius, in a let­ter to Fabius of An­ti­och, men­tions among the Ro­man cler­gy forty-​two acolytes, plac­ing them af­ter the sub­dea­cons and be­fore the oth­er mi­nor of­fi­cials (see Eu­se­bius, Hist. Ecc. lib. v. cap. 43), he gives no hint that the of­fice was a new one, but speaks of them as hold­ing an al­ready es­tab­lished po­si­tion. Their in­sti­tu­tion has there­fore to be sought for at an ear­li­er date than his pon­tif­icate. It is pos­si­ble that the Liber Pon­tif­icalis refers to the of­fice un­der the Latin syn­onym, when it says of Pope Vic­tor (186–197) that he made se­quentes cleros, a term—se­quens—which Pope Gaius (283–293) us­es in the sense of acolyte. While the of­fice was well known in Rome, there is noth­ing to prove that it was al­so an or­der through which, as to-​day, ev­ery can­di­date to the priest­hood must pass. The con­trary is a fact proved by many mon­umen­tal in­scrip­tions and au­then­tic state­ments. Though the of­fice is found at Carthage, and St Cypri­an (200?-258) makes many ref­er­ences to acolytes, whom he used to car­ry his let­ters, this seems to be the on­ly place in Africa where they were known. Ter­tul­lian, while speak­ing of read­ers and ex­or­cists, says noth­ing about acolytes; nei­ther does St Au­gus­tine. The Irish Church did not know them; and in Spain the coun­cil of Tole­do (400) makes no men­tion ei­ther of the of­fice or of the or­der. The Statu­ta Ec­cle­si­ae An­ti­qua (false­ly called the Canons of the Fourth Coun­cil of Carthage in 397), a Gal­li­can col­lec­tion, orig­inat­ing in the province of Ar­les at the be­gin­ning of the 6th cen­tu­ry, men­tions the acolyte, but does not give, as in the case of the oth­er or­ders, any form for the or­di­na­tion. The Ro­man books are silent, and there is no men­tion of it in the col­lec­tion known as the Leo­nine Sacra­men­tary; while in the so-​called Gelasian Mass­book, which as we have it, is full of Gal­li­can ad­di­tions made to St Gre­go­ry’s re­form, there is the same si­lence, though in one MS. of the 10th cen­tu­ry giv­en by Mu­ra­tori we find a form for the or­di­na­tion of an acolyte. While there is fre­quent men­tion of the acolyte’s of­fice in the Or­dines Ro­mani, it is on­ly in the Or­do VI­II. (which is not ear­li­er than the 7th cen­tu­ry) that we find the very sim­ple form for ad­mit­ting an acolyte to his of­fice. At the end of the mass the cler­ic, clad in cha­suble and stole and bear­ing a linen bag on one arm, comes be­fore the pope or bish­op and re­ceives a bless­ing. There is no col­la­tion of pow­er or or­der but a sim­ple ad­mis­sion to an of­fice. The ev­idence avail­able, there­fore, points to the fact that the acolyte was on­ly a lo­cal of­fice and was not a nec­es­sary step or or­der for ev­ery can­di­date. In Eng­land, though the ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal or­ga­ni­za­tion came from Rome and was di­rect­ed by Ro­mans, we find no trace of such an of­fice or or­der un­til the time of Ecg­bert of York (767), the friand of Al­cuin and there­fore sub­ject to Gal­li­can in­flu­ence. The Pon­tif­ical known as Ecg­bert’s shows that it was then in use both as an of­fice and as an or­der, and Ael­fric (1006) in both his pas­toral epis­tle and canons men­tions the acolyte. The con­clu­sion, then, which seems war­rant­ed by the ev­idence, is that the acolyte was an of­fice on­ly at Rome, and, be­com­ing an or­der in the Gal­li­can Church, found its way as such in­to the Ro­man books at some pe­ri­od be­fore the fu­sion of the two rites un­der Charle­magne.

The du­ties of the acolyte, as giv­en in the Ro­man Pon­tif­ical, are iden­ti­cal with those men­tioned in the Statu­ta Ec­cle­si­ae An­ti­qua of Ar­les: “It is the du­ty of acolytes to car­ry the can­dle­sticks, to light the lamps of the church, to ad­min­is­ter wine and wa­ter for the Eu­charist.” It might seem, from the num­ber forty-​two men­tioned by Pope Cor­nelius, that at Rome the acolytes were di­vid­ed among the sev­en ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal re­gions of the city; but we have no proof that, at that date, there were six acolytes at­tached to each re­gion. From the an­cient di­vi­sion of the Ro­man acolytes in­to Dala­ti­ni, or those in at­ten­dance on the pope at the Lat­er­an palace, Sta­tion­arii, or those who served at the church­es where there was a “sta­tion,” and Re­gionarii, or those at­tached di­rect­ly to the re­giona, it would seem that the num­ber forty-​two was on­ly the ac­tu­al num­ber then ex­ist­ing and not an of­fi­cial num­ber. We get a glimpse of their du­ties from the Or­dines Ro­mani. When the pope rode in pro­ces­sion to the sta­tion an acolyte, on foot, pre­ced­ed him, bear­ing the holy chrism; and at the church sev­en re­gionary acolytes with can­dles went be­fore him in the pro­ces­sion to the al­tar, while two oth­ers, bear­ing the ves­sel that con­tained a pre-​con­se­crat­ed Host, pre­sent­ed it for his ado­ra­tion. Dur­ing the mass an acolyte bore the thuri­ble (Or­do VI.) and three as­sist­ed at the wash­ing of the hands. At the mo­ment of com­mu­nion the acolytes re­ceived in linen bags the con­se­crat­ed Hosts to car­ry to the as­sist­ing priests. This of­fice of bear­ing the sacra­ment is an an­cient one, and is men­tioned in the leg­end of Tar­ci­sius, the Ro­man acolyte, who was mar­tyred on the Ap­pi­an Way while car­ry­ing the Hosts from the cat­acombs. The of­fi­cial dress of the acolyte, ac­cord­ing to Or­do V., was a close-​fit­ting linen gar­ment (camisia) girt about him, a nap­kin hang­ing from the left side, a white tu­nic, a stole (orar­ium) and a cha­suble (plan­eta) which he took off when he sang on the steps of the am­bone.

At the present day, de­spite the earnest wish of the coun­cil of Trent (Sess. xxi­ii. cap. 17 d.r.), the acolyte, while re­main­ing an or­der, has ceased to be es­sen­tial­ly a cler­ical of­fice, since the du­ties are now per­formed, al­most ev­ery­where, by lay­men. The of­fice has been re­vived, though un­of­fi­cial­ly, in the Church of Eng­land, as a re­sult of the Trac­tar­ian move­ment.

See Morin, Com­men­tar­ius in sac­ris Ec­cle­si­ae or­di­na­tion­ibus (Antwerp, 1685), ii. p. 209, iii. p. 152; Martene, De An­tiquis Ec­cle­si­ae ritibus (Antwerp, 1739), ii. pp. 47 and 86; Ma­bil­lon, Musaeum Italicum II. for the Or­dines Ro­mani; Mu­ra­tori, Litur­gia Ro­mana Ve­tus; Cabrol, Dic­tio­nnaire d’arche­olo­gie chretisnne et de liturgie, vol. i. col. 348-536.-. (E. TN.)

ACOM­INA­TUS (AKOM­INATOS), MICHAEL (c. 1140-1220), Byzan­tine writ­er and ec­cle­si­as­tic, was born at Chonae (the an­cient Colos­sae). At an ear­ly age he stud­ied at Con­stantino­ple, and about 1175 was ap­point­ed arch­bish­op of Athens. Af­ter the cap­ture of Con­stantino­ple by the Franks and the es­tab­lish­ment of the Latin em­pire (1204), he re­tired to the is­land of Coos, where he died. He was a ver­sa­tile writ­er, and com­posed hom­ilies, speech­es and po­ems, which, with his cor­re­spon­dence, throw con­sid­er­able light up­on the mis­er­able con­di­tion of At­ti­ca and Athens at the time. His memo­ri­al to Alex­is III. An­gelus on the abus­es of Byzan­tine ad­min­is­tra­tion, the po­et­ical lament over the de­gen­er­acy of Athens and the mon­odes on his broth­er Nic­etas and Eu­stathius, arch­bish­op of Thes­sa­loni­ca, de­serve spe­cial men­tion.

Edi­tion of his works by S. Lam­bros (1879–1880); Migne, Pa­trolo­gia Grae­ca, cxl.; see al­so A. El­lis­sen, Michael Akom­inatos (1886), con­tain­ing sev­er­al pieces with Ger­man trans­la­tion; F. Gre­gorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Athen im Mit­te­lal­ter, i. (1889); G. Fin­lay, His­to­ry of Greece, iv. pp. 133-134 (1877).

His younger broth­er NIC­ETAS (Nike­tas), some­times called CHO­NI­ATES, who ac­com­pa­nied him to Con­stantino­ple, took up pol­itics as a ca­reer. He held sev­er­al ap­point­ments un­der the An­gelus em­per­ors (amongst them that of “great lo­go­thete” or chan­cel­lor) and was gov­er­nor of the “theme” of Philip­popo­lis at a crit­ical pe­ri­od. Af­ter the fall of Con­stantino­ple he fled to Nicaea, where he set­tled at the court of the em­per­or Theodor­us Las­caris, and de­vot­ed him­self to lit­er­ature. He died be­tween 1210 and 1220. His chief work is his His­to­ry, in 21 books, of the pe­ri­od from 1180 to 1206. In spite of its florid and bom­bas­tic style, it is of con­sid­er­able val­ue as a record (on the whole im­par­tial) of events of which he was ei­ther an eye-​wit­ness or had heard at first hand. Its most in­ter­est­ing por­tion is the de­scrip­tion of the cap­ture of Con­stantino­ple, which should be read with Ville­hardouin’s and Pao­lo Ran­nu­sio’s works on the same sub­ject. The lit­tle trea­tise On the Stat­ues de­stroyed by thc Latins (per­haps, as we have it, al­tered by a lat­er writ­er) is of spe­cial in­ter­est to the ar­chae­ol­ogist. His dog­mat­ic work( The­sauros ‘Or­tho­dox­ias, The­saurus Or­tho­dox­ae Fidei), al­though it is ex­tant in a com­plete form in MS., has on­ly been pub­lished in part. It is one of the chief au­thor­ities for the here­sies and hereti­cal writ­ers of the 12th cen­tu­ry.

Edi­tions: His­to­ry, edi­tio prin­ceps, H. Wolf (1557); and in the Bonn Cor­pus Scrip­to­rum Hist. Byz., 1st ed.,Bekker (1835); Rhetor­ical Pieces in C. Sathas, Me­saionike Bib­lio­theke, i. (1872); The­saurus in Migne, Pa­trolo­gia Grae­ca, cxxxix., cxl.; see al­so C. A. Sainte-​Beuve, “Ge­of­froy de Ville­hardouin” in Causeries du Lun­di, ix.; S. Reinach, “La fin de l’em­pire grec” in Es­quiss­es Arche­ologiques (1888); C. Neu­mann, Griechis­che Geschichtss­chreiber im 12. Jahrhun­dert (1888); Gib­bon, De­cline and Fall, ch. lx.; and (for both Michael and Nic­etas) C. Krum­bach­er, Geschichte der byzan­tinis­chen Lit­ter­atur (1897).

ACONCAGUA, a small north­ern province of cen­tral Chile, bound­ed N. by Co­quim­bo, E. by Ar­genti­na, S. by San­ti­ago and Val­paraiso and W. by the Pa­cif­ic. Its area is of­fi­cial­ly com­put­ed at 5487 sq. m. Pop. (1895) 113,165; (1902, of­fi­cial es­ti­mate based on civ­il reg­istry re­turns) 131,255. The province is very moun­tain­ous, and is tra­versed from east to west by the broad val­ley of the Aconcagua riv­er. The cli­mate is hot and dry, the rain­fall be­ing too small to in­flu­ence cli­mat­ic con­di­tions. The val­leys are high­ly fer­tile, and where ir­ri­ga­tion is em­ployed large crops are eas­ily raised. Be­yond the lim­its of ir­ri­ga­tion the coun­try is se­mi-​bar­ren. Al­fal­fa and grapes are the prin­ci­pal prod­ucts, and con­sid­er­able at­ten­tion is giv­en to the cul­ti­va­tion of oth­er fruits, such as figs, peach­es and mel­ons. The “Vale of Quil­lota,” through which the rail­way pass­es be­tween Val­paraiso and San­ti­ago, is cel­ebrat­ed for its gar­dens. The Aconcagua riv­er ris­es on the south­ern slope of the vol­cano Aconcagua, flows east­ward through a broad val­ley, or bay in the moun­tains, and en­ters the Pa­cif­ic 12 m. north of Val­paraiso. The riv­er has a course of about 200 m., and its wa­ters ir­ri­gate the best and most pop­ulous part of the province. Two oth­er rivers–the Ligua and Choa­pa–tra­verse the province, the lat­ter form­ing the north­ern bound­ary line. The cap­ital is San Fe­lipe, on the Aconcagua riv­er; it had a pop­ula­tion of 11,313 in 1895, and an es­ti­mat­ed pop­ula­tion of 11,660 in 1902. The oth­er chief town is San­ta Rosa de los An­des (est. pop. 6854), which is a prin­ci­pal sta­tion on the Transan­dine branch of the state rail­way. The on­ly port in the province is Los Vi­los, in lat. 32 deg. S., from which a rail­way 40 m. long runs north-​east to the val­ley of the Choa­pa. An­oth­er short line con­nects Ca­bil­do, in the val­ley of the Ligua, with the state rail­way.

ACON­CIO, GI­ACO­MO (1492-1566?), pi­oneer of re­li­gious tol­er­ation, was born at Trent, it is said, on the 7th of Septem­ber 1492. He was one of the Ital­ians like Pe­ter Mar­tyr and Bernardi­no Ochi­no who re­pu­di­at­ed pa­pal doc­trine and ul­ti­mate­ly found refuge in Eng­land. Like them, his re­volt against Ro­man­ism took an ex­tremer form than Lutheranism, and af­ter a tem­po­rary res­idence in Switzer­land and at Strass­burg, he ar­rived in Eng­land soon af­ter Eliz­abeth’s ac­ces­sion. He had stud­ied law and the­ol­ogy, but his pro­fes­sion was that of an en­gi­neer, and in this ca­pac­ity he found em­ploy­ment with the En­glish gov­ern­ment. He was grant­ed an an­nu­ity of L. 60 on the 27th of Febru­ary 1560, and let­ters of nat­ural­iza­tion on the 8th of Oc­to­ber 1561 (Cal. State Pa­pers, Dom. Ser., Ad­den­da, 1547–1566, p. 495), and was for some time oc­cu­pied with drain­ing Plum­stead marsh­es, for which ob­ject var­ious acts of par­lia­ment were passed at this time (Lords’ Jour­nals, vol. i., and Com­mons’ Jour­nals, vol. i., pas­sim). In 1564 he was sent to re­port on the for­ti­fi­ca­tions of Berwick (Cal. St. Pap. For Ser. 1564-1565, pas­sim; Acts P.C., 1558-1570, p. 146); his re­port is now in thc Record Of­fice (C.S.P. For., 1564-1565, No. 512).

But his re­al im­por­tance de­pends up­on his con­tri­bu­tion to the his­to­ry of re­li­gious tol­er­ation. Be­fore reach­ing Eng­land he had pub­lished a trea­tise on the meth­ods of in­ves­ti­ga­tion, De Metho­do, hoc est, de recte in­ves­ti­gan­darum traden­darumque Sci­en­tiarum ra­tione (Basel, 1558, 8vo); and his crit­ical spir­it placed him out­side all the rec­og­nized re­li­gious so­ci­eties of his time. On his ar­rival in Lon­don he had joined the Dutch Re­formed Church in Austin Fri­ars, but he was “in­fect­ed with An­abap­tis­ti­cal and Ar­ian opin­ions” and was ex­clud­ed from the sacra­ment by Grindal, bish­op of Lon­don. The re­al na­ture of his het­ero­doxy is re­vealed in his Stratage­ma­ta Sa­tanae, pub­lished in 1565 and trans­lat­ed in­to var­ious lan­guages. The “stratagems of Sa­tan” are the dog­mat­ic creeds which rent the Chris­tian church. Acon­cio sought to find the com­mon de­nom­ina­tor of the var­ious creeds; this was es­sen­tial doc­trine, the rest was im­ma­te­ri­al. To ar­rive at this com­mon ba­sis, he had to re­duce dog­ma to a low lev­el, and his re­sult was gen­er­al­ly re­pu­di­at­ed. Even Selden ap­plied to Acon­cio the re­mark ubi bene, nil melius; ubi male, nemo pe­jus. The ded­ica­tion of such a work to Queen Eliz­abeth il­lus­trates the tol­er­ance or re­li­gious lax­ity dur­ing the ear­ly years of her reign. Acon­cio found an­oth­er pa­tron in the earl of Le­ices­ter, and died about 1566.

AU­THOR­ITIES.–Gough’s In­dex to Park­er Soc. Publ.; Strype’s Grindal, pp. 62, 66; Bayle’s Dic­tio­nnaire; G. Tira­boschi, Sto­ria del­la lett. ital­iana (Flo­rence, 1805–1813); Os­ter­re­ichis­ches Bi­ogr. Lexikon; Nou­velle bi­ogr. gen­erale; Dict. Nat. Bi­ogr. (A. F. P.)

ACONITE (Aconi­tum), a genus of plants be­long­ing to the nat­ural or­der Ra­nun­cu­laceae, the but­ter­cup fam­ily, com­mon­ly known as aconite, monks­hood or wolfs­bane, and em­brac­ing about 60 species, chiefly na­tives of the moun­tain­ous parts of the north­ern hemi­sphere. They are dis­tin­guished by hav­ing one of the five blue or yel­low coloured sepa­ls (the pos­te­ri­or one) in the form of a hel­met; hence the En­glish name monks­hood. Two of the petals placed un­der the hood of the ca­lyx are sup­port­ed on long stalks, and have a hol­low spur at their apex, con­tain­ing hon­ey. They are hand­some plants, the tall stem be­ing crowned by racemes of showy flow­ers. Aconi­tum Napel­lus, com­mon monks­hood, is a doubt­ful na­tive of Britain, and is of ther­apeu­tic and tox­ico­log­ical im­por­tance. Its roots have oc­ca­sion­al­ly been mis­tak­en for horse-​radish. The aconite has a short un­der­ground stem, from which dark-​coloured ta­per­ing roots de­scend. The crown or up­per por­tion of the root gives rise to new plants. When put to the lip, the juice of the aconite root pro­duces a feel­ing of numb­ness and tin­gling. The horse-​radish root, which be­longs to the nat­ural or­der Cru­cifer­ae, is much longer than that of the aconite, and it is not ta­per­ing; its colour is yel­low­ish, and the top of the root has the re­mains of the leaves on it.

Many species of aconite are cul­ti­vat­ed in gar­dens, some hav­ing blue and oth­ers yel­low flow­ers. Aconi­tum ly­coc­ton­um, wolfs­bane, is a yel­low-​flow­ered species com­mon on the Alps of Switzer­land. The roots of Aconi­tum fer­ox sup­ply the fa­mous In­di­an (Nepal) poi­son called bikh, bish or nabee. It con­tains con­sid­er­able quan­ti­ties of the al­ka­loid pseu­da­coni­tine, which is the most dead­ly poi­son known. Aconi­tum pal­ma­tum yields an­oth­er of the cel­ebrat­ed bikh poi­sons. The root of Aconi­tum luridum, of the Hi­malayas, is said to be as vir­ulent as that of A. fer­ox or A. Napel­lus. As gar­den plants the aconites are very or­na­men­tal, hardy peren­ni­als. They thrive well in any or­di­nary gar­den soil, and will grow be­neath the shade of trees. They are eas­ily prop­agat­ed by di­vi­sions of the root or by seeds; great care should be tak­en not to leave pieces of the root about ow­ing to its very poi­sonous char­ac­ter.

Chem­istry.—The ac­tive prin­ci­ple of Aconi­tum Napel­lus is the al­ka­loid aconi­tine, first ex­am­ined by P. L. Geiger and Hesse (Ann., 1834, 7, p. 267), Alder Wright and A. B, Luff ob­tained apoa­coni­tine, aco­nine and ben­zoic acid by hy­drol­ysis; while, in 1802, C. Ehren­berg and A. Pur­furst (Journ. Prat. Chem., 1892, 45, p. 604) ob­served acetic acid as a hy­drolyt­ic prod­uct. This, and al­lied al­ka­loids, have formed the sub­ject of many in­ves­ti­ga­tions by Wyn­dham Dun­stan and his pupils in Eng­land, and by Mar­tin Fre­und and Paul Beck in Berlin. But their con­sti­tu­tion is not yet solved, there even be­ing some di­ver­gence of opin­ion as to their em­pir­ical for­mu­lae, Aconi­tine (C33H45NO13, ac­cord­ing to Dun­stan; C34H47NO11, ac­cord­ing to Fre­und) is a crys­talline base, sol­uble in al­co­hol, but very spar­ing­ly in wa­ter; its al­co­holic so­lu­tion is dex­tro­ro­ta­to­ry, but its salts are laevoro­ta­to­ry. When heat­ed it los­es wa­ter and forms pyra­coni­tine. Hy­drol­ysis gives acetic acid and ben­za­co­nine, the chief con­stituent of the al­ka­loids pi­cra­coni­tine and napelline; fur­ther hy­drol­ysis gives aco­nine. Pseu­da­coni­tine, ob­tained from Aconi­tum fer­ox, gives on hy­drol­ysis acetic acid and ve­ra­trylpseu­da­co­nine, the lat­ter of which suf­fers fur­ther hy­drol­ysis to ve­ra­tric acid and pseu­da­co­nine. Japa­coni­tine, ob­tained from the Japanese aconites, known lo­cal­ly as “kuza-​uzu,” hy­drol­yses to jap­ben­za­co­nine, which fur­ther breaks down to ben­zoic acid and japa­co­nine. Oth­er re­lat­ed al­ka­loids are ly­ca­coni­tine and my­oc­to­nine which oc­cur in wolfs­bane, Aconi­tum ly­coc­ton­um. The usu­al test for so­lu­tions of aconi­tine con­sists in slight acidu­la­tion with acetic acid and ad­di­tion of potas­si­um per­man­ganate, which caus­es the for­ma­tion of a red crys­talline pre­cip­itate. In 1905, Dun­stan and his col­lab­ora­tors dis­cov­ered two new aconite al­ka­loids, in­da­coni­tine in “mohri” (Aconi­tum chas­man­thum, Stapf), and bikha­coni­tine in “bikh” (Aconi­tum spi­ca­tum); he al­so pro­pos­es to clas­si­fy these al­ka­loids ac­cord­ing to whether they yield ben­zoic or ve­ra­tric acid on hy­drol­ysis (Jour. Chem. Soc., 1905, 87, pp. 1620, 1650).

From the root of Aconi­tum Napel­lus are pre­pared a lin­iment and a tinc­ture. The dose of the lat­ter (Brit. Phar­ma­cop.) is of im­por­tance as be­ing ex­cep­tion­al­ly small, for it is not ad­vis­able to give more than at most five drops at a time. The of­fi­cial prepa­ra­tion is an oint­ment which con­tains one part of the al­ka­loid in fifty. It must be used with ex­treme care, and in small quan­ti­ties, and it must not be used at all where cuts or cracks are present in the skin.

Phar­ma­col­ogy of Aconite and Aconi­tine.—Aconite first stim­ulates and lat­er paral­yses the nerves of pain, touch and tem­per­ature, if ap­plied to the skin, bro­ken or un­bro­ken, or to a mu­cous mem­brane; the ini­tial tin­gling there­fore gives place to a long-​con­tin­ued anaes­thet­ic ac­tion. Tak­en in­ter­nal­ly aconite acts very no­tably on the cir­cu­la­tion, the res­pi­ra­tion and the ner­vous sys­tem. The pulse is slowed, the num­ber of beats per minute be­ing ac­tu­al­ly re­duced, un­der con­sid­er­able dos­es, to forty, or even thir­ty, per minute. The blood-​pres­sure syn­chronous­ly falls, and the heart is ar­rest­ed in di­as­tole. Im­me­di­ate­ly be­fore ar­rest the heart may beat much faster than nor­mal­ly, though with ex­treme ir­reg­ular­ity, and in the low­er an­imals the au­ri­cles may be ob­served oc­ca­sion­al­ly to miss a beat, as in poi­son­ing by ve­ra­trine and colchicum. The ac­tion of aconi­tine on the cir­cu­la­tion is due to an ini­tial stim­ula­tion of the car­dio-​in­hibito­ry cen­tre in the medul­la ob­lon­ga­ta (at the root of the va­gus nerves), and lat­er to a di­rect­ly tox­ic in­flu­ence on the nerve-​gan­glia and mus­cu­lar fi­bres of the heart it­self. The fall in blood-​pres­sure is not due to any di­rect in­flu­ence on the ves­sels. The res­pi­ra­tion be­comes slow­er ow­ing to a par­alyt­ic ac­tion on the res­pi­ra­to­ry cen­tre and, in warm-​blood­ed an­imals, death is due to this ac­tion, the res­pi­ra­tion be­ing ar­rest­ed be­fore the ac­tion of the heart. Aconite fur­ther de­press­es the ac­tiv­ity of all nerve-​ter­mi­nals, the sen­so­ry be­ing af­fect­ed be­fore the mo­tor. In small dos­es it there­fore tends to re­lieve pain, if this be present. The ac­tiv­ity of the spinal cord is sim­ilar­ly de­pressed. The pupil is at first con­tract­ed, and af­ter­wards di­lat­ed. The cere­brum is to­tal­ly un­af­fect­ed by aconite, con­scious­ness and the in­tel­li­gence re­main­ing nor­mal to the last. The an­tipyret­ic ac­tion which con­sid­er­able dos­es of aconite dis­play is not spe­cif­ic, but is the re­sult of its in­flu­ence on the cir­cu­la­tion and res­pi­ra­tion and of its slight di­aphoret­ic ac­tion.

Ther­apeu­tics.—The in­di­ca­tions for its em­ploy­ment are lim­it­ed, but def­inite. It is of un­doubt­ed val­ue as a lo­cal an­odyne in sci­at­ica and neu­ral­gia, es­pe­cial­ly in or­di­nary fa­cial or trigem­inal neu­ral­gia. The best method of ap­pli­ca­tion is by rub­bing in a small quan­ti­ty of the aconi­tine oint­ment un­til numb­ness is felt, but the cost­li­ness of this prepa­ra­tion caus­es the use of the aconite lin­iment to be com­mon­ly re­sort­ed to. This should be paint­ed on the af­fect­ed part with a camel’s hair brush dipped in chlo­ro­form, which fa­cil­itates the ab­sorp­tion of the al­ka­loid. Aconite is in­di­cat­ed for in­ter­nal ad­min­is­tra­tion when­ev­er it is de­sir­able to de­press the ac­tion of the heart in the course of a fever. For­mer­ly used in ev­ery fever, and even in the sep­tic states that con­stant­ly fol­lowed sur­gi­cal op­er­ations in the pre-​Lis­te­ri­an epoch, aconite is now em­ployed on­ly in the ear­li­est stage of the less se­ri­ous fevers, such as acute ton­sili­tis, bron­chi­tis and, no­tably, laryn­gi­tis. The ex­treme pain and rapid swelling of the vo­cal cords—with threat­ened ob­struc­tion to the res­pi­ra­tion that char­ac­ter­ize acute laryn­gi­tis may of­ten be re­lieved by the seda­tive ac­tion of this drug up­on the cir­cu­la­tion. In or­der to re­duce the pulse to its nor­mal rate in these cas­es, with­out at the same time less­en­ing the pow­er of the heart, the drug must be giv­en in dos­es of about two min­ims of the tinc­ture ev­ery half-​hour and then ev­ery hour un­til the pulse falls to the nor­mal rate. There­after the drug must be dis­con­tin­ued. It is prob­ably nev­er right to give aconite in dos­es much larg­er than that named. There is one con­di­tion of the heart it­self in which aconite is some­times use­ful. Whilst ab­so­lute­ly con­tra-​in­di­cat­ed in all cas­es of valvu­lar dis­ease, it is of val­ue in cas­es of car­diac hy­per­tro­phy with over-​ac­tion. But the prac­ti­tion­er must be as­sured that nei­ther valvu­lar le­sion nor de­gen­er­ation of the my­ocardi­um is present.

Tox­icol­ogy.—In a few min­utes af­ter the in­tro­duc­tion of a poi­sonous dose of aconite, marked symp­toms su­per­vene. The ini­tial signs of poi­son­ing are refer­able to the al­imen­ta­ry canal. There is a sen­sa­tion of burn­ing, tin­gling and numb­ness in the mouth, and of burn­ing in the ab­domen. Death usu­al­ly su­per­venes be­fore a numb­ing ef­fect on the in­tes­tine can be ob­served. Af­ter about an hour there is se­vere vom­it­ing. Much mo­tor weak­ness and cu­ta­neous sen­sa­tions sim­ilar to those above de­scribed soon fol­low. The pulse and res­pi­ra­tion steadi­ly fail, death oc­cur­ring from as­phyx­ia. As in strych­nine poi­son­ing, the pa­tient is con­scious and clear-​mind­ed to the last. The on­ly post-​mortem signs are those of as­phyx­ia. The treat­ment is to emp­ty the stom­ach by tube or by a non-​de­pres­sant emet­ic. The phys­io­log­ical an­ti­dotes are at­ropine and dig­ital­in or stro­phan­thin, which should be in­ject­ed sub­cu­ta­neous­ly in max­imal dos­es. Al­co­hol, strych­nine and warmth must al­so be em­ployed.

ACON­TIUS (Gr. Akon­tios), in Greek leg­end, a beau­ti­ful youth of the is­land of Ceos, the hero of a love-​sto­ry told by Cal­li­machus in a po­em now lost, which forms the sub­ject of two of Ovid’s Hero­ides (xx., xxi.). Dur­ing the fes­ti­val of Artemis at De­les, Acon­tius saw Cy­dippe, a well-​born Athe­ni­an maid­en of whom he was en­am­oured, sit­ting in the tem­ple of the god­dess. He wrote on an ap­ple the words, “I swear by the sa­cred shrine of the god­dess that I will mar­ry you,” and threw it at her feet. She picked it up, and me­chan­ical­ly read the words aloud, which amount­ed to a solemn un­der­tak­ing to car­ry them out. Un­aware of this, she treat­ed Acon­tius with con­tempt; but, al­though she was be­trothed more than once, she al­ways fell ill be­fore the wed­ding took place. The Del­ph­ic or­acle at last de­clared the cause of her ill­ness­es to be the wrath of the of­fend­ed god­dess; where­upon her fa­ther con­sent­ed to her mar­riage with Acon­tius (Aris­taene­tus, Epis­to­lae, i. 10; An­ton­inus Lib­er­alis, Meta­mor­phoses, i., tells the sto­ry with dif­fer­ent names).

ACORN, the fruit of the oak-​tree; a word al­so used, by anal­ogy with the shape, in nau­ti­cal lan­guage, for a piece of wood keep­ing the vane on the mast-​head. The et­ymol­ogy of the word (ear­li­er ak­erne, and acharn) is well dis­cussed in the New En­glish Dic­tio­nary. It is de­rived from a word (Goth. akran) which meant “fruit,” orig­inal­ly “of the un­en­closed land,” and so of the most im­por­tant for­est pro­duce, thc oak. Chaucer speaks of “achornes of okes.” By de­grees, pop­ular et­ymol­ogy con­nect­ed the word both with “corn” and “oak-​horn,” and the spelling changed ac­cord­ing­ly.

ACORUS CALA­MUS, sweet-​sedge or sweet-​flag, a plant of the nat­ural or­der Araceae, which shares with the Cuck­oo Pint (Arum) the rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Britain of that or­der of Mono­cotyle­dons. The name is de­rived from acorus, Gr. ako­ros, the clas­si­cal name for the plant. It was the Cala­mus aro­mati­cus of the me­dieval drug­gists and per­haps of the an­cients, though the lat­ter has been re­ferred by some to the Cit­ron grass, An­dro­pogon Nar­dus. The spice “Cala­mus” or “Sweet-​cane” of the Scrip­tures, one of the in­gre­di­ents of the holy anoint­ing oil of the Jews, was per­haps one of the fra­grant species of An­dro­pogon. The plant is a herba­ceous peren­ni­al with a long, branched root-​stock creep­ing through the mud, about 3/4 inch thick, with short joints and large brown­ish leaf-​scars. At the ends of the branch­es are tufts of flat, sword-​like, sweet-​scent­ed leaves 3 or 4 ft. long and about an inch wide, close­ly ar­ranged in two rows as in the true Flag (Iris); the tall, flow­er­ing stems (scapes), which very much re­sem­ble the leaves, bear an ap­par­ent­ly lat­er­al, blunt, ta­per­ing spike of dense­ly packed, very small flow­ers. A long leaf (spathe) borne im­me­di­ate­ly be­low the spike forms an ap­par­ent con­tin­ua­tion of the scape, though re­al­ly a lat­er­al out­growth from it, the spike of flow­ers be­ing ter­mi­nal. The plant has a wide dis­tri­bu­tion, grow­ing in wet sit­ua­tions in the Hi­malayas, North Amer­ica, Siberia and var­ious parts of Eu­rope, in­clud­ing Eng­land, and has been nat­ural­ized in Scot­land and Ire­land. Though re­gard­ed as a na­tive in most coun­ties of Eng­land at the present day, where it is now found thor­ough­ly wild on sides of ditch­es, ponds and rivers, and very abun­dant­ly in some dis­tricts, it is prob­ably not in­dige­nous. It seems to have been spread in west­ern and cen­tral Eu­rope from about the end of the 16th cen­tu­ry by means of botan­ic gar­dens. The botanist Clu­sius (Charles de l’Es­cluse or Lecluse, 1526-1609) first cul­ti­vat­ed it at Vi­en­na from a root re­ceived from Asia Mi­nor in 1574, and dis­tribut­ed it to oth­er botanists in cen­tral and west­ern Eu­rope, and it was prob­ably in­tro­duced in­to Eng­land about 1596 by the herbal­ist Ger­ard. It is very read­ily prop­agat­ed by means of its branch­ing root-​stock. It has an agree­able odour, and has been used medic­inal­ly. The starchy mat­ter con­tained in its rhi­zome is as­so­ci­at­ed with a fra­grant oil, and it is used as hair-​pow­der. Sir J. E. Smith (Eng. Flo­ra, ii. 158, 2nd ed., 1828) men­tions it as a pop­ular rem­edy in Nor­folk for ague. In In­dia it is used as an in­sec­tifuge, and is ad­min­is­tered in in­fan­tile di­ar­rhoea. It is an in­gre­di­ent in pot-​pour­ri, is em­ployed for flavour­ing beer and is chewed to clear the voice; and its volatile oil is em­ployed by mak­ers of snuff and aro­mat­ic vine­gar. The rhi­zome of Acorus Cala­mus is some­times adul­ter­at­ed with that of Iris Pseu­da­corus, which, how­ev­er, is dis­tin­guish­able by its lack of odour, a strin­gent taste and dark colour.

ACOS­TA, JOSE DE (1539?–1600), Span­ish au­thor, was born at Med­ina del Cam­po about the year 1539. He joined the Je­suits in 1551, and in 1571 was sent as a mis­sion­ary to Pe­ru; he act­ed as provin­cial of his or­der from 1576 to 1581, was ap­point­ed the­olog­ical ad­vis­er to the coun­cil of Li­ma in 1582, and in 1583 pub­lished a cat­echism in Quichua and Ay­mara–the first book print­ed in Pe­ru. Re­turn­ing to Spain in 1587, and plac­ing him­self at the head of the op­po­si­tion to Ac­qua­vi­va, Acos­ta was im­pris­oned in 1592–1593; on his sub­mis­sion in 1594 he be­came su­pe­ri­or of the Je­suits at Val­ladol­id, and in 1598 rec­tor of the Je­suit col­lege at Sala­man­ca, where he died on the 15th of Febru­ary 1600. His trea­tise De natu­ra novi or­bis lib­ri duo (Sala­man­ca, 1588-1589) may be re­gard­ed as the pre­lim­inary draft of his cel­ebrat­ed His­to­ria nat­ural y moral de las In­dias (Seville, 1590) which was speed­ily trans­lat­ed in­to Ital­ian (1596), French (1597), Dutch (1598), Ger­man (1601), Latin (1602) and En­glish (1604) The His­to­ria is in three sec­tions: books I. and II. deal with gen­er­al­ities; books III. and IV. with the phys­ical ge­og­ra­phy and nat­ural his­to­ry of Mex­ico and Pe­ru; books V., VI. and VII. with the re­li­gious and po­lit­ical in­sti­tu­tions of the abo­rig­ines. Apart from his so­phis­ti­cal de­fence of Span­ish colo­nial pol­icy, Acos­ta de­serves high praise as an acute and dili­gent ob­serv­er whose nu­mer­ous new and valu­able da­ta are set forth in a vivid style. Among his oth­er pub­li­ca­tions are De procu­ran­da salute In­do­rum lib­ri sex (Sala­man­ca, 1588), De Chris­to rev­ela­to lib­ri novem (Rome, 1590), De tem­po­ribus no­vis­simis lib­ri quatuor (Rome, 1590), and three vol­umes of ser­mons is­sued re­spec­tive­ly in 1596, 1597 and 1599.

AU­THOR­ITIES.—Jose R. Car­ri­ci­do, El P. Jose de Acos­ta y su im­por­tan­cia en La lit­er­atu­ra ci­en­tifi­ca es­panola (Madrid, 1899); C. Som­mer­vo­gel, Bib­lio­theque de La Com­pag­nie de Je­sus, Pre­miere Par­tie (Brus­sels and Paris, 1890), vol. i., col. 31-42; and Ed­ward Grim­ston’s trans­la­tion of the His­to­ria reprint­ed (1880) for the Hak­luyt So­ci­ety with in­tro­duc­tion and notes by Sir Clements R. Markham. (J. F.-K.)

ACOS­TA, URIEL (d. 1647), a Por­tuguese Jew of no­ble fam­ily, was born at Opor­to to­wards the close of the 16th cen­tu­ry. His fa­ther be­ing a con­vert to Chris­tian­ity, Uriel was brought up in the Ro­man Catholic faith, and strict­ly ob­served the rites of the church till the course of his in­quiries led him, af­ter much painful doubt, to aban­don the re­li­gion of his youth for Ju­daism. Pass­ing over to Am­ster­dam, he was re­ceived in­to the syn­agogue, hav­ing his name changed from Gabriel to Uriel. His way­ward dis­po­si­tion found, how­ev­er, no sat­is­fac­tion in the Jew­ish fold. He came in­to con­flict with the au­thor­ities of the syn­agogue and was ex­com­mu­ni­cat­ed. Un­like Spinoza (who was about fif­teen at the time of Acos­ta’s death), Acos­ta was not strong enough to stand alone. Wea­ried by his melan­choly iso­la­tion, he was driv­en to seek a re­turn to the Jew­ish com­mu­nion. Hav­ing re­cant­ed his here­sies, he was read­mit­ted af­ter an ex­com­mu­ni­ca­tion of fif­teen years, but was soon ex­com­mu­ni­cat­ed a sec­ond time. Af­ter sev­en years of ex­clu­sion, he once more sought ad­mis­sion, and, on pass­ing through a hu­mil­iat­ing penance, was again re­ceived. His vac­il­lat­ing au­to­bi­og­ra­phy, Ex­em­plar Hu­manae Vi­tae, was pub­lished with a “refu­ta­tion” by Lim­borch in 1687, and re­pub­lished in 1847. In this brief work Acos­ta de­clares his op­po­si­tion both to Chris­tian­ity and Ju­daism, though he speaks with the more bit­ter­ness of the lat­ter re­li­gion. The on­ly au­thor­ity which he ad­mits is the lex nat­urae. Acos­ta was not an orig­inal thinker, but he stands in the di­rect line of the ra­tio­nal Deists. His his­to­ry forms the sub­ject of a tale and of a tragedy by Gutzkow. Acos­ta com­mit­ted sui­cide in 1647. The sig­nif­icance of his ca­reer has been much ex­ag­ger­at­ed.

ACOTYLE­DONES, the name giv­en by An­toine Lau­rent de Jussieu in 1789 to the low­est class in his Nat­ural Sys­tem of Botany, em­brac­ing flow­er­less plants, such as ferns, ly­copods, horse-​tails, moss­es, liv­er­worts, sea-​weeds, lichens and fun­gi. The name is de­rived from the ab­sence of a seed-​leaf or cotyle­don. Flow­er­ing plants bear a seed con­tain­ing an em­bryo, with usu­al­ly one or two cotyle­dons, or seed-​leaves; while in flow­er­less plants there is no seed and there­fore no true cotyle­don. The term is syn­ony­mous with Cryp­togams, by which it was re­placed in lat­er sys­tems of clas­si­fi­ca­tion.

ACOUS­TICS (from the Gr. ak­ouein to hear), a ti­tle fre­quent­ly giv­en to the sci­ence of sound, that is, to the de­scrip­tion and the­ory of the phe­nom­ena which give rise to the sen­sa­tion of sound (q.v.). The term “acous­tics” might, how­ev­er, with ad­van­tage be re­served for the as­pect of the sub­ject more im­me­di­ate­ly con­nect­ed with hear­ing. Thus we may speak ap­pro­pri­ate­ly of the acous­tic qual­ity of a room or hall, de­scrib­ing it as good or bad acous­ti­cal­ly, ac­cord­ing as speak­ing is heard in it eas­ily or with dif­fi­cul­ty. When a room has bad acous­tic qual­ity we can al­most al­ways as­sign the fault to large smooth sur­faces on the walls, floor or ceil­ing, which re­flect or echo the voice of the speak­er so that the di­rect waves sent out by him at any in­stant are re­ceived by a hear­er with the waves sent out pre­vi­ous­ly and re­flect­ed at these smooth sur­faces. The syl­la­bles over­lap, and the hear­ing is con­fused. The acous­tic qual­ity of a room may be im­proved by break­ing up the smooth sur­faces by cur­tains or by ar­range­ment of fur­ni­ture. The echo is then bro­ken up in­to small waves, none of which may be suf­fi­cient­ly dis­tinct to in­ter­fere with the di­rect voice. Some­times a sound­ing-​board over the head of a speak­er im­proves the hear­ing prob­ably by pre­vent­ing echo from a smooth wall be­hind him. A large bare floor is un­doubt­ed­ly bad for acous­tics, for when a room is filled by an au­di­ence the hear­ing is much im­proved Wires are fre­quent­ly stretched across a room over­head, prob­ably with the idea that they will pre­vent the voice from reach­ing the roof and be­ing re­flect­ed there, but there is no rea­son to sup­pose that they are ef­fi­cient. The on­ly cure ap­pears to con­sist in break­ing up the re­flect­ing sur­faces so that the re­flex­ion shall be much less reg­ular and dis­tinct. Prob­ably drap­ery as­sists by ab­sorb­ing the sound to some ex­tent, and thus it lessens the echo be­sides break­ing it up. (J. H. P.)

AC­QUI, a city and epis­co­pal see of Pied­mont, Italy, in the province of Alessan­dria; from the town of that name it is 21 m. S.S.W. by rail. Pop. (1901) 13,786. Its warm sul­phur springs are still re­sort­ed to; un­der the name of Aquae Statiel­lae they were fa­mous in Ro­man times, and Paulus Di­aconus and Li­ut­prand speak of the an­cient bath es­tab­lish­ment. In the neigh­bour­hood of the town are re­mains of the aque­duct which sup­plied it. The place was con­nect­ed by road with Al­ba Pom­peia and Au­gus­ta Tau­ri­no­rum. The tribe of the Statiel­li, to whom the dis­trict be­longed, had joined the Ro­mans at an ear­ly pe­ri­od, but was at­tacked in 173 and in part trans­ferred to the north of the Po. The town pos­sess­es a fine Goth­ic cathe­dral.

ACRE, or AQUIRY, a riv­er of Brazil and prin­ci­pal trib­utary of the Pu­rus, ris­ing on the Bo­li­vian fron­tier and flow­ing east­er­ly and norther­ly to a junc­tion with the Pu­rus at 8 deg. 45′ S. lat. The name is al­so ap­plied to a dis­trict sit­uat­ed on the same riv­er and on the for­mer (1867) bound­ary line be­tween Bo­livia and Brazil. The re­gion, which abounds in valu­able rub­ber forests, was set­tled by Bo­li­vians be­tween 1870 and 1878, but was in­vad­ed by Brazil­ian rub­ber col­lec­tors dur­ing the next decade and be­came trib­utary to the rub­ber mar­kets of Man­aos and Para. In 1899 the Bo­li­vian gov­ern­ment es­tab­lished a cus­tom-​house at Puer­to Alon­so, on the Acre riv­er, for the col­lec­tion of ex­port du­ties on rub­ber, which pre­cip­itat­ed a con­flict with the Brazil­ian set­tlers and fi­nal­ly brought about a bound­ary dis­pute be­tween the two re­publics. In Ju­ly 1899 the Acre­anos de­clared their in­de­pen­dence and set up a re­pub­lic of their own, but in the fol­low­ing March they were re­duced to sub­mis­sion by Brazil. Var­ious dis­or­ders fol­lowed un­til Brazil de­cid­ed to oc­cu­py Puer­to Alon­so with a mil­itary force. The bound­ary dis­pute was fi­nal­ly set­tled at Petropo­lis on the 17th of Novem­ber 1903 through the pur­chase by Brazil of the rub­ber-​pro­duc­ing ter­ri­to­ry south to about the 11th par­al­lel, es­ti­mat­ed at more than 60,000 sq. m.

ACRE, Ak­ka, or ST JEAN D’ACRE, the chief town of a gov­ern­men­tal dis­trict of Pales­tine which in­cludes Haifa, Nazareth and Tiberias. It stands on a low promon­to­ry at the north­ern ex­trem­ity of the Bay of Acre, 80 m. N. N.W. from Jerusalem, and 25 m. S. of Tyre. The pop­ula­tion is about 11,000; 8000 be­ing Moslems, the re­main­der Chris­tians, Jews, &c. It was long re­gard­ed as the “Key of Pales­tine,” on ac­count of its com­mand­ing po­si­tion on the shore of the broad plain that joins the in­land plain of Es­draelon, and so af­fords the eas­iest en­trance to the in­te­ri­or of the coun­try. But trade is now pass­ing over to Haifa, at the south side of the bay, as its har­bour of­fers a safer road­stead, and is a reg­ular call­ing.place for steam­ers. Busi­ness, rapid­ly de­clin­ing, is still car­ried on in wheat, maize, oil, sesame, &c., in the town mar­ket. There are few build­ings of in­ter­est, ow­ing to the fre­quent de­struc­tions the town has un­der­gone. The wall, which is now ru­inous and has but one gate, dates from the cru­saders: the mosque was built by Jez­zar Pasha (d. 1804) from ma­te­ri­als tak­en from Cae­sarea Palaesti­na: his tomb is with­in. Acre is the seat of the head of the Babist re­li­gion.

His­to­ry.–Few towns have had a more che­quered or calami­tous his­to­ry. Of great an­tiq­ui­ty, it is prob­ably to be iden­ti­fied with the Aak of the trib­ute-​lists of Teth­mo­sis (Thothmes) III (c. 1500 B.C.), and it is cer­tain­ly the Ak­ka of the Tell el-​Amar­na cor­re­spon­dence. To the He­brews it was known as Ac­co (Re­vised Ver­sion spelling), but it is men­tioned on­ly once in the Old Tes­ta­ment, name­ly Judges i. 31, as one of the places from which the Is­raelites did not drive out the Canaan­ite in­hab­itants. The­oret­ical­ly it was in the ter­ri­to­ry of the tribe of Ash­er, and Jose­phus as­signs it by name to the dis­trict of one of Solomon’s provin­cial gov­er­nors. Through­out the pe­ri­od of He­brew dom­ina­tion, how­ev­er, its po­lit­ical con­nex­ions were al­ways with Syr­ia rather than with Pales­tine prop­er: thus, about 725 B.C. it joined Sidon and Tyre in a re­volt against Shal­maneser IV. It had a stormy ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing the three cen­turies pre­ced­ing the Chris­tian era. The Greek his­to­ri­ans name it Ake (Jose­phus calls it al­so Akre); but the name was changed to Ptole­mais, prob­ably by Ptole­my Sot­er, af­ter the par­ti­tion of the king­dom of Alexan­der. Stra­bo refers to the city as once a ren­dezvous for the Per­sians in their ex­pe­di­tions against Egypt. About 165 B.C. Si­mon Mac­cabaeus de­feat­ed the Syr­ians in many bat­tles in Galilee, and drove them in­to Ptole­mais. About 153 B.C. Alexan­der Balas, son of An­ti­ochus Epiphanes, con­test­ing the Syr­ian crown with Demetrius, seized the city, which opened its gates to him. Demetrius of­fered many bribes to the Mac­cabees to ob­tain Jew­ish sup­port against his ri­val, in­clud­ing the rev­enues of Ptole­mais for the ben­efit of the Tem­ple, but in vain. Jonathan threw in his lot with Alexan­der, and in 150 B.C. he was re­ceived by him with great hon­our in Ptole­mais. Some years lat­er, how­ev­er, Tryphon, an of­fi­cer of the Syr­ians, who had grown sus­pi­cious of the Mac­cabees, en­ticed Jonathan in­to Ptole­mais and there treach­er­ous­ly took him pris­on­er. The city was al­so as­sault­ed and cap­tured by Alexan­der Jan­naeus, by Cleopa­tra and by Tigranes. Here Herod built a gym­na­si­um, and here the Jews met Petro­nius, sent to set up stat­ues of the em­per­or in the Tem­ple, and per­suad­ed him to turn back. St Paul spent a day in Ptole­mais. The Arabs cap­tured the city in A.D. 638, and lost it to the cru­saders in 1110. The lat­ter made the town their chief port in Pales­tine. It was re-​tak­en by Sal­adin in 1187, be­sieged by Guy de Lusig­nan in 1189 (see be­low), and again cap­tured by Richard Coeur de Li­on in 1191. In 1229 it was placed un­der the con­trol of the knights of St John (whence one of its al­ter­na­tive names), but fi­nal­ly lost by the Franks in 1291. The Turks un­der Sul­tan Se­lim I. cap­tured the city in 1517, af­ter which it fell in­to al­most to­tal de­cay. Maun­drell in 1697 found it a com­plete ru­in, save for a khan oc­cu­pied by some French mer­chants, a mosque and a few poor cot­tages. To­wards the end of the 18th cen­tu­ry it seems to have re­vived un­der the com­par­ative­ly benef­icent rule of Dha­har el-​Amir, the lo­cal sheikh: his suc­ces­sor, Jez­zar Pasha, gov­er­nor of Dam­as­cus, im­proved and for­ti­fied it, but by heavy im­posts se­cured for him­self all the ben­efits de­rived from his im­prove­ments. About 1780 Jez­zar peremp­to­ri­ly ban­ished the French trad­ing colony, in spite of protests from the French gov­ern­ment, and re­fused to re­ceive a con­sul. In 1799 Napoleon, in pur­suance of his scheme for rais­ing a Syr­ian re­bel­lion against Turk­ish dom­ina­tion, ap­peared be­fore Acre, but af­ter a siege of two months (March–May) was re­pulsed by the Turks, aid­ed by Sir W. Sid­ney Smith and a force of British sailors. Jez­zar was suc­ceed­ed on his death by his son Suleiman, un­der whose milder rule the town ad­vanced in pros­per­ity till 1831, when Ibrahim Pasha be­sieged and re­duced the town and de­stroyed its build­ings. On the 4th of Novem­ber 1840 it was bom­bard­ed by the al­lied British, Aus­tri­an and French squadrons, and in the fol­low­ing year re­stored to Turk­ish rule.

Bat­tle of Acre.—The bat­tle of 1189, fought on the ground to the east of Acre, af­fords a good ex­am­ple of bat­tles of the Cru­sades. The cru­sad­ing army un­der Guy of Lusig­nan, king of Jerusalem, which was be­sieg­ing Acre, gave bat­tle on the 4th of Oc­to­ber 1189 to the re­liev­ing army which Sal­adin had col­lect­ed. The Chris­tian army con­sist­ed of the feuda­to­ries of the king­dom of Jerusalem, nu­mer­ous small con­tin­gents of Eu­ro­pean cru­saders and the mil­itary or­ders, and con­tin­gents from Egypt, Turkestan, Syr­ia and Mesopotamia fought un­der Sal­adin. The Sara­cens lay in a semi­cir­cle east of the town fac­ing in­wards to­wards Acre. The Chris­tians op­posed them with cross­bow­men in first line and the heavy cav­al­ry in sec­ond. At Ar­suf the Chris­tians fought co­her­ent­ly; here the bat­tle be­gan with a dis­joint­ed com­bat be­tween the Tem­plars and Sal­adin’s right wing. The cru­saders were so far suc­cess­ful that the en­emy had to send up re­in­force­ments from oth­er parts of the field. Thus the steady ad­vance of the Chris­tian cen­tre against Sal­adin’s own corps, in which the cross­bows pre­pared the way for the charge of the men-​at-​arms, met with no great re­sis­tance. But the vic­tors scat­tered to plun­der. Sa­jadin ral­lied his men, and, when the Chris­tians be­gan to re­tire with their booty, let loose his light horse up­on them. No con­nect­ed re­sis­tance was of­fered, and the Turks slaugh­tered the fugi­tives un­til checked by the fresh troops of the Chris­tian right wing. In­to this fight Guy’s re­serve, charged with hold­ing back the Sara­cens in Acre, was al­so drawn, and, thus freed, 5000 men sal­lied out from the town to the north­ward; unit­ing with the Sara­cen right wing, they fell up­on the Tem­plars, who suf­fered severe­ly in their re­treat. In the end the cru­saders re­pulsed the re­liev­ing army, but on­ly at the cost of 7000 men. (R. A. S. M.)

ACRE, a land mea­sure used by En­glish-​speak­ing races. De­rived from the Old Eng. ac­er and cog­nate with the Lat. ager, Gr. agros, Sans. ajras, it has re­tained its orig­inal mean­ing “open coun­try,” in such phras­es as “God’s acre,” or a church­yard, “broad acres,” &c. As a mea­sure of land, it was first de­fined as the amount a yoke of ox­en could plough in a day; statu­to­ry val­ues were en­act­ed in Eng­land by acts of Ed­ward I., Ed­ward III., Hen­ry VI­II. and George IV., and the Weights and Mea­sures Act 1878 now de­fines it as con­tain­ing 4840 sq. yds. In ad­di­tion to this “statute” or “im­pe­ri­al acre,” oth­er “acres” are still, though rarely, used in Scot­land, Ire­land, Wales and cer­tain En­glish coun­ties. The Scot­tish acre con­tains 6150.4 sq. yds.; the Irish acre 7840 sq. yds.; in Wales, the land mea­sures erw (4320 sq. yds.), stang (3240 sq. yds.) and pal­adr are called “acres”; the Le­ices­ter­shire acre (2308 3/4 sq. yds.), West­more­land acre (6760 sq. yds.) and Cheshire acre (10,240 sq. yds) are ex­am­ples of lo­cal val­ues.

ACRI­DINE, C13H9N, in chem­istry, a het­ero­cyclic ring com­pound found in crude coal-​tar an­thracene. It may be sep­arat­ed by shak­ing out with di­lute sul­phuric acid, and then pre­cip­itat­ing the sul­phuric acid so­lu­tion with potas­si­um bichro­mate, the re­sult­ing acri­dine bichro­mate be­ing de­com­posed by am­mo­nia. It was first iso­lat­ed in 1890 by C. Graebe and H. Caro (Ann., 1871, 158, p. 265). Many syn­thet­ic pro­cess­es are known for the pro­duc­tion of acri­dine and its deriva­tives. A. Bernth­sen (Ann., 1884, 224, p. 1) con­densed dipheny­lamine with fat­ty acids, in the pres­ence of zinc chlo­ride. Formic acid yields acri­dine, and the high­er ho­mo­logues give deriva­tives sub­sti­tut­ed at the meso car­bon atom,

FIG.

Acri­dine may al­so be ob­tained by pass­ing the vapour of pheny­lortho-​tolu­idine through a red-​hot tube (C. Graebe, Ber., 1884, 17, p. 1370); by con­dens­ing dipheny­lamine with chlo­ro­form, in pres­ence of alu­mini­um chlo­ride (O. Fis­ch­er, Ber., 1884, 17, p. 102); by pass­ing the vapours of or­thoamin­odiphenyl­methane over heat­ed litharge (O. Fis­ch­er); by heat­ing sal­icylic alde­hyde with ani­line and zinc chlo­ride to 260 deg. C. (R. Mohlau, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 2452); and by dis­till­ing acridone over zinc dust (C. Graebe, Ber., 1892, 25, p. 1735).

Acri­dine and its ho­mo­logues are very sta­ble com­pounds of fee­bly ba­sic char­ac­ter. They com­bine read­ily with the alkyl io­dides to form alkyl acri­dini­um io­dides, which are read­ily trans­formed by the ac­tion of al­ka­line potas­si­um fer­ri­cyanide to N-​alkyl acridones. Acri­dine crys­tal­lizes in nee­dles which melt at 110 deg. C. It is char­ac­ter­ized by its ir­ri­tat­ing ac­tion on the skin, and by the blue flu­ores­cence shown by so­lu­tions of its salts. On ox­ida­tion with potas­si­um per­man­ganate it yields acri­dinic acid (quino­line -a-​b-​di­car­boxylic acid) C9H5N(COOH)2. Nu­mer­ous deriva­tives of acri­dine are known and may be pre­pared by meth­ods anal­ogous to those used for the for­ma­tion of the par­ent base. For the prepa­ra­tion of the naph­thacridines, see F.Ull­mann, Ger­man patents 117472, 118439, 127586, 128754, and al­so Ber., 1902, 35, pp. 316, 2670. Phenyl-​acri­dine is the par­ent base of chrysani­line, which is the chief con­stituent of the dyestuff phos­phine (a bye-​prod­uct in the man­ufac­ture of rosani­line). Chrysani­line (di­amino-​pheny­lacri­dine) forms red-​coloured salts, which dye silk and wool a fine yel­low; and the so­lu­tions of the salts are char­ac­ter­ized by their fine yel­low­ish-​green flu­ores­cence. It was syn­the­sized by O. Fis­ch­er and G. Ko­ern­er (Ber., 1884, 17, p. 203) by con­dens­ing or­tho-​ni­troben­zalde­hyde with ani­line, the re­sult­ing or­tho-​ni­tro-​para-​di­amino-​triph­enyl­methane be­ing re­duced to the cor­re­spond­ing or­thoamino com­pound, which on ox­ida­tion yields chrysani­line. Ben­zoflavin, an iso­mer of chrysani­line, is al­so a dye-​stuff, and has been pre­pared by K. Oehler (En­glish Patent9614) from meta-​phenylene­di­amine and ben­zalde­hyde. These sub­stances con­dense to form tetra-​aminot­riph­enyl­methane, which, on heat­ing with acids, los­es am­mo­nia and yields di­amin­odi­hy­dropheny­lacri­dine, from which ben­zoflavin is ob­tained by ox­ida­tion. It is a yel­low pow­der, sol­uble in hot wa­ter. The for­mu­lae of these sub­stances are:–

FIG.

ACRO (or ACRON), HE­LE­NIUS, Ro­man gram­mar­ian and com­men­ta­tor, prob­ably flour­ished at the end of the 2nd cen­tu­ry A.D. He wrote com­men­taries on Ter­ence and per­haps Per­sius. A col­lec­tion of scho­lia on Ho­race, orig­inal­ly anony­mous in the ear­li­er MSS., and on the whole not of great val­ue, was wrong­ly at­tribut­ed to him at a much lat­er date, prob­ably dur­ing the 15th cen­tu­ry. It has been pub­lished by Pauly (1861) and Hau­thal (1866), to­geth­er with the oth­er Ho­race scho­lia.

See Pseu­doacro­nis Scho­lia in Ho­ratium Ve­tus­tio­ra, ed. O. Keller (1902-1904).

AC­RO­BAT (Gr. akro­batein, to walk on tip­toe), orig­inal­ly a rope-​dancer; the word is now used gen­er­al­ly to cov­er pro­fes­sion­al per­form­ers on the trapeze, &c., con­tor­tion­ists, bal­ancers and tum­blers. Ev­idence ex­ists that there were very skil­ful per­form­ers on the tight-​rope (fu­nam­bu­li) among the an­cient Ro­mans. Mod­ern rope-​walk­ers (e.g. Blondin) or wire-​dancers gen­er­al­ly use a pole, load­ed at the ends, or some such as­sis­tance in bal­anc­ing, and by shift­ing this are en­abled to main­tain, or read­ily to re­cov­er, their equi­lib­ri­um.

ACRO­GE­NAE (“grow­ing at the apex”), an ob­so­lete botan­ical term, orig­inal­ly ap­plied to the high­er Cryp­togams (moss­es and ferns), which were er­ro­neous­ly dis­tin­guished from the low­er (Al­gae and Fun­gi) by api­cal growth of the stem. The low­er Cryp­togams were con­trast­ed as Am­phi­ge­nae (“grow­ing all over”), a mis­nomer, as api­cal growth is com­mon among them.

ACROLITHS (Gr. akrolithoi, i.e. end­ing in stone), stat­ues of a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od in the his­to­ry of plas­tic art, in which the trunk of the fig­ure was of wood, and the head, hands and feet of mar­ble. The wood was con­cealed ei­ther by gild­ing or, more com­mon­ly, by drap­ery, and the mar­ble parts alone were ex­posed. Acroliths are fre­quent­ly men­tioned by Pau­sa­nias, the best known spec­imen be­ing the Athene Areia of the Plataeans.

ACROMEGALY, the name giv­en to a dis­ease char­ac­ter­ized by a true hy­per­tro­phy (an over­growth in­volv­ing both bony and soft parts) of the ter­mi­nal parts of the body, es­pe­cial­ly of the face and ex­trem­ities (Gr. akron, point, and megas, large). It is more fre­quent in the fe­male sex, be­tween the ages of 25 and 40. Its cau­sa­tion is gen­er­al­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with dis­tur­bances in the pi­tu­itary gland, and an ex­tract of this body has been tried in the treat­ment, as one of the re­cent de­vel­op­ments in organ­oth­er­apeu­tics; thy­roid ex­tract has al­so been used, but with­out marked suc­cess, On the ap­par­ent anal­ogy of acromegaly with myx­oede­ma.

ACRON, a Greek physi­cian, born at Agri­gen­tum in Sici­ly, was con­tem­po­rary with Empe­do­cles, and must there­fore have lived in the 5th cen­tu­ry be­fore Christ. The suc­cess­ful mea­sure of light­ing large fires, and pu­ri­fy­ing the air with per­fumes, to put a stop to the plague in Athens (430 B.C.), is said to have orig­inat­ed with him; but this has been ques­tioned on chrono­log­ical grounds. Suidas gives the ti­tles of sev­er­al med­ical works writ­ten by him in the Doric di­alect.

ACROP­OLIS (Gr. akros, top, po­lis, city), lit­er­al­ly the up­per part of a town. For pur­pos­es of de­fence ear­ly set­tlers nat­ural­ly chose el­evat­ed ground, fre­quent­ly a hill with pre­cip­itous sides, and these ear­ly citadels be­came in many parts of the world the nu­clei of large cities which grew up on the sur­round­ing low­er ground. The word Acrop­olis, though Greek in ori­gin and as­so­ci­at­ed pri­mar­ily with Greek towns (Athens, Ar­gos, Thebes, Corinth), may be ap­plied gener­ical­ly to all such citadels (Rome, Jerusalem, many in Asia Mi­nor, or even Cas­tle Hill at Ed­in­burgh). The most fa­mous is that of Athens, which, by rea­son of its his­tor­ical as­so­ci­ations and the fa­mous build­ings erect­ed up­on it, is gen­er­al­ly known with­out qual­ifi­ca­tion as the Acrop­olis (see ATHENS).

ACROP­OLI­TA (AKROPO­LITES), GEORGE (1217-1282), Byzan­tine his­to­ri­an and states­man, was born at Con­stantino­ple. At an ear­ly age he was sent by his fa­ther to the court of John Ducas Batatzes (Vatatzes), em­per­or of Nicaea, by whom and by his suc­ces­sors (Theodor­us II. Las­caris and Michael VI­II. Palae­olo­gus) he was en­trust­ed with im­por­tant state mis­sions. The of­fice of “great lo­go­thete” or chan­cel­lor was be­stowed up­on him in 1244. As com­man­der in the field in 1257 against Michael An­gelus, despot of Epirus, he showed lit­tle mil­itary ca­pac­ity. He was cap­tured and kept for two years in prison, from which he was re­leased by Michael Palae­olo­gus. Acrop­oli­ta’s most im­por­tant po­lit­ical task was that of ef­fect­ing a rec­on­cil­ia­tion be­tween the Greek and Latin Church­es, to which he had been for­mer­ly op­posed. In 1273 he was sent to Pope Gre­go­ry X., and in the fol­low­ing year, at the coun­cil of Lyons, in the em­per­or’s name he rec­og­nized the spir­itu­al suprema­cy of Rome. In 1282 he was sent on an em­bassy to John II, em­per­or of Tre­bi­zond, and died in the same year soon af­ter his re­turn. His his­tor­ical work (Xronike Sups­grafe, An­nales) em­braces the pe­ri­od from the cap­ture of Con­stantino­ple by the Latins (1204) to its re­cov­ery by Michael Palae­olo­gus (1261), thus form­ing a con­tin­ua­tion of the work of Nic­etas Acom­ina­tus. It is valu­able as writ­ten by a con­tem­po­rary, whose of­fi­cial po­si­tion as great lo­go­thete, mil­itary com­man­der and con­fi­den­tial am­bas­sador af­ford­ed him fre­quent op­por­tu­ni­ties of ob­serv­ing the course of events. Acrop­oli­ta is con­sid­ered a trust­wor­thy au­thor­ity as far as the state­ment of facts is con­cerned, and he is easy to un­der­stand, al­though he ex­hibits spe­cial care­less­ness in the con­struc­tion of his sen­tences. He was al­so the au­thor of sev­er­al short­er works, amongst them be­ing a fu­ner­al ora­tion on John Batatzes, an epi­taph on his wife Eirene and a pan­egyric of Theodor­us II. Las­caris of Nicaea. While a pris­on­er at Epirus he wrote two trea­tis­es on the pro­ces­sion of the Holy Ghost (’Ek­poreusis, Pro­ces­sio Spir­itus Sanc­ti).

Edi­tio prin­ceps by Leo Al­latius (1651), with the ed­itor’s fa­mous tea­tise De Georgi­is eo­rumque Scrip­tis; edi­tions in the Bonn Cor­pus Scrip­toru­in Hist. Byz., by I. Bekker (1836), and Migne, Pa­trolo­gia Grae­ca, cxl.; in the Teub­ner se­ries by A. Heisen­berg (1903), the sec­ond vol­ume of which con­tains a full life, with bib­li­og­ra­phy; see al­so C. Krum­bach­er, Geschichte der byzan­tinis­chen Lit­ter­atur (1897).

ACROS­TIC (Gr. akros, at the end, and sti­chos, line or verse), a short verse com­po­si­tion, so con­struct­ed that the ini­tial let­ters of the lines, tak­en con­sec­utive­ly, form words. The fan­cy for writ­ing acros­tics is of great an­tiq­ui­ty, hav­ing been com­mon among the Greeks of the Alexan­drine pe­ri­od, as well as with the Latin writ­ers since En­nius and Plau­tus, many of the ar­gu­ments of whose plays were writ­ten with acros­tics on their re­spec­tive ti­tles. One of the most re­mark­able acros­tics was con­tained in the vers­es cit­ed by Lac­tan­tius and Eu­se­bius in the 4th cen­tu­ry, and at­tribut­ed to the Ery­thraean sibyl, the ini­tial let­ters of which form the words ‘In­sous Arist.os Theou uios soz­er: “Je­sus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour.” The ini­tials of the short­er form of this again make up the word ichthbs (fish), to which a mys­ti­cal mean­ing has been at­tached (Au­gus­tine, De Civ­itale Dei, 18, 23), thus con­sti­tut­ing an­oth­er kind of acros­tic.

The monks of the mid­dle ages, who wrote in Latin, were fond of acros­tics, as well as the po­ets of the Mid­dle High Ger­man pe­ri­od, no­tably Got­tfried of Strass­burg and Rudolph of Ems. The great po­ets of the Ital­ian re­nais­sance, among them Boc­cac­cio, in­dulged in them, as did al­so the ear­ly Slav­ic writ­ers. Sir John Davies (1569-1626) wrote twen­ty-​six el­egant Hymns to As­traea, each an acros­tic on “Elis­abetha Regi­na”; and Mis­tress Mary Fage, in Fame’s Roule, 1637, com­mem­orat­ed 420 celebri­ties of her time in acros­tic vers­es. The same trick of com­po­si­tion is of­ten to be met with in the writ­ings of more re­cent ver­si­fiers. Some­times the lines are so com­bined that the fi­nal let­ters as well as the ini­tials are sig­nif­icant. Edgar Al­lan Poe worked two names—one of them that of Frances Sar­gent Os­good–in­to vers­es in such a way that the let­ters of the names cor­re­spond­ed to the first let­ter of the first line, the sec­ond let­ter of the sec­ond, the third let­ter of the third, and so on.

Acros­tic verse has al­ways been held in slight es­ti­ma­tion from a lit­er­ary stand­point. Dr Samuel But­ler says, in his “Char­ac­ter of a Small Po­et,” “He us­es to lay the out­sides of his vers­es even, like a brick­lay­er, by a line of rhyme and acros­tic, and fill the mid­dle with rub­bish.” Ad­di­son (Spec­ta­tor, No. 60) found it im­pos­si­ble to de­cide whether the in­ven­tor of the ana­gram or the acros­tic were the greater block­head; and, in de­scrib­ing the lat­ter, says, “I have seen some of them where the vers­es have not on­ly been edged by a name at each ex­trem­ity, but have had the same name run­ning down like a seam through the mid­dle of the po­em.” And Dry­den, in Mac Flec­knoe, scorn­ful­ly as­signed Shad­well the rule

Some peace­ful province in acros­tic land.

The name acros­tic is al­so ap­plied to al­pha­bet­ical or “abecedar­ian” vers­es. Of these we have in­stances in the He­brew psalms (e.g. Ps. xxv. and xxxiv.), where suc­ces­sive vers­es be­gin with the let­ters of the al­pha­bet in their or­der. The struc­ture of Ps. cx­ix. is still more elab­orate, each of the vers­es of each of the twen­ty-​two parts com­menc­ing with the let­ter which stands at the head of the part in our En­glish trans­la­tion.

At one pe­ri­od much re­li­gious verse was writ­ten in a form im­ita­tive of this al­pha­bet­ical method, pos­si­bly as an aid to the mem­ory. The term acros­tic is al­so ap­plied to the for­ma­tion of words from the ini­tial let­ters of oth­er words. ‘Ichthbs, re­ferred to above, is an il­lus­tra­tion of this. So al­so is the word “Ca­bal,” which, though it was in use be­fore, with a sim­ilar mean­ing, has, from the time of Charles II., been as­so­ci­at­ed with a par­tic­ular min­istry, from the ac­ci­dent of its be­ing com­posed of Clif­ford, Ash­ley, Buck­ing­ham, Ar­ling­ton and Laud­erdale. Akin to this are the names by which the Jews des­ig­nat­ed their Rab­bis; thus Rab­bi Moses ben Mai­mon (bet­ter known as Mai­monides) was styled “Ram­bam,” from the ini­tials R.M.B.M.; Rab­bi David Kim­chi (R.D.K.), “Radak,” &c.

Dou­ble acros­tics are such as are so con­struct­ed, that not on­ly ini­tial let­ters of the lines, but al­so the mid­dle or last let­ters, form words. For ex­am­ple:—1. By Apol­lo was my first made. 2. A shoe­mak­er’s tool. 3. An Ital­ian pa­tri­ot. 4. A trop­ical fruit. The ini­tials and fi­nals, read down­wards, give the name of a writ­er and his nom de plume. An­swer: Lamb,

1. L yr E 2. A w L 3. M azz­in I 4. B anan A

ACRO­TERI­UM (Gr. akro­te­ri­on the sum­mit or ver­tex), in ar­chi­tec­ture, a stat­ue or or­na­ment of any kind placed on the apex of a ped­iment. The term is of­ten re­strict­ed to the plinth, which forms the podi­um mere­ly for the acro­teri­um.

ACT (Lat. ac­tus, ac­tum), some­thing done, pri­mar­ily a vol­un­tary deed or per­for­mance, though any ac­com­plished fact is of­ten in­clud­ed. The sig­ni­fi­ca­tion of the word varies ac­cord­ing to the sense in which it is em­ployed. It is of­ten syn­ony­mous with “statute” (see ACT OF PAR­LIA­MENT). It may al­so re­fer to the re­sult of the vote or de­lib­er­ation of any leg­is­la­ture, the de­ci­sion of a court of jus­tice or mag­is­trate, in which sense records, de­crees, sen­tences, re­ports, cer­tifi­cates, &c., are called acts.

In law it means any in­stru­ment in writ­ing, for declar­ing or jus­ti­fy­ing the truth of a bar­gain or trans­ac­tion, as: “I de­liv­er this as my act and deed.” The ori­gin of the le­gal use of the word “act” is in the ac­ta of the Ro­man mag­is­trates or peo­ple, of their courts of law, or of the sen­ate, mean­ing (1) what was done be­fore the mag­is­trates, the peo­ple or the sen­ate; (2) the records of such pub­lic pro­ceed­ings.

In con­nex­ion with oth­er words “act” is em­ployed in many phras­es, e.g. act of God, any event, such as the sud­den, vi­olent or over­whelm­ing oc­cur­rence of nat­ural forces, which can­not be fore­seen or pro­vid­ed against. This is a good de­fence to a suit for non-​per­for­mance of a con­tract. Act of hon­our de­notes the ac­cep­tance by a third par­ty of a protest­ed bill of ex­change for the hon­our of any par­ty there­to. Act of grace de­notes the grant­ing of some spe­cial priv­ilege.

In uni­ver­si­ties, the pre­sent­ing and pub­licly main­tain­ing a the­sis by a can­di­date for a de­gree, to show his pro­fi­cien­cy, is an act. “The Act” at Ox­ford, up to 1856 when it was abol­ished, was the cer­emo­ny held ear­ly in Ju­ly for this pur­pose, and the ex­pres­sions “Act Sun­day,” “Act Term” still sur­vive.

In dra­mat­ic lit­er­ature, act sig­ni­fies one of those parts in­to which a play is di­vid­ed to mark the change of time or place, and to give a respite to the ac­tors and to the au­di­ence. In Greek plays there are no sep­arate acts, the uni­ties be­ing strict­ly ob­served, and the ac­tion be­ing con­tin­uous from be­gin­ning to end. If the prin­ci­pal ac­tors left the stage the cho­rus took up the ar­gu­ment, and con­tribut­ed an in­te­gral part of the play, though chiefly in the form of com­ment up­on the ac­tion. When nec­es­sary, an­oth­er dro­ma, which is et­ymo­log­ical­ly the same as an act, car­ried on the his­to­ry to a lat­er time or in a dif­fer­ent place, and thus we have the Greek trilo­gies or groups of three dra­mas, in which the same char­ac­ters reap­pear. The Ro­man po­ets first adopt­ed the di­vi­sion in­to acts, and sus­pend­ed the stage busi­ness in the in­ter­vals be­tween them. Their num­ber was usu­al­ly five, and the rule was at last laid down by Ho­race in the Ars

Neve mi­nor, neu sit quin­to pro­duc­tior ac­tu Fab­ula, quae posci vult, et spec­ta­ta re­poni. “If you would have your play de­serve suc­cess, Give it five acts com­plete, nor more nor less.” (Fran­cis.)

On the re­vival of let­ters this rule was al­most uni­ver­sal­ly ob­served by drama­tists, and that there is an in­her­ent con­ve­nience and fit­ness in the num­ber five is ev­ident from the fact that Shake­speare, who re­fused to be tram­melled by mere­ly ar­bi­trary rules, adopts it in all his plays. Some crit­ics have laid down rules as to the part each act should sus­tain in the de­vel­op­ment of the plot, but these are not es­sen­tial, and are by no means uni­ver­sal­ly rec­og­nized. In com­edy the rule as to the num­ber of acts has not been so strict­ly ad­hered to as in tragedy, a di­vi­sion in­to two acts or three acts be­ing quite usu­al since the time of Moliere, who first in­tro­duced it. It may be well to men­tion here Mil­ton’s Sam­son Ag­onistes as a spec­imen in En­glish lit­er­ature of a dra­mat­ic work found­ed on a pure­ly Greek mod­el, in which, con­se­quent­ly, there is no di­vi­sion in­to acts.

For “act­ing,” as the art and the­ory of dra­mat­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion (or histri­on­ics, from Lat. histrio, an ac­tor), see the ar­ti­cle DRA­MA.

AC­TA DI­UR­NA (Lat. ac­ta, pub­lic acts or records; di­urnius, dai­ly, from dies), called al­so Ac­ta Fop­uli, Ac­ta Pub­li­ca and sim­ply Ac­ta or Di­ur­na, in an­cient Rome a sort of dai­ly gazette, con­tain­ing an of­fi­cial­ly au­tho­rized nar­ra­tive of note­wor­thy eventsat Rome. Its con­tents were part­ly of­fi­cial (court news, de­crees of the em­per­or, sen­ate and mag­is­trates), part­ly pri­vate (no­tices of births, mar­riages and deaths). Thus to some ex­tent it filled the place of the mod­ern news­pa­per (q.v.). The ori­gin of the Ac­ta is at­tribut­ed to Julius Cae­sar, who first or­dered the keep­ing and pub­lish­ing of the acts of the peo­ple by pub­lic of­fi­cers (59 B.C.; Sue­to­nius, Cae­sar, 20). The Ac­ta were drawn up from day to day, and ex­posed in a pub­lic place on a whitened board (see AL­BUM). Af­ter re­main­ing there for a rea­son­able time they were tak­en down and pre­served with oth­er pub­lic doc­uments, so that they might be avail­able for pur­pos­es of re­search. The Ac­ta dif­fered from the An­nals (which were dis­con­tin­ued in 133 B.C.) in that on­ly the greater and more im­por­tant mat­ters were giv­en in the lat­ter, while in the for­mer things of less note were record­ed. Their pub­li­ca­tion con­tin­ued till the trans­fer­ence of the seat of the em­pire to Con­stantino­ple. There are no gen­uine frag­ments ex­tant.

Leclerc, Des Jour­naux chez les Ro­mains (1838); Renssen, De Di­ur­nis ali­isque Ro­mano­rum Ac­tis (1857); Hub­ner, De Sen­atus Pop­ulique Ro­mani Ac­tis (1860); Gas­ton Boissier, Tac­itus and oth­er Ro­man Stud­ies (Eng. trans., W. G. Hutchi­son, 1906), pp. 197-229.

AC­TAEON, son of Aris­taeus and Au­to­noe, a fa­mous The­ban hero and hunter, trained by the cen­taur Che­iron. Ac­cord­ing to the sto­ry told by Ovid (Metam. iii. 131; see al­so Apol­lod iii. 4), hav­ing ac­ci­den­tal­ly seen Artemis (Di­ana) on Mount Cithaeron while she was bathing, he was changed by her in­to a stag, and pur­sued and killed by his fifty hounds. His stat­ue was of­ten set up on rocks and moun­tains as a pro­tec­tion against ex­ces­sive heat. The myth it­self prob­ably rep­re­sents the de­struc­tion of veg­eta­tion dur­ing the fifty dog-​days. Aeschy­lus and oth­er trag­ic po­ets made use of the sto­ry, which was a favourite sub­ject in an­cient works of art. There is a well-​known small mar­ble group in the British Mu­se­um il­lus­tra­tive of the sto­ry.

AC­TA SEN­ATUS, or COM­MEN­TARII SEN­ATUS, min­utes of the dis­cus­sions and de­ci­sions of the Ro­man sen­ate. Be­fore the first con­sul­ship of Julius Cae­sar (59 B.C.), min­utes of the pro­ceed­ings of the sen­ate were writ­ten and oc­ca­sion­al­ly pub­lished, but un­of­fi­cial­ly; Cae­sar, de­sir­ing to tear away the veil of mys­tery which gave an un­re­al im­por­tance to the sen­ate’s de­lib­er­ations, first or­dered them to be record­ed and is­sued au­thor­ita­tive­ly. The keep­ing of them was con­tin­ued by Au­gus­tus, but their pub­li­ca­tion was for­bid­den (Sue­to­nius, Au­gus­tus, 36). A young sen­ator (ab ac­tis sen­atus) was cho­sen to draw up these Ac­ta, which were kept in the im­pe­ri­al archives and pub­lic li­braries (Tac­itus, Ann. v. 4). Spe­cial per­mis­sion from the city prae­fect was nec­es­sary in or­der to ex­am­ine them. For au­thor­ities see AC­TA DI­UR­NA.

ACTI­NOME­TER (Gr. ak­tis, ray, metron, mea­sure), an in­stru­ment for mea­sur­ing the heat­ing and chem­ical ef­fects of light. The name was first giv­en by Sir John Her­schel to an ap­pa­ra­tus for mea­sur­ing the heat­ing ef­fect of so­lar rays (Edin. Journ. Sci­ence, 1825); Her­schel’s in­stru­ment has since been dis­card­ed in favour of the pyrhe­liome­ter (Gr. tur, fire, elios, sun). (See RA­DI­ATION.) The word acti­nome­ter is now usu­al­ly ap­plied to in­stru­ments for mea­sur­ing the ac­tinic or chem­ical ef­fect of lu­mi­nous rays; their ac­tion gen­er­al­ly de­pends up­on pho­to­chem­ical changes (see PHO­TO-​CHEM­ISTRY). Cer­tain prac­ti­cal forms are de­scribed in the ar­ti­cle PHO­TOG­RA­PHY.

ACTI­NO­MY­CO­SIS (STREP­TOTRI­CHOSIS), a chron­ic in­fec­tive dis­ease oc­cur­ring in both cat­tle and man. In both these groups it presents the same clin­ical course, be­ing char­ac­ter­ized by chron­ic in­flam­ma­tion with the for­ma­tion of gran­ulo­ma­tous tu­mours, which tend to un­der­go sup­pu­ra­tion, fi­bro­sis or cal­ci­fi­ca­tion. It used to be be­lieved that this dis­ease was caused by a sin­gle veg­etable par­asite, the Ray-​Fun­gus, but there is now an over­whelm­ing mass of ob­ser­va­tions to show that the clin­ical fea­tures may be pro­duced by a num­ber of dif­fer­ent species of par­asites, for which the gener­ic name Strep­tothrix has been gen­er­al­ly adopt­ed. In 1899 the com­mit­tee of the Patho­log­ical So­ci­ety of Lon­don rec­om­mend­ed that the term Strep­totri­chosis should be used as the ap­pro­pri­ate clin­ical ep­ithet of the large class of Strep­tothrix in­fec­tions. And since that year the name Acti­no­my­co­sis has been falling in­to dis­use, and in any case is on­ly used syn­ony­mous­ly with Stre­itotri­chosis. For a fur­ther ac­count of these par­asites see the ar­ti­cles on BAC­TE­RI­OL­OGY and on PAR­ASITIC DIS­EASES.

Patho­log­ical Anato­my.—The naked-​eye ap­pear­ance of the dif­fer­ent or­gans af­fect­ed by Strep­tothrix in­fec­tion varies ac­cord­ing to the du­ra­tion and acute­ness of the dis­ease. In some tis­sues the ap­pear­ance is that of sim­ple in­flam­ma­tion, where­as in oth­ers it may be char­ac­ter­is­tic. The liv­er when af­fect­ed shows scat­tered fo­ci of sup­pu­ra­tion, which may be­come ag­gre­gat­ed in­to spheroidal mass­es, sur­round­ed by a zone of in­flam­ma­tion. In the lungs the changes may be any that are pro­duced by the fol­low­ing con­di­tions. (1) An acute bron­chi­tis. (2) A ph­thisi­cal lung, grey nod­ules be­ing scat­tered here and there al­most ex­act­ly sim­ulat­ing tu­ber­cu­lous nod­ules. (3) An acute bron­cho-​pneu­mo­nia with some in­ter­sti­tial fi­bro­sis and a ten­den­cy to ab­scess for­ma­tion. The most char­ac­ter­is­tic le­sions are in the skin. These ap­pear as nod­ules, sar­co­ma­tous-​look­ing, soft and pulpy. Their colour is mot­tled, yel­low and pur­plish red. The skin over them is thinned out, and bro­ken down in places to form one or two cra­ter­iform ul­cers from which a clear sticky flu­id ex­udes. The size varies from that of a pea to a small or­ange. The pus is char­ac­ter­is­tic, vary­ing in con­sis­ten­cy though usu­al­ly vis­cid, and con­tain­ing nu­mer­ous minute specks.

The dis­ease is more com­mon in males than in fe­males, aod more preva­lent in Ger­many and Rus­sia than in Eng­land. The in­fec­tion is prob­ably spread by grain (corn or bar­ley), on which the fun­gus may of­ten be found. In a great num­ber of record­ed cas­es the pa­tient has been fol­low­ing agri­cul­tur­al pur­suits. The dis­ease can on­ly be trans­mit­ted from one in­di­vid­ual to an­oth­er with con­sid­er­able dif­fi­cul­ty, and no case of di­rect trans­mis­sion from an­imal to man has yet been not­ed.

Clin­ical His­to­ry.—The course of acti­no­my­co­sis is usu­al­ly a chron­ic one, but oc­ca­sion­al­ly the fun­gus gets in­to the blood, when the course is that of an acute in­fec­tive dis­ease or even pyaemia. The symp­toms are en­tire­ly de­pen­dent on the or­gan at­tacked, and are in no way spe­cial­ly char­ac­ter­is­tic. Dur­ing life a di­ag­no­sis of ph­thi­sis is con­tin­ual­ly made, and on­ly a mi­cro­scop­ic ex­am­ina­tion af­ter death ren­ders the true na­ture of the dis­ease ap­par­ent. The na­ture of the skin le­sion is the most ev­ident, and here the par­asite can be de­tect­ed ear­ly in the ill­ness. The on­ly drug which ap­pears to have any ben­efi­cial in­flu­ence on the course of the dis­ease is potas­si­um io­dide, and this has oc­ca­sion­al­ly been used with great ben­efit. Sur­gi­cal in­ter­fer­ence is usu­al­ly need­ed, ei­ther ex­ci­sion of the part af­fect­ed, or, where pos­si­ble, a thor­ough scrap­ing of the le­sion and free ap­pli­ca­tion of an­ti­sep­tics.

ACTI­NO­ZOA, a term in sys­tem­at­ic zo­ol­ogy, first used by H. M. D. de Blainville about 1834, to des­ig­nate an­imals the or­gans of which were dis­posed ra­di­al­ly about a cen­tre. De Blainville in­clud­ed in his group many uni­cel­lu­lar forms such as Noc­tilu­ca (see PRO­TO­ZOA), sea-​anemones, corals, jel­ly-​fish and hy­droid polyps, echin­oderms, poly­zoa and ro­tifera. T. H. Hux­ley af­ter­wards re­strict­ed the term. He showed that in de Blainville’s group there were as­so­ci­at­ed with a num­ber of het­ero­ge­neous forms a group of an­imals char­ac­ter­ized by be­ing com­posed of two lay­ers of cells com­pa­ra­ble with the first two lay­ers in the de­vel­op­ment of ver­te­brate an­imals. Such forms he dis­tin­guished as Coe­len­tera, and showed that they had no spe­cial affin­ity with echin­oderms, poly­zoa, &c. He di­vid­ed the Coe­len­tera in­to a group Hy­dro­zoa, in which the sex­ual­ly pro­duced em­bryos were usu­al­ly set free from the sur­face of the body, and a group Acti­no­zoa, in which the em­bryos are de­tached from the in­te­ri­or of the body and es­cape gen­er­al­ly by the oral aper­ture. Hux­ley’s Acti­no­zoa com­prised the sea-​anemones, corals and sea-​pens, on the one hand, and the Ctenopho­ra on the oth­er. Lat­er in­ves­ti­ga­tions, whilst con­firm­ing the gen­er­al va­lid­ity of Hux­ley’s con­clu­sions, have slight­ly al­tered the lim­its and def­ini­tions of his groups. (See AN­THO­ZOA, COE­LEN­TERA, CTENOPHO­RA and HY­DRO­ZOA.) (P. C. M.)

AC­TION, in law, a term used by ju­rists in three dif­fer­ent sens­es: (1) a right to in­sti­tute pro­ceed­ings in a court of jus­tice to ob­tain re­dress for a wrong (ac­tio ni­hil al­iud est quam jus pros­equen­di in judieio quod alicui de­be­tur, Brac­ton, de Leg­ibus An­gli­ae, bk. iii. ch. i., f. 98 b); (2) the pro­ceed­ing it­self (ac­tionn n’est auter chose que loy­all de­mande de son droit, Co. Litt. 285 (a)); (3) the par­tic­ular form of the pro­ceed­ing. The term is de­rived from the Ro­man law (ac­tio), in which it is used in all three sens­es. In the his­to­ry of Ro­man law, ac­tions passed through three stages. The first pe­ri­od (ter­mi­nat­ed about 170 B.C. by the Lex Ae­bu­tia) is known as the sys­tem of legis ac­tiones, and was based on the pre­cepts of the XII. ta­bles and used be­fore the prae­tor ur­banus. These ac­tiones were five in num­ber –sacra­men­ti, per ju­di­cis pos­tu­la­tionem, per con­dic­tionem, per manus in­jec­tionem, per pig­noris cap­tionem. The first was the prim­itive and char­ac­ter­is­tic ac­tion of the Ro­man law, and the oth­ers were lit­tle more than modes of ap­ply­ing it to cas­es not con­tem­plat­ed in the orig­inal form, or of car­ry­ing the re­sult of it in­to ex­ecu­tion when the ac­tion had been de­cid­ed. The legis ac­tiones were su­per­seded by the for­mu­lae, orig­inat­ed by the prae­tor pere­gri­nus for the de­ter­mi­na­tion of con­tro­ver­sies be­tween for­eign­ers, but found more flex­ible than the ear­li­er sys­tem and made avail­able for cit­izens by the Lex Ae­bu­tia. Un­der both these sys­tems the prae­tor re­ferred the mat­ter in dis­pute to an ar­biter (judex), but in the lat­er he set­tled the for­mu­la (i.e. the is­sues to be re­ferred and the ap­pro­pri­ate form of re­lief) be­fore mak­ing the or­der of ref­er­ence. In the third stage, the for­mu­la­ry stage fell in­to dis­use, and af­ter A.D. 342 the mag­is­trate him­self or his deputy de­cid­ed the con­tro­ver­sy af­ter the de­fend­ing par­ty had been du­ly sum­moned by a li­bel­lus.

The clas­si­fi­ca­tions of ac­tiones in Ro­man law were very nu­mer­ous. The di­vi­sion which is still most uni­ver­sal­ly rec­og­nized is that of ac­tions in rem and ac­tions in per­son­am (Sohm, Ro­man Law, tr. by Ledlie, 2nd ed. 277). An ac­tion in rem as­serts a right to a par­tic­ular thing against all the world. An ac­tion in per­son­am as­serts a right on­ly against a par­tic­ular per­son. Per­haps the best mod­ern ex­am­ple of the dis­tinc­tion is that made in mar­itime cas­es be­tween an ac­tion against a ship af­ter a col­li­sion at sea, and an ac­tion against the own­ers of the ship.

In En­glish law the term “ac­tion” at a very ear­ly date be­came as­so­ci­at­ed with civ­il pro­ceed­ings in the Court of Com­mon Pleas, which were dis­tin­guished from pleas of the crown, such as in­dict­ments or in­for­ma­tions and for suits in the Court of Chancery or in the Ad­mi­ral­ty or ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal courts. The En­glish ac­tion was a pro­ceed­ing com­menced by writ orig­inal at the com­mon law. The rem­edy was of right and not of grace. The his­to­ry of ac­tions is the his­to­ry of civ­il pro­ce­dure in the courts of com­mon law. As a re­sult of the re­form of civ­il pro­ce­dure by the Ju­di­ca­ture Acts the term “ac­tion” in En­glish law now means at the High Court of Jus­tice “a civ­il pro­ceed­ing com­menced by writ of sum­mons or in such oth­er man­ner as may be pre­scribed by rules of court” (e.g. by orig­inat­ing sum­mons). The pro­ceed­ing thus com­menced ends by judg­ment and ex­ecu­tion. This def­ini­tion in­cludes pro­ceed­ings un­der the Chancery, Ad­mi­ral­ty and Pro­bate ju­ris­dic­tion of the High Court, but ex­cludes pro­ceed­ings com­menced by pe­ti­tion, such as di­vorce suits and bankrupt­cy and wind­ing-​up mat­ters, as well as crim­inal pro­ceed­ings in the High Court or ap­pli­ca­tions for the is­sue of the writs of man­damus, pro­hi­bi­tion, habeas cor­pus or cer­tio­rari. The Ju­di­ca­ture Acts and Rules have had the ef­fect of abol­ish­ing all the forms of “ac­tion” used at the com­mon law and of cre­at­ing one com­mon form of le­gal pro­ceed­ing for all or­di­nary con­tro­ver­sies be­tween sub­jects in what­ev­er di­vi­sion of the High Court. The stages in an En­glish ac­tion are the writ, by which the per­sons against whom re­lief is claimed are sum­moned be­fore the court; the plead­ings and in­ter­locu­to­ry steps, by which the is­sues be­tween the par­ties are ad­just­ed; the tri­al, at which the is­sues of fact and law in­volved are brought be­fore the tri­bunal; the judg­ment, by which the re­lief sought is grant­ed or re­fused; and ex­ecu­tion, by which the law gives to the suc­cess­ful par­ty the fruits of the judg­ment.

The pro­ce­dure varies ac­cord­ing as the ac­tion is in the High Court, a coun­ty court or one of the oth­er lo­cal courts of record which still sur­vive; but there is no sub­stan­tial dif­fer­ence in the in­ci­dents of tri­al, judg­ment and ex­ecu­tion in any of these courts. The ini­tial dif­fer­ence be­tween ac­tions in the High Court and the coun­ty court is that the lat­ter are com­menced by plaint lodged in the court, on which a sum­mons is pre­pared by the court and served by its bailiff, where­as in the High Court the par­ty pre­pares the writ and lodges it in court for seal­ing, and when it is sealed, him­self ef­fects the ser­vice.

An ac­tion is said to “lie” when the law pro­vides a rem­edy for some par­tic­ular act or omis­sion by a sub­ject which in­fringes the le­gal rights of an­oth­er sub­ject. An act of such a char­ac­ter is said to give a “cause of ac­tion.” In the ac­tion the per­son who al­leges him­self ag­grieved claims a judg­ment of the court in his favour giv­ing an ad­equate and ap­pro­pri­ate rem­edy for the in­jury or dam­age which he has sus­tained by the in­frac­tion of his rights. As to the time with­in which an ac­tion must be brought, see LIM­ITA­TION, STATUTES OF. When the rights of a sub­ject are in­fringed by the il­le­gal ac­tion of the state, an ac­tion lies in Eng­land against the of­fi­cers who have done the wrong, un­less the claim be one aris­ing out of breach of a con­tract with the state, or out of an “Act of State.” For a breach by the state of a con­tract made be­tween the state and a sub­ject the rem­edy of the sub­ject is, as a gen­er­al rule, not by ac­tion against the agents of the state who act­ed for the state with ref­er­ence to the mak­ing or breach of the con­tract, but against the Crown it­self by the pro­ceed­ing called Pe­ti­tion of Right (see PE­TI­TION).

While as a gener­ic term “ac­tion” in its prop­er le­gal sense in­cludes suits by the Crown and “crim­inal ac­tions” (see Co. Litt. 284b; Brac­ton, de Leg­ibus An­gli­ae, bk. iii. ch. v. f. 1046; Brad­laugh v. Clarke, 1883, 8 App. Cas. 354, 361, 374), in pop­ular lan­guage it is tak­en to mean a pro­ceed­ing by a sub­ject and is now rarely ap­plied in Eng­land even by lawyers to crim­inal pro­ceed­ings. What are now known as “pe­nal ac­tions,” i.e. pro­ceed­ings in which an in­di­vid­ual who has not suf­fered per­son­al­ly by a breach of the law sues as a com­mon in­former for the statu­to­ry penal­ty ei­ther on his own ben­efit or on be­half al­so of the Crown (qui tam pro rege quam pro se ip­so), bear some anal­ogy to the ac­tio pop­ularis of Ro­man law, from which they are de­rived (see the statute 4 Hen. VII. 1488); but they are now treat­ed for most pur­pos­es as civ­il and not as crim­inal pro­ceed­ings. The law of Scot­land fol­lows the lines of the civ­il law, and the ex­pres­sion “crim­inal ac­tion” is in use to dis­tin­guish pro­ceed­ings to pun­ish of­fences against the pub­lic as dis­tin­guished from civ­il ac­tion, brought to en­force a pri­vate right.

In the Unit­ed States, and the British colonies in which En­glish law runs by set­tle­ment, char­ter, procla­ma­tion or statute, the na­ture of an ac­tion is sub­stan­tial­ly the same as in Eng­land. The dif­fer­ences be­tween one state of the Union and an­oth­er, and one colony and an­oth­er, de­pend main­ly on the ex­tent to which the old pro­ce­dure of the com­mon law has been abol­ished, sim­pli­fied or re­formed by lo­cal leg­is­la­tion.

AU­THOR­ITIES.–Ro­man Law: Sohm, In­sti­tutes of Ro­man Law, W. G. Ledlie (2nd ed., 1901). En­glish Law: Pol­lock and Mait­land, En­glish Law; Holmes, The Com­mon Law; Bullen and Leake, Prec. Plead­ings (3rd ed.: 6th ed. 1905).

AC­TIUM (mod. Pun­ta), the an­cient name of a promon­to­ry in the north of Acar­na­nia (Greece) at the mouth of the Si­nus Am­bracius (Gulf of Ar­ta) op­po­site Nicopo­lis, built by Au­gus­tus on the north side of the strait. On the promon­to­ry was an an­cient tem­ple of Apol­lo Ac­tius, which was en­larged by Au­gus­tus, who al­so, in mem­ory of the bat­tle, in­sti­tut­ed or re­newed the quin­quen­ni­al games called Ac­tia or Lu­di Ac­tiaci. Ac­ti­aca Aera was a com­pu­ta­tion of time from the bat­tle of Ac­tium. There was on the promon­to­ry a small town, or rather vil­lage, al­so called Ac­tium.

His­to­ry.-Ac­tium be­longed orig­inal­ly to the Corinthi­an colonists of An­ac­to­ri­um, who prob­ably found­ed the wor­ship of Apol­lo Ac­tius and the Ac­tia games; in the 3rd cen­tu­ry it fell to the Acar­na­ni­ans, who sub­se­quent­ly held their syn­ods there. Ac­tium is chiefly fa­mous as the site of Oc­ta­vian’s de­ci­sive vic­to­ry over Mark Antony (2nd of Septem­ber 31 B.C.). This bat­tle end­ed a long se­ries of in­ef­fec­tu­al op­er­ations. The fi­nal con­flict was pro­voked by Antony, who is said to have been per­suad­ed by Cleopa­tra to re­tire to Egypt and give bat­tle to mask his re­treat; but lack of pro­vi­sions and the grow­ing de­mor­al­iza­tion of his army would suf­fi­cient­ly ac­count for his de­ci­sion. The fleets met out­side the gulf, each over 200 strong (the to­tals giv­en by an­cient au­thor­ities are very con­flict­ing). Antony’s heavy bat­tle­ships en­deav­oured to close and crush the en­emy with their ar­tillery; Oc­ta­vian’s light and mo­bile craft made skil­ful use of skir­mish­ing tac­tics. Dur­ing the en­gage­ment Cleopa­tra sud­den­ly with­drew her squadron and Antony slipped away be­hind her. His flight es­caped no­tice, and the con­flict re­mained un­de­cid­ed, un­til Antony’s fleet was set on fire and thus an­ni­hi­lat­ed.

AU­THOR­ITIES– Dio Cas­si us, 50.12-51.3; Plutarch, An­to­nius, 62-68; Velleius Pa­ter­cu­lus, ii. 84-85. C. Merivale, His­to­ry of the Ro­mans un­der the Em­pire, iii. pp. 313-325 (Lon­don, 1851); V. Gardthausen, Au­gus­tus und seine Zeit, i. pp. 369-386, ii. pp. 189-201 (Leipzig, 1891 ): G. Fer­rero in the Re­vue de Paris, Mar. 15, 1906, pp. 225-243; b. Kro­may­er, in Her­mes, xxxiv. (1899), pp. 1-54. (M. O. B. C.)

ACT OF PAR­LIA­MENT. An act of par­lia­ment may be re­gard­ed as a dec­la­ra­tion of the leg­is­la­ture, en­forc­ing cer­tain rules of con­duct, or defin­ing rights and con­fer­ring them up­on or with­hold­ing them from cer­tain per­sons or class­es of per­sons. The col­lec­tive body of such dec­la­ra­tions con­sti­tutes the statutes of the realm or writ­ten law of the British na­tion, in the widest sense, from An­glo-​Sax­on times to the present day. It is not, how­ev­er, till the ear­li­er half of the 13th cen­tu­ry that, in a more lim­it­ed con­sti­tu­tion­al sense, the statute-​book is gen­er­al­ly held to open, and the par­lia­men­tary records on­ly be­gin to as­sume dis­tinct out­lines late in the reign of Ed­ward I. It grad­ual­ly be­came a fixed con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple that an act of par­lia­ment, to be valid, must ex­press con­cur­rent­ly the will of the en­tire leg­is­la­ture. It was not, how­ev­er, till the reign of Hen­ry VI. that it be­came cus­tom­ary, as now, to in­tro­duce bills in­to par­lia­ment in the form of fin­ished acts; and the en­act­ing clause, re­gard­ed by con­sti­tu­tion­al­ists as the first per­fect as­ser­tion, in words, of pop­ular right, came in­to gen­er­al use as late as the reign of Charles II. It is thus ex­pressed in the case of all acts oth­er than those grant­ing mon­ey to the crown:—“Be it en­act­ed by the King’s most ex­cel­lent Majesty, by and with the ad­vice and con­sent of the Lords Spir­itu­al and Tem­po­ral and Com­mons in this present Par­lia­ment as­sem­bled, and by the au­thor­ity of the same.” Where the act is a mon­ey grant the en­act­ing clause is pref­aced by the words, “Most gra­cious Sovereign, we, Your Majesty’s most du­ti­ful and loy­al sub­jects, the Com­mons of the Unit­ed King­dom of Great Britain and Ire­land, in Par­lia­ment as­sem­bled, to­wards mak­ing good the sup­ply1 which we have cheer­ful­ly grant­ed to Your Majesty in this ses­sion of Par­lia­ment, have re­solved to grant un­to Your Majesty the sums here­inafter men­tioned; and do there­fore most humbly be­seech Your Majesty that it may be en­act­ed, &c.” The use of the pream­ble with which acts are usu­al­ly pref­aced is thus quaint­ly set forth by Lord Coke: “The re­hearsal or pream­ble of the statute is a good meane to find out the mean­ing of the statute, and, as it were, a key to open the un­der­stand­ing there­of” (Co. Litt. 79a). Orig­inal­ly the col­lec­tive acts of each ses­sion formed but one statute, to which a gen­er­al ti­tle was at­tached, and for this rea­son an act of par­lia­ment was up to 1892 gen­er­al­ly cit­ed as the chap­ter of a par­tic­ular statute, e.g. 24 and 25 Vict. c. 101. Ti­tles were, how­ev­er, pre­fixed to in­di­vid­ual acts as ear­ly as 1488. Now, by the Short Ti­tles Act 1892, it is op­tion­al to cite most im­por­tant acts up to that date by their short ti­tles, ei­ther in­di­vid­ual­ly or col­lec­tive­ly. Most mod­ern acts have borne short ti­tles in­de­pen­dent­ly of the act of 1892. (See PAR­LIA­MENT; STATUTE.)

1 Where the grant is not of sup­ply, the pream­ble varies a lit­tle, e.g. in the Prince of Wales’s Chil­dren Act 1889.

AC­TON (JOHN EMERICH ED­WARD DAL­BERG AC­TON), IST BARON (1834-1902), En­glish his­to­ri­an, on­ly son of Sir Richard Ac­ton, 7th baronet, and grand­son of the Neapoli­tan ad­mi­ral, Sir J. F. E. Ac­ton, 6th baronet (q.v.), was born at Naples on the 10th of Jan­uary 1834. His grand­fa­ther, who had suc­ceed­ed in 1791 to the baronet­cy and fam­ily es­tates in Shrop­shire, pre­vi­ous­ly held by the En­glish branch of the Ac­ton fam­ily, rep­re­sent­ed a younger branch which had trans­ferred it­self first to France and then to Italy, but by the ex­tinc­tion of the el­der branch the ad­mi­ral be­came head of the fam­ily; his el­dest son, Richard, had mar­ried Marie Louise Pelline, the daugh­ter and heiress of Emerich Joseph, duc de Dal­berg (q.v.), a nat­ural­ized French no­ble of an­cient Ger­man lin­eage who had en­tered thc French ser­vice un­der Napoleon and rep­re­sent­ed Louis XVI­II. at the congress of Vi­en­na in 1814, and af­ter Sir Richard Ac­ton’s death in 1837 she be­came (1840) the wife of the 2nd Earl Granville. Com­ing of a Ro­man Catholic fam­ily, young Ac­ton was ed­ucat­ed at Os­cott till 1848 un­der Dr (af­ter­wards Car­di­nal) Wise­man, and then at Ed­in­burgh, and at Mu­nich un­der Dollinger, whose life­long friend he be­came. He had wished to go to Cam­bridge, but for a Ro­man Catholic this was then im­pos­si­ble. By Dollinger he was in­spired with a deep love of his­tor­ical re­search and a pro­found con­cep­tion of its func­tions as a crit­ical in­stru­ment. He was a mas­ter of the chief for­eign lan­guages, and be­gan at an ear­ly age to col­lect a mag­nif­icent his­tor­ical li­brary, with the ob­ject, nev­er in fact re­al­ized, of writ­ing a great His­to­ry of Lib­er­ty. In pol­itics he was al­ways an ar­dent Lib­er­al. With­out be­ing a no­table trav­eller, he spent much time in the chief in­tel­lec­tu­al cen­tres of Eu­rope, and in the Unit­ed States, and num­bered among his friends such men as Mon­talem­bert, De Toc­queville. Fus­tel de Coulanges, Bluntschli, von Sybel and Ranke. He was at­tached to Lord Granville’s mis­sion to Moscow, as British rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the coro­na­tion of Alexan­der II. in 1856. In 1859 Sir John Ac­ton set­tled in Eng­land, at his coun­try house, Alden­ham, in Shrop­shire. He was re­turned to the House of Com­mons in that year for the Irish bor­ough of Car­low, and be­came a de­vot­ed ad­mir­er and ad­her­ent of Mr Glad­stone; but he was prac­ti­cal­ly a silent mem­ber, and his par­lia­men­tary ca­reer came to an end af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion of 1865, when, hav­ing head­ed the poll for Bridg­north, he was un­seat­ed on a scruti­ny; he con­test­ed Bridg­north again in 1868, but with­out suc­cess. Mean­while he had be­come ed­itor of the Ro­man Catholic month­ly pa­per, the Ram­bler, in 1859, on J. H. New­man’s re­tire­ment from the ed­itor­ship; and in 1862 he merged this pe­ri­od­ical in the Home and For­eign Re­view. His con­tri­bu­tions at once gave ev­idence of his re­mark­able wealth of his­tor­ical knowl­edge. But though a sin­cere Ro­man Catholic, his whole spir­it as a his­to­ri­an was hos­tile to ul­tra­mon­tane pre­ten­sions, and his in­de­pen­dence of thought and lib­er­al­ism of view speed­ily brought him in­to con­flict with the Ro­man Catholic hi­er­ar­chy. As ear­ly as Au­gust 1862, Car­di­nal Wise­man pub­licly cen­sured the Re­view; and when in 1864, af­ter Dollinger’s ap­peal at the Mu­nich Congress for a less hos­tile at­ti­tude to­wards his­tor­ical crit­icism, the pope is­sued a dec­la­ra­tion that the opin­ions of Catholic writ­ers were sub­ject to the au­thor­ity of the Ro­man con­gre­ga­tions, Ac­ton felt that there was on­ly one way of rec­on­cil­ing his lit­er­ary con­science with his ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal loy­al­ty, and he stopped the pub­li­ca­tion of his month­ly pe­ri­od­ical. He con­tin­ued, how­ev­er, to con­tribute ar­ti­cles to the North British Re­view, which, pre­vi­ous­ly a Scot­tish Free Church or­gan, had been ac­quired by friends in sym­pa­thy with him, and which for some years (un­til 1872, when it ceased to ap­pear) ac­tive­ly pro­mot­ed the in­ter­ests of a high-​class Lib­er­al­ism in both tem­po­ral and ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal mat­ters; he al­so did a good deal of lec­tur­ing on his­tor­ical sub­jects. In 1865 he mar­ried the Count­ess Marie, daugh­ter of the Bavar­ian Count Ar­co-​Val­ley, by whom he had one son and three daugh­ters. In 1869 he was raised to the peer­age by Glad­stone as Baron Ac­ton; he was an in­ti­mate friend and con­stant cor­re­spon­dent of the Lib­er­al lead­er, and the two men had the very high­est re­gard for one an­oth­er. Matthew Arnold used to say that “Glad­stone in­flu­ences all round him but Ac­ton; it is Ac­ton who in­flu­ences Glad­stone.”

In 1870 came the great cri­sis in the Ro­man Catholic world over the pro­mul­ga­tion by Pius IX. of the dog­ma of pa­pal in­fal­li­bil­ity. Lord Ac­ton, who was in com­plete sym­pa­thy on this sub­ject with Dollinger (q.v.), went to Rome in or­der to throw all his in­flu­ence against it, but the step he so much dread­ed was not to be avert­ed. The Old Catholic sep­ara­tion fol­lowed, but Ac­ton did not per­son­al­ly join the se­ced­ers, and the au­thor­ities pru­dent­ly re­frained from forc­ing the hands of so com­pe­tent and in­flu­en­tial an En­glish lay­man. In 1874, when Glad­stone pub­lished his pam­phlet on The Vat­ican De­crees, Lord Ac­ton wrote dur­ing Novem­ber and De­cem­ber a se­ries of re­mark­able let­ters to The Times, il­lus­trat­ing Glad­stone’s main theme by nu­mer­ous his­tor­ical ex­am­ples of pa­pal in­con­sis­ten­cy, in a way which must have been bit­ter enough to the ul­tra­mon­tane par­ty, but de­mur­ring nev­er­the­less to Glad­stone’s con­clu­sion and in­sist­ing that the Church it­self was bet­ter than its pre­miss­es im­plied. Ac­ton’s let­ters led to an­oth­er storm in the En­glish Ro­man Catholic world, but once more it was con­sid­ered pru­dent by the Vat­ican to leave him alone. In spite of his reser­va­tions, he re­gard­ed “com­mu­nion with Rome as dear­er than life.” Thence­forth he steered clear of the­olog­ical polemics. He de­vot­ed him­self to per­sis­tent read­ing and study, com­bined with con­ge­nial so­ci­ety. With all his ca­pac­ity for study he was a man of the world, and a man of af­fairs, not a book­worm. Lit­tle in­deed came from his pen, his on­ly no­table pub­li­ca­tions be­ing a mas­ter­ly es­say in the Quar­ter­ly Re­view of Jan­uary 1878 on “Democ­ra­cy in Eu­rope”; two lec­tures de­liv­ered at Bridg­north in 1877 on “The His­to­ry of Free­dom in An­tiq­ui­ty” and “The His­to­ry of Free­dom in Chris­tian­ity”–these last the on­ly tan­gi­ble por­tions put to­geth­er by him of his long-​pro­ject­ed “His­to­ry of Lib­er­ty”; and an es­say on mod­ern Ger­man his­to­ri­ans in the first num­ber of the En­glish His­tor­ical Re­view, which he helped to found (1886). Af­ter 1879 he di­vid­ed his time be­tween Lon­don, Cannes and Te­gernsee in Bavaria, en­joy­ing and re­cip­ro­cat­ing the so­ci­ety of his friends. In 1872 he had been giv­en the hon­orary de­gree of doc­tor of phi­los­ophy by Mu­nich Uni­ver­si­ty; in 1888 Cam­bridge gave him the hon­orary de­gree of LL.D., and in 1889 Ox­ford the D.C.L.; and in 1890 he was made a fel­low of All Souls. His rep­uta­tion for learn­ing had grad­ual­ly been spread abroad, large­ly through Glad­stone’s in­flu­ence. The lat­ter found him a valu­able po­lit­ical ad­vis­er, and in 1892, when the Lib­er­al gov­ern­ment came in, Lord Ac­ton was made a lord-​in-​wait­ing. Fi­nal­ly, in 1895, on the death of Sir John See­ley, Lord Rose­bery ap­point­ed him to the Regius Pro­fes­sor­ship of Mod­ern His­to­ry at Cam­bridge. The choice was an ex­cel­lent one. His in­au­gu­ral lec­ture on “The Study of His­to­ry,” af­ter­wards pub­lished with notes dis­play­ing a vast eru­di­tion, made a great im­pres­sion in the uni­ver­si­ty, and the new pro­fes­sor’s in­flu­ence on his­tor­ical study was felt in many im­por­tant di­rec­tions. He de­liv­ered two valu­able cours­es of lec­tures, on the French Rev­olu­tion and on Mod­ern His­to­ry, but it was in pri­vate that the ef­fects of his teach­ing were most marked. The great Cam­bridge Mod­ern His­to­ry, though he did not live to see it, was planned un­der his ed­itor­ship, and all who came in con­tact with him tes­ti­fied to his stim­ulat­ing pow­ers and his ex­traor­di­nary range of knowl­edge. He was tak­en ill, how­ev­er, in 1901, and died on the 19th of June 1902, be­ing suc­ceed­ed in the ti­tle by his son. Richard Max­im­llian Dal­berg Ac­ton, 2nd Baron Ac­ton (b.1870). Lord Ac­ton has left too lit­tle com­plet­ed orig­inal work to rank among the great his­to­ri­ans; his very learn­ing seems to have stood in his way; he knew too much and his lit­er­ary con­science was too acute for him to write eas­ily, and his co­pi­ous­ness of in­for­ma­tion over­loads his lit­er­ary style. But he was one of the most deeply learned men of his time, and he will cer­tain­ly be re­mem­bered for his in­flu­ence on oth­ers. His ex­ten­sive li­brary, formed for use and not for dis­play, and com­posed large­ly of books full of his own an­no­ta­tions, was bought im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter his death by Mr An­drew Carnegie, and pre­sent­ed to Mr John Mor­ley, by whom it was forth­with giv­en to the uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge.

See Mr Her­bert Paul’s ex­cel­lent In­tro­duc­to­ry Mem­oir to the in­ter­est­ing vol­ume of Lord Ac­ton’s Let­ters to Mrs Drew (1904), and the au­thor­ities cit­ed there; al­so Dom Gas­quet’s Lord Ac­ton and his Cir­cle (1906). A Bib­li­og­ra­phy of the works of Lord Ac­ton, by W. A. Shaw, was pub­lished by the Roy­al His­tor­ical So­ci­ety in 1903. The Ed­in­burgh Re­view of April 1903 con­tains a lu­mi­nous es­say; and Mr Bryce has a chap­ter on Ac­ton in his Stud­ies of Con­tem­po­rary Bi­og­ra­phy (1903). Lord Ac­ton’s Lec­tures on Mod­ern His­to­ry, edit­ed by J. N. Fig­gis and R. V. Lau­rence, ap­peared in 1906; and his His­to­ry of Free­dom and oth­er Es­says and His­tor­ical Es­say’s and Stud­ies (by the same ed­itors) in 1907. (H. CH.)

AC­TON, SIR JOHN FRAN­CIS ED­WARD, BART. (1736–1811). prime min­is­ter of Naples un­der Fer­di­nand IV., was the son of Ed­ward Ac­ton, a physi­cian at Be­san­con, and was born there in 1736, suc­ceed­ing to the ti­tle and es­tates in 1791, on the death of his cousin in the third de­gree, Sir Richard Ac­ton of Alden­ham Hall, Shrop­shire. He served in the navy of Tus­cany, and in 1775 com­mand­ed a frigate in the joint ex­pe­di­tion of Spain and Tus­cany against Al­giers, in which he dis­played such courage and re­source that he was pro­mot­ed to high com­mand. In 1779 Queen Maria Car­oli­na of Naples per­suad­ed her broth­er the Grand-​Duke Leopold of Tus­cany to al­low Ac­ton, who had been rec­om­mend­ed to her by Prince Cara­meni­co, to un­der­take the re­or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Neapoli­tan navy. The abil­ity dis­played by him in this led to his rapid ad­vance­ment. He be­came com­man­der-​in-​chief of both ser­vices, min­is­ter of fi­nance, and fi­nal­ly prime min­is­ter. His pol­icy was de­vised in con­cert with the En­glish am­bas­sador, Sir William Hamil­ton, and aimed at sub­sti­tut­ing the in­flu­ence of Aus­tria and Great Britain for that or Spain, at Naples, and con­se­quent­ly in­volved open op­po­si­tion to France and the French par­ty in Italy. The fi­nan­cial and ad­min­is­tra­tive mea­sures which were the out­come of a pol­icy which ne­ces­si­tat­ed a great in­crease of ar­ma­ment made him in­tense­ly un­pop­ular, and in De­cem­ber 1798 he shared the flight of the king and queen. For the reign of ter­ror which fol­lowed the down­fall of the Partheno­pean Re­pub­lic, five months lat­er, Ac­ton has been held re­spon­si­ble. In 1804 he was for a short time de­prived of the reins of gov­ern­ment at the de­mand of France; but he was speed­ily re­stored to his for­mer po­si­tion, which he held till, in Febru­ary 1806, on the en­try of the French in­to Naples, he had to flee with the roy­al fam­ily in­to Sici­ly. He died at Paler­mo on the 12th of Au­gust 1811.

He had mar­ried, by pa­pal dis­pen­sa­tion, the el­dest daugh­ter of his broth­er, Gen­er­al Joseph Ed­ward Ac­ton (b. 1737), who was in the Neapoli­tan ser­vice, and left three chil­dren, the el­der son, Sir Richard, be­ing the fa­ther of the first Lord Ac­ton. The sec­ond son, Charles Jan­uar­ius Ed­ward (1803-1847), af­ter be­ing ed­ucat­ed in Eng­land and tak­ing his de­gree at Mag­da­lene Col­lege, Cam­bridge, in 1823, en­tered the Academia Ec­cle­si­as­ti­ca at Rome. He left this with the rank of pro­late, in 1828 was sec­re­tary to the nun­cio at Paris and was made vice-​legate of Bologna short­ly af­ter­wards. He be­came sec­re­tary of the con­gre­ga­tion of the Dis­ci­plina Re­go­lare, and au­di­tor of the Apos­tolic Cham­ber un­der Gre­go­ry XVI., by whom he was made a car­di­nal in 1842. Car­di­nal Ac­ton was pro­tec­tor of the En­glish Col­lege at Rome, and had been main­ly in­stru­men­tal in the in­crease, in 1840, of the En­glish vi­cari­ates-​gen­er­al to eight, which paved the way for the restora­tion of the hi­er­ar­chy by Pius IX. in 1850. He died on the 23rd of June 1847.

AC­TON, an ur­ban dis­trict in the Eal­ing par­lia­men­tary di­vi­sion of Mid­dle­sex, Eng­land, sub­ur­ban to Lon­don, 9 m. W. of St. Paul’s Cathe­dral. Pop. (1861) 3151; (1901) 37,744. Its ap­pear­ance is now whol­ly that of a mod­ern res­iden­tial sub­urb. The deriva­tion of­fered for its name is from Oak-​town, in ref­er­ence to the ex­ten­sive for­est which for­mer­ly cov­ered the lo­cal­ity. The land be­longed from ear­ly times to the see of Lon­don, a grant be­ing record­ed in 1220. Hen­ry III. had a res­idence here. At the time of the Com­mon­wealth Ac­ton was a cen­tre of Pu­ri­tanism. Philip Nye (d. 1672) was rec­tor; Richard Bax­ter, Sir Matthew Hale (Lord Chief-​Jus­tice), Hen­ry Field­ing the nov­el­ist and John Lind­ley the botanist (d. 1865) are fa­mous names among res­idents here. Ac­ton Wells, of saline wa­ters, had con­sid­er­able rep­uta­tion in the 18th cen­tu­ry.

ACT ON PE­TI­TION, the term for a part of the pro­ce­dure in the Pro­bate, Di­vorce and Ad­mi­ral­ty Di­vi­sion, now of in­fre­quent oc­cur­rence. It was more freely used in the old Ad­mi­ral­ty and Di­vorce courts be­fore the Ju­di­ca­ture Acts. (See PLEAD­ING.)

ACTS OF THE APOS­TLES. This book of the Bible, which now stands fifth in the New Tes­ta­ment, was read at first as the com­pan­ion and se­quel of the Gospel of Luke. Its sep­ara­tion was due to grow­ing con­scious­ness of the Gospels as a unit of sa­cred records, to which Acts stood as a sort of ap­pendix. His­tor­ical­ly it is of unique in­ter­est and val­ue: it has no fel­low with­in the New Tes­ta­ment or with­out it. The so-​called Apoc­ryphal Acts of cer­tain apos­tles, while wit­ness­ing to the im­pres­sion pro­duced by our Acts as a type of ed­ify­ing lit­er­ature, on­ly em­pha­size this fact. It is the one re­al­ly prim­itive Church his­to­ry, prim­itive in spir­it as in sub­stance; apart from it a con­nect­ed pic­ture of the Apos­tolic Age would be im­pos­si­ble. With it, the Pauline Epis­tles are of price­less his­tor­ical val­ue; with­out it, they would re­main baf­fling­ly frag­men­tary and in­com­plete, of­ten even mis­lead­ing.

1. Plan and Aim.—All agree that the Acts of the Apos­tles is the work of an au­thor of no mean skill, and that he has ex­er­cised care­ful se­lec­tion in the use of his ma­te­ri­als, in keep­ing with a def­inite pur­pose and plan. It is of mo­ment, then, to dis­cov­er from his em­pha­sis, whether by it­er­ation or by ful­ness of scale, what ob­jects he had in mind in writ­ing. Here it is not need­ful to go far­ther back than F. C. Baur and the Tub­in­gen school, with its the­ory of sharp an­tithe­ses be­tween Ju­da­ic and Gen­tile Chris­tian­ity, of which they took the orig­inal apos­tles and Paul re­spec­tive­ly as typ­ical. Grad­ual­ly their state­ment of this po­si­tion un­der­went se­ri­ous mod­ifi­ca­tions, as it be­came re­al­ized that nei­ther Jew­ish nor Gen­tile Chris­tian­ity was a uni­form genus, but in­clud­ed sev­er­al species, and that the apos­tolic lead­ers from the first stood for mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing and uni­ty. Hence the Tub­in­gen school did its chief work in putting the need­ful ques­tion, not in re­turn­ing the cor­rect an­swer. Their an­swer could not be cor­rect, be­cause, as Ritschl showed (in his Al­tkath. Kirche, 2nd ed., 1857 ), their pre­miss­es were in­ad­equate. Still the at­ti­tude cre­at­ed by the Tub­in­gen the­ory large­ly per­sists as a bi­assing el­ement in much that is writ­ten about Acts. On the whole, how­ev­er, there is a dis­po­si­tion to look at the book more ob­jec­tive­ly and to fol­low up the hints as to its aim giv­en by the au­thor in his open­ing vers­es. Thus (1) his sec­ond nar­ra­tive is the nat­ural se­quel to his first. As the ear­li­er one set forth in or­der­ly se­quence (kathex­es) the prov­iden­tial stages by which Je­sus was led, “in the pow­er of the Spir­it,” to be­gin the es­tab­lish­ment of the con­sum­mat­ed King­dom of God, so the lat­er work aims at set­ting forth on sim­ilar prin­ci­ples its ex­ten­sion by means of His cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives or apos­tles. This in­volves em­pha­sis on the iden­ti­ty of the pow­er, Di­vine and not mere­ly hu­man, ex­pressed in the great se­ries of facts from first to last. Thus (2) the Holy Spir­it ap­pears as di­rect­ing and en­er­giz­ing through­out the whole strug­gle with the pow­ers of evil to be over­come in ei­ther min­istry, of Mas­ter or dis­ci­ples. But (3) the con­ti­nu­ity is more than sim­ilar­ity of ac­tiv­ity rest­ing on the same Di­vine en­er­gy. The work­ing of the en­er­gy in the dis­ci­ples is con­di­tioned by the con­tin­ued life and vo­li­tion of their Mas­ter at His Fa­ther’s right hand in heav­en. The Holy Spir­it, “the Spir­it of Je­sus,” is the liv­ing link be­tween Mas­ter and dis­ci­ples. Hence the pains tak­en to ex­hib­it (i. 2, 4 f. 8, ii. I ff., cf. Luke xxiv. 49) the fact of such spir­itu­al sol­idar­ity, where­by their ac­tiv­ity means His con­tin­ued ac­tion in the world. And (4) the scope of this ac­tion is noth­ing less than hu­man­ity (ii. 5 ff.), es­pe­cial­ly with­in the Ro­man em­pire. It was fore­or­dained that Mes­si­ah’s wit­ness­es should be borne by Di­vine pow­er through all ob­sta­cles and to ev­er-​widen­ing cir­cles, un­til they reached and oc­cu­pied Rome it­self for the God of Is­rael–now man­ifest (as fore­told by Is­rael’s own prophets) as the one God of the one race of mankind. (5) Fi­nal­ly, as we gath­er from the par­al­lel ac­count in Luke xxiv.46-48, the di­vine­ly ap­point­ed method of vic­to­ry is through suf­fer­ing (Acts xiv. 22). This ex­plains the large space de­vot­ed to the tribu­la­tions of the wit­ness­es, and their con­stan­cy amid them, af­ter the type of their Lord Him­self. It forms one side of the vir­tu­al apolo­gia for the ab­sence of that earth­ly pros­per­ity in which the pa­gan mind was apt to see the to­ken of Di­vine ap­proval. An­oth­er side is the re­cur­ring ex­hi­bi­tion of the fact that these wit­ness­es were per­se­cut­ed on­ly by those whose ac­tion should cre­ate no bias against the per­se­cut­ed. Their foes were chiefly Jews, whose op­po­si­tion was due part­ly to a stiff-​necked dis­in­cli­na­tion to bow to the wider read­ing of their own re­li­gion –to which the Holy Spir­it had from of old been point­ing (cf. the promi­nence giv­en to this idea in Stephen’s long speech)–and part­ly to jeal­ousy of those who, by preach­ing the wider Mes­sian­ic Evan­gel, were win­ning over the Gen­tiles, and par­tic­ular­ly pros­elytes, in such great num­bers.

Such, then, seem to be the au­thor’s main mo­tifs. They make up an ac­count fair­ly ad­equate to the man­ifold­ness of the book; yet they may be summed up in three ideas, to­geth­er con­sti­tut­ing the moral which this his­to­ry of the ex­pan­sion of Chris­tian­ity aims at bring­ing home to its read­ers. These are the uni­ver­sal­ity of the Gospel, the jeal­ousy of na­tion­al Ju­daism, and the Di­vine ini­tia­tive man­ifest in the grad­ual stages by which men of Jew­ish birth were led to rec­og­nize the Di­vine will in the set­ting aside of na­tion­al re­stric­tions, alien to the uni­ver­sal des­tiny of the Church. The prac­ti­cal moral is the Di­vine char­ac­ter of the Chris­tian re­li­gion, as evinced by the man­ner of its ex­ten­sion in the em­pire, no less than by its orig­inal em­bod­iment in the Founder’s life and death. Thus both parts of the au­thor’s work alike tend to pro­duce as­sured con­vic­tion of Chris­tian­ity as of Di­vine ori­gin (Luke i. 1, 4; Acts i. 1 f.).

This view has the mer­it of giv­ing the book a prac­ti­cal re­li­gious aim–a sine qua non to any the­ory of an ear­ly Chris­tian writ­ing. though meant for men of pa­gan birth in the first in­stance, it is to them as in­quir­ers or even con­verts, such as “Theophilus,” that the ar­gu­ment is ad­dressed. In spite of all dif­fi­cul­ties, this re­li­gion is wor­thy of per­son­al be­lief, even though it mean op­po­si­tion and suf­fer­ing. Among the fea­tures of the oc­ca­sion which sug­gest­ed the need of such an ap­peal was doubt­less the ex­is­tence of per­se­cu­tion by the Ro­man au­thor­ites, per­haps large­ly at the in­sti­ga­tion of lo­cal Ju­daism. To meet this spe­cial per­plex­ity, the au­thor holds up the pic­ture of ear­ly days, when the great pro­tag­onist of the Gospel con­stant­ly en­joyed pro­tec­tion at the hands of Ro­man jus­tice. It is im­plied that the present dis­tress is but a pass­ing phase, rest­ing on some mis­un­der­stand­ing; mean­time, the ex­am­ple of apos­tolic con­stan­cy should yield strong re­as­sur­ance. The Acts of the Apos­tles is in fact an Apol­ogy for the Church as dis­tinct from Ju­daism, the breach with which is ac­cord­ing­ly traced with great ful­ness and care.

From this stand­point Acts no longer seems to end abrupt­ly. Whether as ex­hibit­ing the Di­vine lead­ing and aid, or as record­ing the im­par­tial and even kind­ly at­ti­tude of the Ro­man State to­wards the Chris­tians, the writ­er has reached a cli­max. “He wished,” as Har­nack well re­marks, “to point out the might of the Holy Spir­it in the apos­tles, Christ’s wit­ness­es; and to show how this might car­ried the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome and gained for it en­trance in­to the pa­gan world, whilst the Jews in grow­ing de­gree in­curred re­jec­tion. In keep­ing with this, vers­es 26-28 of chap­ter xxvi­ii. are the solemn clos­ing vers­es of the work. But vers­es 30, 31 are an ap­pend­ed ob­ser­va­tion.”

Yet the writ­er is, in fact, end­ing up most fit­ly on one of his keynotes, in that he leaves Paul preach­ing in Rome it­self, “un­mo­lest­ed.” “Paulus Ro­mae, apex Evan­gelii.”

The full force of this is missed by those who, while re­ject­ing the idea that the au­thor had in re­serve enough Pauline his­to­ry to fur­nish an­oth­er work, yet hold that Paul was freed from the im­pris­on­ment amid which Acts leaves him (see PAUL). But for those, on the oth­er hand, who see in the writ­er’s own words in xx. 38, un­con­tra­dict­ed by any­thing in the se­quel, a broad hint that Paul nev­er saw his Eph­esian friends again, the nat­ural view is open that the se­quel to the two years’ preach­ing was too well known to call for ex­plic­it record. Nor would such si­lence touch­ing Paul’s speedy mar­tyr­dom be disin­gen­uous, any more than on the the­ory that mar­tyr­dom over­took him sev­er­al years lat­er. The writ­er views Paul’s death (like the hor­rors of Nero’s Vat­ican Gar­dens in 64) as a mere ex­cep­tion to the rule of Ro­man pol­icy hereto­fore il­lus­trat­ed. Not even by the Ro­man au­thor­ities were some of Nero’s acts re­gard­ed as prece­dents.

2. Au­thor­ship.–Ex­ter­nal ev­idence, which is rel­ative­ly ear­ly and widespread (e.g. Mu­ra­to­ri­an Canon, Ire­naeus, Ter­tul­lian,Clement and Ori­gen), all points to Luke, the com­pan­ion and fel­low-​work­er of Paul (Philem. 24), who prob­ably ac­com­pa­nied him as physi­cian al­so (Col. iv. 14). It must be not­ed too that ev­idence for his au­thor­ship of the third Gospel counts al­so for Acts. This car­ries us back at least to the sec­ond quar­ter of the 2nd cen­tu­ry (Justin, Di­al. 103, and most prob­ably Mar­cion), when Loukan no doubt stood at the head of the Gospel, es­pe­cial­ly where it was used side by side with the oth­ers. We have ev­ery rea­son to trust the Church’s tra­di­tion at this time, par­tic­ular­ly as Luke was not promi­nent enough as an as­so­ciate of Paul to sug­gest the the­ory as a guess. Nor does Eu­se­bius, who knew the ante-​Nicene lit­er­ature in­ti­mate­ly, seem to know of any oth­er view ev­er hav­ing been held. If, then, the tra­di­tion­al Lu­can au­thor­ship is to be doubt­ed, it must be on in­ter­nal ev­idence on­ly. The form of the book, how­ev­er, in all re­spects favours Luke, who was of non-​Jew­ish birth (see Col. iv. 12-14 com­pared with 10 f.), and as a physi­cian pre­sum­ably a man of cul­ture. The med­ical cast of much of its lan­guage, which is of­ten of a high­ly tech­ni­cal na­ture, points strong­ly the same way;1 while the ear­ly tra­di­tion that Luke was born in the Syr­ian An­ti­och ad­mirably suits the ful­ness with which the ori­gin of the An­ti­och­ene Church and its place in the fur­ther ex­ten­sion of the Gospel are de­scribed (see LUKE). Again, the at­ti­tude of Acts to­wards the Ro­man Em­pire is just what would be ex­pect­ed from a close com­rade of Paul (cf. Sir W. M. Ram­say, St Paul the Trav­eller and Ro­man Cit­izen, 1895), but was hard­ly like­ly to be shared by one of the next gen­er­ation, reared in an at­mo­sphere of re­sent­ment, first at Nero’s con­duct and then at the per­se­cut­ing pol­icy of the Fla­vian Cae­sars (see REV­ELA­TION). Fi­nal­ly, the book it­self seems to claim to be writ­ten by a com­pan­ion of Paul. In chap. xvi. 10 the writ­er, with­out any pre­vi­ous warn­ing, pass­es from the third per­son to the first. Paul had reached Troas. There he saw a vi­sion invit­ing him to go to Mace­do­nia. “But when he saw the vi­sion, straight­way we sought to go forth in­to Mace­do­nia.” Thence­forth “we” re-​emerges at cer­tain points in the nar­ra­tive un­til Rome is reached. Ire­naeus (iii. 14. 1) quotes these pas­sages as proof that Luke, the au­thor, was a com­pan­ion of the apos­tle. The minute char­ac­ter of the nar­ra­tive, the ac­cu­rate de­scrip­tion of the var­ious jour­ney­ings, the unim­por­tance of some of the de­tails, es­pe­cial­ly some of the in­ci­dents of the ship­wreck, are strong rea­sons for be­liev­ing that the nar­ra­tive is that of an eye­wit­ness. If so, we can scarce­ly help com­ing to the con­clu­sion that this eye-​wit­ness was the au­thor of the work; for the style of this eye-​wit­ness is ex­act­ly the style of the writ­er who com­posed the pre­vi­ous por­tions (see Har­nack, op. cit., re­in­forc­ing the ar­gu­ment as al­ready worked out by B. Weiss, 1893, and es­pe­cial­ly by Sir J. C. Hawkins in Ho­rae Syn­op­ti­cae, 1899, pp. 143-147). Most schol­ars ad­mit that the “we” nar­ra­tive is that of a per­son­al com­pan­ion of Paul, who was prob­ably none oth­er than Luke, in view of his tra­di­tion­al au­thor­ship of Acts. But many sup­pose that the tra­di­tion arose from con­fused re­mem­brance of the use by a lat­er au­thor of Luke’s “we” doc­ument or trav­el-​di­ary. This sup­po­si­tion would com­pel us to be­lieve ei­ther that the skil­ful writ­er of Acts was so care­less as to in­cor­po­rate a doc­ument with­out al­ter­ing its form, or that “we” is in­tro­duced in­ten­tion­al­ly. In the lat­ter case we must sup­pose ei­ther that the writ­er was an eye-​wit­ness, or that he wished to be thought an eye-​wit­ness. E. Zeller, a fol­low­er of Baur, adopt­ed this lat­ter al­ter­na­tive, and P. W. Schmiedel ad­heres to it. In­deed it is hard to see how it can be avoid­ed on the the­ory that the au­thor of Acts used a trav­el-​doc­ument by an­oth­er hand (see be­low, Sources). On the whole, then, the most ten­able the­ory is that the writ­er of the “we” sec­tions was al­so the au­thor of Acts; and that he was Luke, Paul’s com­pan­ion dur­ing most of his lat­er min­istry, and al­so his “coun­ter­part,” “as a Hel­lene, who yet had per­son­al sym­pa­thy with Jew­ish prim­itive Chris­tian­ity” (Har­nack, op. cit. p. 103; see al­so LUKE).

3. Sources.–So far from the recog­ni­tion of a plan in Acts be­ing in­im­ical to a quest af­ter the ma­te­ri­als used in its com­po­si­tion, one may say that it points the way there­to, while it keeps the lit­er­ary anal­ysis with­in sci­en­tif­ic lim­its. The more one re­al­izes the stand­point of the mind per­vad­ing the book as a whole, the more one feels that the speech­es in the first part of Acts (e.g. that of Stephen)—and in­deed else­where, too–are not “free com­po­si­tions” of our au­thor, the mere out­come of dra­mat­ic ide­al­iza­tion such as an­cient his­to­ri­ans like Thucy­dides or Poly­bius al­lowed them­selves. The Chris­tol­ogy, for in­stance of the ear­ly Petrine speech­es is such as a Gen­tile Chris­tian writ­ing c. 80 A.D. sim­ply could not have imag­ined. Thus we are forced to as­sume the use of a cer­tain amount of ear­ly Ju­daeo-​Chris­tian ma­te­ri­al, akin to that im­plied al­so in the spe­cial parts of the Third Gospel. Paul Feine (Eine vorkanon­is­che Ue­ber­liefer­ung des Lukas, 1891) sug­gest­ed that a sin­gle doc­ument ex­plains this ma­te­ri­al in both works, as far as Acts xii. Oth­ers main­tain that at any rate two sources un­der­lie Acts i.-xii., or even i.-xv. (see A. Har­nack, Die Apos­telgeschichte, p. 131 ff.). In par­tic­ular we can rec­og­nize a source em­body­ing the tra­di­tions of the large­ly Hel­lenis­tic Church of An­ti­och, a sec­ondary gloss from which may sur­vive in the Bezan ad­di­tion to xi. 27, “when we were as­sem­bled.” Fur­ther, if our au­thor was a care­ful in­quir­er (Luke i. 3), es­pe­cial­ly if he was in the habit of tak­ing down in writ­ing what he heard from dif­fer­ent wit­ness­es, this may ex­plain some of the phe­nom­ena. Such a man as Luke would have rare fac­ul­ties for col­lect­ing Pales­tini­an ma­te­ri­als, vary­ing no doubt in ac­cu­ra­cy, but all rel­ative­ly prim­itive, whether in An­ti­och or in Cae­sarea, where he prob­ably resid­ed for some two years in con­tact with men like Philip the Evan­ge­list (xxi. 8). There and else­where he might al­so learn a good deal from John Mark, Pe­ter’s friend (1 Pet. v. 13; Acts xii. 12). In any case the study of sources (Quel­lenkri­tik) is a com­par­ative­ly new one, and the re­sources of anal­ysis, lin­guis­tic in par­tic­ular, are by no means ex­haust­ed. One im­por­tant anal­ogy ex­ists for the way in which our au­thor would han­dle any writ­ten sources he may have had by him, name­ly, the man­ner in which he us­es Mark’s Gospel nar­ra­tive in com­pil­ing his own Gospel. Guid­ed by this ob­jec­tive cri­te­ri­on, and safe­guard­ed by grow­ing in­sight in­to the au­thor’s plas­tic aim, we need not de­spair of reach­ing large agree­ment as to the na­ture of the sources ly­ing be­hind the first half of Acts.

In the sec­ond or strict­ly Pauline half we are con­front­ed by the so-​called “we” pas­sages. Of these two main the­ories are pos­si­ble: (1) that which sees in them traces of an ear­li­er doc­ument–whether en­tries in a trav­el-​di­ary, or a more or less con­sec­utive nar­ra­tive writ­ten lat­er; and (2) that which would re­gard the “we” as due to the au­thor’s break­ing in­stinc­tive­ly in­to the first per­son plu­ral at cer­tain points where he felt him­self spe­cial­ly iden­ti­fied with the his­to­ry. On the for­mer hy­poth­esis, it is still in de­bate whether the “we” doc­ument does or does not lie be­hind more of the nar­ra­tive than is def­inite­ly in­di­cat­ed by the for­mu­la in ques­tion (e.g. cc. xi­ii.-xv., xxi. 19-xxvi.). On the lat­ter, it may well be ques­tioned whether the pres­ence or ab­sence of “we” be not due to psy­cho­log­ical caus­es, rather than to the writ­er’s mere pres­ence or ab­sence.2 That is, he may be writ­ing some­times as a mem­ber of Paul’s mis­sion at the crit­ical stages of on­ward ad­vance, some­times rather as a wit­ness ab­sorbed in his hero’s words and deeds (so “we” ceas­es be­tween xx. 15 and xxi. 1). Nat­ural­ly he would fall in­to the for­mer at­ti­tude most­ly when record­ing the defini­tive tran­si­tion of Paul and his par­ty from one sphere of work to an­oth­er (xvi. 10 ff., xx. 5 ff., xxvii. 1 ff.). At such times the whole “mis­sion” was as one man in its move­ments.

4. His­tor­ical Val­ue.—The ques­tion of au­thor­ship is large­ly bound up with that as to the qual­ity of the con­tents as his­to­ry. Acts is di­vid­ed in­to two dis­tinct parts. The first (i.-xii.) deals with the church in Jerusalem and Ju­daea, and with Pe­ter as cen­tral fig­ure—at any rate in cc. i.-v. “Yet in cc. vi.-xii.,” as Har­nack3 ob­serves, “the au­thor pur­sues sev­er­al lines at once. (1) He has still in view the his­to­ry of the Jerusalem com­mu­ni­ty and the orig­inal apos­tles (es­pe­cial­ly of Pe­ter and his mis­sion­ary labours); (2) he in­serts in vi. 1 ff. a his­to­ry of the Hel­lenis­tic Chris­tians in Jerusalem and of the Sev­en Men, which from the first tends to­wards the Gen­tile Mis­sion and the found­ing of the An­ti­och­ene com­mu­ni­ty; (3) he pur­sues the ac­tiv­ity of Philip in Samaria and on the coast . . .; (4) last­ly, he re­lates the his­to­ry of Paul up to his en­trance on the ser­vice of the young An­ti­och­ene church. In the small space of sev­en chap­ters he pur­sues all these lines and tries al­so to con­nect them to­geth­er, at the same time prepar­ing and sketch­ing the great tran­si­tion of the Gospel from Ju­daism to the Greek world. As his­to­ri­an, he has here set him­self the great­est task.” No doubt gaps abound in these sev­en chap­ters. “But the in­quiry as to whether what is nar­rat­ed does not even in these parts still con­tain the main facts, and is not sub­stan­tial­ly trust­wor­thy, is not yet con­clud­ed.” The dif­fi­cul­ty is that we have but few ex­ter­nal means of test­ing this por­tion of the nar­ra­tive (see be­low, Date). Some of it may well have suf­fered par­tial trans­for­ma­tion in oral tra­di­tion be­lore reach­ing our au­thor; e.g. the na­ture of the Tongues at Pen­te­cost does not ac­cord with what we know of the gift of “tongues” gen­er­al­ly. The sec­ond part pur­sues the his­to­ry of the apos­tle Paul; and here we can com­pare the state­ments made in the Acts with the Epis­tles. The re­sult is a gen­er­al har­mo­ny, with­out any trace of di­rect use of these let­ters; and there are many minute co­in­ci­dences. But at­ten­tion has been drawn to two re­mark­able ex­cep­tions. These are, the ac­count giv­en by Paul of his vis­its to Jerusalem in Gala­tians as com­pared with Acts; and the char­ac­ter and mis­sion of the apos­tle Paul, as they ap­pear in his let­ters and in Acts.

In re­gard to the first point, the dif­fer­ences as to Paul’s move­ments un­til he re­turns to his na­tive province of Syr­ia-​Cili­cia (see PAUL) do not re­al­ly amount to more than can be ex­plained by the dif­fer­ent in­ter­ests of Paul and our au­thor re­spec­tive­ly. But it is oth­er­wise as re­gards the vis­its of Gal. ii. 1-10 and Acts xv. If they are meant to re­fer to the same oc­ca­sion, as is usu­al­ly as­sumed,4 it is hard to see why Paul should omit ref­er­ence to the pub­lic oc­ca­sion of the vis­it, as al­so to the pub­lic vin­di­ca­tion of his pol­icy. But in fact the is­sues of the two vis­its, as giv­en in Gal. ii. 9 f. and Acts xv. 20 f., are not at all the same.5 Nay more, if Gal. ii. 1-10=Acts xv., the his­toric­ity of the “Re­lief vis­it” of Acts xi. 30, xii. 25, seems def­inite­ly ex­clud­ed by Paul’s nar­ra­tive of events be­fore the vis­it of Gal. ii. 1 ff. Ac­cord­ing­ly, Sir W. M. Ram­say and oth­ers ar­gue that the lat­ter vis­it it­self co­in­cid­ed with the Re­lief vis­it, and even see in Gal. ii. 10 wit­ness there­to.

But why, then, does not Paul re­fer to the pub­lic char­ita­ble ob­ject of his vis­it? It seems eas­ier there­fore to ad­mit that the vis­it of Gal. ii. 1 ff. is one al­to­geth­er un­record­ed in Acts, ow­ing to its pri­vate na­ture as prepar­ing the way for pub­lic de­vel­op­ments—with which Acts is main­ly con­cerned. In that case it would fall short­ly be­fore the Re­lief vis­it, to which there may be tac­it ex­plana­to­ry al­lu­sion, in Gal. ii. 10 (see fur­ther PAUL); and it will be shown be­low that such a con­fer­ence of lead­ers in Gal. ii. 1 ff. leads up ex­cel­lent­ly both to the First Mis­sion Jour­ney and to Acts xv.

We pass next to the Paul of Acts. Paul in­sists that he was ap­point­ed the apos­tle to the Gen­tiles, as Pe­ter was to the Cir­cum­ci­sion; and that cir­cum­ci­sion and the ob­ser­vance of the Jew­ish law were of no im­por­tance to the Chris­tian as such. His words on these points in all his let­ters are strong and de­cid­ed. But in Acts it is Pe­ter who first opens up the way for the Gen­tiles. It is Pe­ter who us­es the strongest lan­guage in re­gard to the in­tol­er­able bur­den of the Law as a means of sal­va­tion(xv. 10 f., cf. 1). Not a word is said of any dif­fer­ence of opin­ion be­tween Pe­ter and Paul at An­ti­och (Gal. ii. 11 ff.). The brethren in An­ti­och send Paul and Barn­abas up to Jerusalem to ask the opin­ion of the apos­tles and el­ders: they state their case, and car­ry back the de­ci­sion to An­ti­och. Through­out the whole of Acts Paul nev­er stands forth as the un­bend­ing cham­pi­on of the Gen­tiles. He seems con­tin­ual­ly anx­ious to rec­on­cile the Jew­ish Chris­tians to him­self by per­son­al­ly ob­serv­ing the law of Moses. He cir­cum­cis­es the se­mi-​Jew, Tim­othy; and he per­forms his vows in the tem­ple. He is par­tic­ular­ly care­ful in his speech­es to show how deep is his re­spect for the law of Moses. In all this the let­ters of Paul are very dif­fer­ent from Acts. In Gala­tians he claims per­fect free­dom in prin­ci­ple, for him­self as for the Gen­tiles, from the oblig­atory ob­ser­vance of the law; and nei­ther in it nor in Corinthi­ans does he take any no­tice of a de­ci­sion to which the apos­tles had come in their meet­ing at Jerusalem. The nar­ra­tive of Acts, too, it­self im­plies some­thing oth­er than what it sets in re­lief; for why should the Jews hate Paul so much, if he was not in some sense dis­loy­al to their Law?

There is, nev­er­the­less, no es­sen­tial con­tra­dic­tion here, on­ly such a dif­fer­ence of em­pha­sis as be­longs to the stand­points and aims of the two writ­ers amid their re­spec­tive his­tor­ical con­di­tions. Pe­ter’s func­tion in re­la­tion to the Gen­tiles be­longs to the ear­ly Pales­tini­an con­di­tions, be­fore Paul’s dis­tinc­tive mis­sion had tak­en shape. Once Paul’s apos­to­late—a per­son­al one, par­al­lel with the more col­lec­tive apos­to­late of “the Twelve”–has proved it­self by to­kens of Di­vine ap­proval, Pe­ter and his col­leagues frankly rec­og­nize the dis­tinc­tion of the two mis­sions, and are anx­ious on­ly to ar­range that the two shall not fall apart by re­li­gious­ly and moral­ly in­com­pat­ible us­ages (Acts xv.). Paul, on his side, clear­ly im­plies that Pe­ter felt with him that the Law could not jus­ti­fy (Gal. ii. 15 ff.), and ar­gues that it could not now be made oblig­atory in prin­ci­ple (cf. “a yoke,” Acts xv. 10); yet for Jews it might con­tin­ue for the time (pend­ing the Parou­sia) to be seem­ly and ex­pe­di­ent, es­pe­cial­ly for the sake of non-​be­liev­ing Ju­daism. To this he con­formed his own con­duct as a Jew, so far as his Gen­tile apos­to­late was not in­volved (1 Cor. ix. 19 ff.). There is no rea­son to doubt that Pe­ter large­ly agreed with him, since he act­ed in this spir­it in Gal. ii. 11 f., un­til co­erced by Jerusalem sen­ti­ment to draw back for ex­pe­di­en­cy’s sake. This in­ci­dent it sim­ply did not fall with­in the scope of Acts (see be­low) to nar­rate, since it had no abid­ing ef­fect on the Church’s ex­ten­sion. As to Paul’s sub­mis­sion of the is­sue in Acts xv. to the Jerusalem con­fer­ence, Acts does not im­ply that Paul would have ac­cept­ed a de­ci­sion in favour of the Ju­daiz­ers, though he saw the val­ue of get­ting a de­ci­sion for his own pol­icy in the quar­ter to which they were most like­ly to de­fer. If the view that he al­ready had an un­der­stand­ing with the “Pil­lar” Apos­tles, as record­ed in Gal. ii. 1-10 (see fur­ther PAUL), be cor­rect, it gives the best of rea­sons why he was ready to en­ter the lat­er pub­lic Con­fer­ence of Acts xv. Paul’s own “free” at­ti­tude to the Law, when on Gen­tile soil, is just what is im­plied by the hos­tile ru­mours as to his con­duct in Acts xxi. 21, which he would be glad to dis­prove as at least ex­ag­ger­at­ed (ib. 24 and 26). What is clear is that such lack of for­mal ac­cord as here ex­ists be­tween Acts and the Epis­tles, tells against its au­thor’s de­pen­dence on the lat­ter, and so favours his hav­ing been a com­rade of Paul him­self.

Speech­es.

The speech­es in Acts de­serve spe­cial no­tice. Did its au­thor fol­low the plan adopt­ed by all his­to­ri­ans of his age, or is he an ex­cep­tion? An­cient his­to­ri­ans (like many of mod­ern times) used the lib­er­ty of work­ing up in their own lan­guage the speech­es record­ed by them. They did not dream of ver­bal fi­deli­ty; even when they had more ex­act re­ports be­fore them, they pre­ferred to mould a speak­er’s thoughts to their own meth­ods of pre­sen­ta­tion. Be­sides this, some did not hes­itate to give to the char­ac­ters of their his­to­ry speech­es which were nev­er ut­tered. The method of di­rect speech, so use­ful in pro­duc­ing a vivid idea of what is sup­posed to have passed through the mind of the speak­er, was used to give force to the nar­ra­tive. Now how far has the au­thor of Acts fol­lowed the prac­tice of his con­tem­po­raries? Some of his speech­es are ev­ident­ly but sum­maries of thoughts which oc­curred to in­di­vid­uals or mul­ti­tudes. Oth­ers claim to be re­ports of speech­es re­al­ly de­liv­ered. But all these speech­es have to a large ex­tent the same style, the style al­so of the nar­ra­tive. They have been passed though one ed­ito­ri­al mind, and some mu­tu­al as­sim­ila­tion in phrase­ol­ogy and idea may well have re­sult­ed. They are, more­over, all of them, the mer­est ab­stracts. The speech of Paul at Athens, as giv­en by Luke, would not oc­cu­py more than a minute or two in de­liv­ery. But these cir­cum­stances, while in­con­sis­tent with ver­bal ac­cu­ra­cy, do not de­stroy au­then­tic­ity; and in most of the speech­es (e.g. xiv. 15-17 ) there is a var­ied ap­pro­pri­ate­ness as well as an al­lu­sive­ness, point­ing to good in­for­ma­tion (see un­der Sources). There is no ev­idence that any speech in Acts is the free com­po­si­tion of its au­thor, with­out ei­ther writ­ten or oral ba­sis; and in gen­er­al he seems more con­sci­en­tious than most an­cient his­to­ri­ans touch­ing the es­sen­tials of his­tor­ical ac­cu­ra­cy, even as now un­der­stood.

Mir­acles. Ob­jec­tions to the trust­wor­thi­ness of Acts on the ground of its mir­acles re­quire to be stat­ed more dis­crim­inate­ly than has some­times been the case. Par­tic­ular­ly is this so as re­gards the ques­tion of au­thor­ship. As Har­nack ob­serves (Lukas der Arzt, p. 24), the “mirac­ulous” or su­per­nor­mal el­ement is hard­ly, if at all, less marked in the “we” sec­tions, which are sub­stan­tial­ly the wit­ness of a com­pan­ion of Paul (and where ef­forts to dis­sect out the mir­acles are fruit­less), than in the rest of the work. The sci­en­tif­ic method, then, is to con­sid­er each “mir­acle” on its own mer­its, ac­cord­ing as we find rea­son to sup­pose that it has reached our au­thor more or less di­rect­ly. But the record of mir­acle as such can­not prej­udice the ques­tion of au­thor­ship. Even the form in which the gift of Tongues at Pen­te­cost is con­ceived does not tell against a com­pan­ion of Paul, since it may have stood in his source, and the first out­pour­ing of the Mes­sian­ic Spir­it may soon have come to be thought of as unique in some re­spects, par­al­lel in fact to the Rab­binic tra­di­tion as to the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the Old Covenant at Sinai (cf. Phi­lo, De de­cem ora­culis, 9, 11, and the Midrash on Ps. lxvi­ii. 11).

Fi­nal­ly as to such his­tor­ical dif­fi­cul­ties in Acts as still per­plex the stu­dent of the Apos­tolic age, one must re­mem­ber the pos­si­bil­ities of mis­take in­ter­ven­ing be­tween the facts and the ac­counts reach­ing its au­thor, at sec­ond or even third hand. Yet it must be strong­ly em­pha­sized, that re­cent his­tor­ical re­search at the hands of ex­perts in clas­si­cal an­tiq­ui­ty has tend­ed steadi­ly to ver­ify such parts of the nar­ra­tive as it can test, es­pe­cial­ly those con­nect­ed with Paul’s mis­sions in the Ro­man Em­pire. That is no new re­sult; but it has come to light in greater de­gree of re­cent years, no­tably through Sir W. M. Ram­say’s re­search­es. The proofs of trust­wor­thi­ness ex­tend al­so to the the­olog­ical sphere. What was said above of the Chris­tol­ogy of the Petrine speech­es ap­plies to the whole con­cep­tion of Mes­sian­ic sal­va­tion, the es­cha­tol­ogy, the idea of Je­sus as equipped by the Holy Spir­it for His Mes­sian­ic work, found in these speech­es, as al­so to ti­tles like “Je­sus the Nazarene” and “the Righ­teous One” both in and be­yond the Petrine speech­es. These and oth­er cas­es in which we are led to dis­cern very prim­itive wit­ness be­hind Acts, do not in­deed give to such wit­ness the val­ue of short­hand notes or even of ab­stracts based there­on. But they do sup­port the the­ory that our au­thor meant to give an un­var­nished ac­count of such words and deeds as had come to his knowl­edge. The per­spec­tive of the whole is no doubt his own; and as his wit­ness­es prob­ably fur­nished but few hints for a con­tin­uous nar­ra­tive, this per­spec­tive, es­pe­cial­ly in things chrono­log­ical, may some­times be faulty. Yet when one re­mem­bers that by 70-80 A.D. it must have been a mat­ter of small in­ter­est by what ten­ta­tive stages the Mes­sian­ic sal­va­tion first ex­tend­ed to the Gen­tiles, it is sure­ly sur­pris­ing that Acts en­ters in­to such de­tail on the sub­ject, and is not con­tent with a sum­ma­ry ac­count of the mat­ter such as the mere log­ic of the sub­ject would nat­ural­ly sug­gest. In any case, the very dif­fer­ence of the per­spec­tive of Acts and of Gala­tians, in record­ing the same epochs in Paul’s his­to­ry, ar­gues such an in­de­pen­dence in the for­mer as is com­pat­ible on­ly with an ear­ly date.

Quel­lenkri­tik, then, a dis­tinc­tive fea­ture of re­cent re­search up­on Acts, solves many dif­fi­cul­ties in the way of treat­ing it as an hon­est nar­ra­tive by a com­pan­ion of Paul. In ad­di­tion, we may al­so count among re­cent gains a juster method of judg­ing such a book. For among the re­sults of the Tub­in­gen crit­icism was what Dr W. San­day calls “an un­re­al and ar­ti­fi­cial stan­dard, the stan­dard of the 19th cen­tu­ry rather than the 1st, of Ger­many rather than Pales­tine, of the lamp and the study rather than of ac­tive life.” This has a bear­ing, for in­stance, on the dif­fer­ences be­tween the three ac­counts of Paul’s con­ver­sion in Acts. In the re­cov­ery of a more re­al stan­dard, we owe much to men like Momm­sen, Ram­say, Blass and Har­nack, trained amid oth­er meth­ods and tra­di­tions than those which had brought the con­struc­tive study of Acts al­most to a dead­lock.

5. Date.–Ex­ter­nal ev­idence now points to the ex­is­tence of Acts at least as ear­ly as the open­ing years of the 2nd cen­tu­ry. As ev­idence for the Third Gospel holds equal­ly for Acts, its ex­is­tence in Mar­cion’s day (120-140) is now as­sured. Fur­ther, the traces of it in Poly­carp 6 and Ig­natius 7 when tak­en to­geth­er, are high­ly prob­able; and it is even wide­ly ad­mit­ted that the re­sem­blance of Acts xi­ii. 22, and 1 Ci­cm. xvi­ii. 1, in fea­tures not found in the Psalm (lxxxix. 20) quot­ed by each, can hard­ly be ac­ci­den­tal. That is, Acts was prob­ably cur­rent in An­ti­och and Smyr­na not lat­er than c. A.D. 115, and per­haps in Rome as ear­ly as c. A.D. 96.

With this view in­ter­nal ev­idence agrees. In spite of some ad­vo­ca­cy of a date pri­or to A.D. 70, the bulk of crit­ical opin­ion is de­cid­ed­ly against it. The pro­logue to Luke’s Gospel it­self im­plies the dy­ing out of the gen­er­ation of eye-​wit­ness­es as a class. A strong con­sen­sus of opin­ion sup­ports a date about A.D. 80; some pre­fer 75 to 80; while a date be­tween 70 and 75 seems no less pos­si­ble. Of the rea­sons for a date in one of the ear­li­er decades of the 2nd cen­tu­ry, as ar­gued by the Tub­in­gen school and its heirs, sev­er­al are now un­ten­able. Among these are the sup­posed traces of 2nd-​cen­tu­ry Gnos­ti­cism and “hi­er­ar­chi­cal” ideas of or­ga­ni­za­tion; but es­pe­cial­ly the ar­gu­ment from the re­la­tion of the Ro­man state to the Chris­tians, which Ram­say has re­versed and turned in­to proof of an ori­gin pri­or to Pliny’s cor­re­spon­dence with Tra­jan on the sub­ject. An­oth­er fact, now gen­er­al­ly ad­mit­ted, ren­ders a 2nd-​cen­tu­ry date yet more in­cred­ible; and that is the fail­ure of a writ­er de­vot­ed to Paul’s mem­ory to make pal­pa­ble use of his Epis­tles. In­stead of this he writes in a fash­ion that seems to tra­verse cer­tain things record­ed in them. If, in­deed, it were proved that Acts us­es the lat­er works of Jose­phus, we should have to place the book about A.D. 100. But this is far from be­ing the case.

Three points of con­tact with Jose­phus in par­tic­ular are cit­ed. (1) The cir­cum­stances at­tend­ing the death of Herod Agrip­pa I. in A.D. 44. Here Acts xii. 21-23 is large­ly par­al­lel to Jos. Antt. xix. 8. 2; but the lat­ter adds an omen of com­ing doom, while Acts alone gives a cir­cum­stan­tial ac­count of the oc­ca­sion of Herod’s pub­lic ap­pear­ance. Hence the par­al­lel, when anal­ysed, tells against de­pen­dence on Jose­phus. So al­so with (2) the cause of the Egyp­tian pseu­do-​prophet in Acts xxi. 37, f., Jos. Jew­ish War, ii. 13. 5, Antt. xx. 8. 6; for the num­bers of his fol­low­ers do not agree with ei­ther of Jose­phus’s rather di­ver­gent ac­counts, while Acts alone calls them Sicarii. With these in­stances in mind, it is nat­ural to re­gard (3) the cu­ri­ous re­sem­blance as to the (non-​his­tor­ical) or­der in which Theudas and Ju­das of Galilee are re­ferred to in both as ac­ci­den­tal, the more so that again there is dif­fer­ence as to num­bers. Fur­ther, to make out a case for de­pen­dence at all, one must as­sume the mis­tak­en or­der (as it may be) in Gamaliel’s speech as due to gross care­less­ness in the au­thor of Acts–an hy­poth­esis un­like­ly in it­self. Such a mis­take was far more like­ly to arise in oral trans­mis­sion of the speech, be­fore it reached Luke at all.

6 Place.—The place of com­po­si­tion is still an open ques­tion. For some time Rome and An­ti­och have been in favour; and Blass com­bined both views in his the­ory of two edi­tions (see be­low, Text). But in­ter­nal ev­idence points strong­ly to the Ro­man province of Asia, par­tic­ular­ly the neigh­bour­hood of Eph­esus. Note the con­fi­dent lo­cal al­lu­sion in xix. 9 to “the school of Tyran­nus”—not “a cer­tain Tyran­nus,” as in the in­fe­ri­or text–and in xix. 33 to “Alexan­der”; al­so the very minute to­pog­ra­phy in xx. 13-15. At any rate af­fairs in that re­gion, in­clud­ing the fu­ture of the church of Eph­esus (xx. 28-30), are treat­ed as though they would spe­cial­ly in­ter­est “Theophilus” and his cir­cle; al­so an ear­ly tra­di­tion makes Luke die in the ad­ja­cent Bithy­nia. Fi­nal­ly it was in this re­gion that there arose cer­tain ear­ly gloss­es e.g. on xix. 9, xx. 15), prob­ably the ear­li­est of those re­ferred to be­low. How ful­ly in cor­re­spon­deoce with such an en­vi­ron­ment the work would be, as apolo­gia for the Church against the Syn­agogue’s at­tempts to in­flu­ence Ro­man pol­icy to its harm, must be clear to all fa­mil­iar with the strength of Ju­daism in “Asia” (cf. Rev. ii. 9, iii. 9, and see Sir W. M. Ram­say, The Let­ters to the Sev­en Church­es, ch. xii.).

7. Text.—The ap­pa­ra­tus criti­cus of Acts has grown con­sid­er­ably of re­cent years; yet main­ly in one di­rec­tion, that of the so-​called “West­ern text.” This term, which our grow­ing knowl­edge, es­pe­cial­ly of the Syr­iac and oth­er East­ern ver­sions, is ren­der­ing more and more un­sat­is­fac­to­ry, stands for a text which used to be con­nect­ed al­most ex­clu­sive­ly with the “ec­cen­tric” Codex Bezae, and is com­pa­ra­ble to a Tar­gum on an Old Tes­ta­ment book. But it is now rec­og­nized to have been very widespread, in both east and west, for some 200 years or more from as ear­ly as the mid­dle of the 2nd cen­tu­ry. The pro­cess, how­ev­er, of sit­ting out the read­ings of all our present wit­ness­es–(Aleph MSS.), ver­sions, Fa­thers –has not yet gone far enough to yield any sure or fi­nal re­sult as to the his­to­ry of this text, so as to show what in its ex­tant forms is pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary, and so on. Be­gin­nings have been made to­wards group­ing our au­thor­ities; but the work must go on much fur­ther be­fore a sol­id ba­sis for the re­con­struc­tion of its prim­itive form can be said to ex­ist. The at­tempts made at such a re­con­struc­tion, as by Blass (1895, 1897) and Hilgen­feld (1899), are quite ar­bi­trary. The like must be said even of the con­tri­bu­tion to the prob­lem made by Au­gust Pott,8 though he has helped to de­fine one con­di­tion of suc­cess—the clas­si­fi­ca­tion of the stra­ta in “West­ern” texts—and has tak­en some steps in the right di­rec­tion, in con­nex­ion with the com­plex phe­nom­ena of one wit­ness, the Harklean Syr­iac.

As­sum­ing, how­ev­er, that the orig­inal form of the “West­ern” text had been reached, the ques­tion of its his­tor­ical val­ue, i.e. its re­la­tion to the orig­inal text of Acts, would yet re­main. On this point the high­est claims have been made by Blass. Ev­er since 1894 he held that both the “West­ern” text of Acts (which he styles the b text) and its ri­val, the text of the great un­cials (which he styles the a text), are due to the au­thor’s own hand. Fur­ther, that the for­mer (Ro­man) is the more orig­inal of the two, be­ing re­lat­ed to the lat­ter (An­ti­och­ene) as fuller first draft to severe­ly pruned copy. But even in its lat­er form, that “b stands near­er the Grund­schrift than a, but yet is, like a, a copy from it,” the the­ory is re­al­ly un­ten­able. In sober con­trast of Blass’s sweep­ing the­ory stand the views of Sir W. M. Ram­say. Al­ready in The Church in the Ro­man Em­pire ( 1893 ) he held that the Codex Bezae rest­ed on a re­cen­sion made in Asia Mi­nor (some­where be­tween Eph­esus and S. Gala­tia), not lat­er than about the mid­dle of the 2nd cen­tu­ry. Though “some at least of the al­ter­ations in Codex Bezae arose through a grad­ual pro­cess, and not through the ac­tion of an in­di­vid­ual re­vis­er,” the re­vi­sion in ques­tion was the work of a sin­gle re­vis­er, who in his changes and ad­di­tions ex­pressed the lo­cal in­ter­pre­ta­tion put up­on Acts in his own time. His aim, in suit­ing the text to the views of his day, was part­ly to make it more in­tel­li­gi­ble to the pub­lic, and part­ly to make it more com­plete. To this end he “added some touch­es where sur­viv­ing tra­di­tion seemed to con­tain trust­wor­thy ad­di­tion­al par­tic­ulars,” such as the state­ment that Paul taught in the lec­ture-​room of Tyran­nus “from the fifth to the tenth hour.” In his lat­er work, on St Paul the Trav­eller and the Ro­man Cit­izen (1895), Ram­say’s views gain both in pre­ci­sion and in breadth. The gain lies chiefly in see­ing be­yond the Bezan text to the “West­ern” text as a whole.

Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, then, the text of Acts as print­ed by West­cott and Hort, on the ba­sis of the ear­li­est MSS. (ale­phB), seems as near the au­to­graph as that of any oth­er part of the New Tes­ta­ment; where­as the “West­ern” text, even in its ear­li­est trace­able forms, is sec­ondary. This does not mean that it has no his­tor­ical val­ue of its own. It may well con­tain some true sup­ple­ments to the orig­inal text, de­rived from lo­cal tra­di­tion or hap­py in­fer­ence—a few per­haps from a writ­ten source used by Luke. Cer­tain of these may even date from the end of the 1st cen­tu­ry, and the larg­er part of them are prob­ably not lat­er than the mid­dle of the 2nd. But its val­ue lies main­ly in the light cast on ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal thought in cer­tain quar­ters dur­ing the epoch in ques­tion. The na­ture of the read­ings them­selves, and the dis­tri­bu­tion of the wit­ness for them, alike point to a pro­cess in­volv­ing sev­er­al stages and sev­er­al orig­inat­ing cen­tres of dif­fu­sion. The clas­si­fi­ca­tion of groups of “West­ern” wit­ness­es has al­ready be­gun. When com­plet­ed, it will cast light, not on­ly on the ori­gin and growth of this type of text, but al­so on the ex­act val­ue of the re­main­ing wit­ness­es to the orig­inal text of Acts—and fur­ther on the ear­ly han­dling of New Tes­ta­ment writ­ings gen­er­al­ly. Acts, from its very scope, was least like­ly to be viewed as sacro­sanct as re­gards its text. In­deed there are signs that its un­dog­mat­ic na­ture caused it to be com­par­ative­ly ne­glect­ed at cer­tain times and places, as, e.g., Chrysos­tom ex­plic­it­ly wit­ness­es.

LIT­ER­ATURE.–An ac­count of the ex­ten­sive and var­ied lit­er­ature that has gath­ered round Acts may be found in two rep­re­sen­ta­tive com­men­taries, viz., H. H. Wendt’s edi­tion of Mey­er (1899), and that by R. J. Knowl­ing in The Ex­pos­itor’s Greek Tes­ta­ment, vol. ii. (1900), sup­ple­ment­ed by his Tes­ti­mo­ny of St Paul to Christ (1905). See al­so J. Mof­fatt, The His­tor­ical New Tes­ta­ment (1901). 412 ff., 655 ff.: C. Clemen, Die Apos­telgesch. im Lichte der neueren Forschun­gen (Giessen, 1905); and A. Har­nack, Die Apos­telgeschichte (1908). (J. V. B.)

1 This ar­gu­ment, first worked out by Dr W. K. Ho­bart, The Med­ical Lan­guage of St Luke (Dublin, 1882), but hith­er­to ne­glect­ed by many Con­ti­nen­tal schol­ars, has been urged afresh by Har­nack, Lukas der Arzt (Leipzig, 1906; Eng. trans., Lon­don, 1907), to which ref­er­ence may be made for all mat­ters con­nect­ed with Lu­can au­thor­ship; comp. al­so R. J. Knowl­ing in The Ex­pos­itor’s Greek Tes­ta­ment.

2 This view has re­ceived Har­nack’s sup­port, op. cit. 89 f.

3 Apos­telgeschichte (1908), p46. Har­nack finds that our sense of the trust­wor­thi­ness of the book “is en­hanced by a thor­ough study of the chrono­log­ical pro­ce­dure of its au­thor, both where he speaks and where he keeps si­lence.” In this as­pect the book “as a whole is ac­cord­ing to the aims of the au­thor and in re­al­ity a his­tor­ical work” (p. 41; cf. pp. 1-20, 222 ff.).

4 Though this view had the sup­port of J. B. Light­foot, it should be re­mem­bered that this was be­fore the “South Gala­tian” the­ory as to the date of Paul’s work among the Gala­tians came to pre­vail.

5 Har­nack, in­deed, ar­gues (op. cit. pp. 188 ff.) that the Ab­sti­nences de­fined for Gen­tiles were in the orig­inal text of Acts xv. 20 pure­ly moral, and had no ref­er­ence to Jew­ish scru­ples as to eat­ing blood. He re­gards “what is stran­gled” (pnik­ton) as orig­inal­ly a mis­tak­en gloss, which crept in­to the text. Ex­ter­nal ev­idence is against this, nor does it seem de­mand­ed by the con­text; in fact xv. 21 rather goes against it.

6 Polyc. ad Philipp. i. 2, Acts ii. 24; ii. 1, Acts x. 42; ii. 3, Acts xx. 35; vi. 3, Acts vii. 52.

7 Ign. ad Magn. v. 1, Acts i 25; ad Smyrn. iii. 3, Acts x. 41.

8 Der abend­lan­dis­che Text der Apos­telgeschichte u. die Wir-​quelle (Leipzig, 1900). See a re­view in the Jour­nal of The­ol. Stud­ies, ii. 439 ff.

AC­TU­ARY. The name of ac­tu­ar­ius, sc. scri­ba, in an­cient Rome, was giv­en to the clerks who record­ed the Ac­ta Pub­li­ca of the sen­ate, and al­so to the of­fi­cers who kept the mil­itary ac­counts and en­forced the due ful­fil­ment of con­tracts for mil­itary sup­plies. In its En­glish form the word has un­der­gone a grad­ual lim­ita­tion of mean­ing. At first it seems to have de­not­ed any clerk or reg­is­trar; then more par­tic­ular­ly the sec­re­tary and ad­vis­er of any joint-​stock com­pa­ny, but es­pe­cial­ly of an in­sur­ance com­pa­ny; and it is now ap­plied specif­ical­ly to one who makes those cal­cu­la­tions as to the prob­abil­ities of hu­man life, on which the prac­tice of life as­sur­ance and the val­ua­tion of re­ver­sion­ary in­ter­ests, de­ferred an­nu­ities, &c., are based. The first men­tion of the word in law is in the Friend­ly So­ci­eties Act of 1819, where it is used in the vague sense, “ac­tu­ar­ies, or per­sons skilled in cal­cu­la­tion,” but it has re­ceived still fur­ther recog­ni­tion in the Friend­ly So­ci­eties Act of 1875 and the Life As­sur­ance Com­pa­nies Act of 1870. The word has been used with pre­ci­sion since the es­tab­lish­ment of the “In­sti­tute of Ac­tu­ar­ies of Great Britain and Ire­land” in 1848. The Quar­ter­ly Jour­nal, Char­ter of In­cor­po­ra­tion, and by-​laws of this so­ci­ety may be use­ful­ly con­sult­ed for par­tic­ulars as to the re­quire­ments for mem­ber­ship (see al­so AN­NU­ITY). The reg­is­trar in the Low­er House of Con­vo­ca­tion is al­so called the ac­tu­ary.

ACUMI­NATE (from Lat. acu­men, point), sharp­ened or point­ed, a word used prin­ci­pal­ly in botany and or­nithol­ogy, to de­note the nar­row­ing or lance-​shap­ing of a leaf or of a bird’s feath­er in­to a point, gen­er­al­ly at the tip, though some­times (with re­gard to a leaf) at the base. The po­et William Cow­per used the word to de­note sharp and keen de­spair, but oth­er au­thors, Sir T. Browne, Ba­con, Bul­wer, &c., use it to ex­plain a ma­te­ri­al point­ed shape.

ACU­NA, CHRIS­TO­VAL DE (1597–c.1676), Span­ish mis­sion­ary and ex­plor­er, was born at Bur­gos in 1597. He was ad­mit­ted a Je­suit in 1612, and af­ter­wards sent on mis­sion work to Chile and Pe­ru, where he be­came rec­tor of the col­lege of Cuen­ca. In 1639 he ac­com­pa­nied Pe­dro Tex­iera in his sec­ond ex­plo­ration of the Ama­zon, in or­der to take sci­en­tif­ic ob­ser­va­tions, and dtaw up a re­port for the Span­ish gov­ern­ment. The jour­ney last­ed ten months; and on the ex­plor­er’s ar­rival in Pe­ru, Acu­na pre­pared his nar­ra­tive, while await­ing a ship for Eu­rope. The king of Spain, Philip IV., re­ceived the au­thor cold­ly, and it is said even tried to sup­press his book, fear­ing that the Por­tuguese, who had just re­volt­ed from Spain (1640), would prof­it by its in­for­ma­tion. Af­ter oc­cu­py­ing the po­si­tions of procu­ra­tor of the Je­suits at Rome and cen­sor (cal­ifi­cador) of the In­qui­si­tion at Madrid, Acu­na re­turned to South Amer­ica, where he died, prob­ably soon af­ter 1675. His Nue­vo De­scubrim­ien­to del Gran Rio de las Ama­zonas was pub­lished at Madrid in 1641; French and En­glish trans­la­tions (the lat­ter from the French, ap­peared in 1682 and 1698.

ACU­PRES­SURE (from Lat. acus, a nee­dle, and pre­mere, to press), the name giv­en to a method of re­strain­ing haem­or­rhage, in­tro­duced by Sir J. Y. Simp­son, the di­rect pres­sure of a metal­lic nee­dle, ei­ther alone or as­sist­ed by a loop of wire, be­ing used to close the ves­sel near the bleed­ing point.

ACUPUNC­TURE (from Lat. acus, a nee­dle, and pun­gere, to prick), a form of sur­gi­cal op­er­ation, per­formed by prick­ing the part af­fect­ed with a nee­dle. It has long been used by the Chi­nese in cas­es of headaches, lethar­gies, con­vul­sions, col­ics, &c. (See SURGERY.)

AD­ABAZAR, an im­por­tant com­mer­cial town in the Kho­ja Ili san­jak of Asia Mi­nor, sit­uat­ed on the old mil­itary road from Con­stantino­ple to the east and con­nect­ed by a branch line with the Ana­to­lian rail­way. Pop. 18,000 (Moslems, 10,000; Chris­tians, 8000). It was found­ed in 1540 and en­larged in 1608 by the set­tle­ment in it of an Ar­me­ni­an colony. There are silk and linen in­dus­tries, and an ex­port of to­bac­co, wal­nut-​wood, co­coons and veg­eta­bles for the Con­stantino­ple mar­ket. Im­ports are val­ued at L. 80,000 and ex­ports at

See V. Cuinet, Turquie d’Asie (Paris, 1890–1900).

ADAD, the name of the storm-​god in the Baby­lo­ni­an-​As­syr­ian pan­theon, who is al­so known as Ram­man (“the thun­der­er”). The prob­lem in­volved in this dou­ble name has not yet been def­inite­ly solved. Ev­idence seems to favour the view that Ram­man was the name cur­rent in Baby­lo­nia, where­as Adad was more com­mon in As­syr­ia. To judge from anal­ogous in­stances of a dou­ble nomen­cla­ture, the two names re­vert to two dif­fer­ent cen­tres for the cult of a storm-​god, though it must be con­fessed that up to the present it has been im­pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine where these cen­tres were. A god Hadad who was a promi­nent de­ity in an­cient Syr­ia is iden­ti­cal with Adad, and in view of this it is plau­si­ble to as­sume—for which there is al­so oth­er ev­idence –that the name Adad rep­re­sents an im­por­ta­tion in­to As­syr­ia from Ara­ma­ic dis­tricts. Whether the same is the case with Ram­man, iden­ti­cal with Rim­mon, known to us from the Old Tes­ta­ment as the chief de­ity of Dam­as­cus, is not cer­tain though prob­able. On the oth­er hand the cult of a spe­cif­ic storm-​god in an­cient Baby­lo­nia is vouched for by the oc­cur­rence of the sign Im–the “Sume­ri­an” or ideo­graph­ic writ­ing for Adad-​Ram­man –as an el­ement in prop­er names of the old Baby­lo­ni­an pe­ri­od. How­ev­er this name may have orig­inal­ly been pro­nounced, so much is cer­tain,—that through Ara­ma­ic in­flu­ences in Baby­lo­nia and As­syr­ia he was iden­ti­fied with the storm-​god of the west­ern Semites, and a trace of this in­flu­ence is to be seen in the des­ig­na­tion Amur­ru, al­so giv­en to this god in the re­li­gious lit­er­ature of Baby­lo­nia, which as an ear­ly name for Pales­tine and Syr­ia de­scribes the god as be­long­ing to the Amor­ite dis­trict.

The Baby­lo­ni­an storm-​god presents two as­pects in the hymns, in­can­ta­tions and vo­tive in­scrip­tions. On the one hand he is the god who, through bring­ing on the rain in due sea­son, caus­es the land to be­come fer­tile, and, on the oth­er hand, the storms that he sends out bring hav­oc and de­struc­tion. He is pic­tured on mon­uments and seal cylin­ders with the light­ning and the thun­der­bolt, and in the hymns the som­bre as­pects of the god on the whole pre­dom­inate. His as­so­ci­ation with the sun-​god, Shamash, due to the nat­ural com­bi­na­tion of the two deities who al­ter­nate in the con­trol of na­ture, leads to im­bu­ing him with some of the traits be­long­ing to a so­lar de­ity. In Syr­ia Hadad is hard­ly to be dis­tin­guished from a so­lar de­ity. The pro­cess of as­sim­ila­tion did not pro­ceed so far in Baby­lo­nia and As­syr­ia, but Shamash and Adad be­came in com­bi­na­tion the gods of or­acles and of div­ina­tion in gen­er­al. Whether the will of the gods is de­ter­mined through the in­spec­tion of the liv­er of the sac­ri­fi­cial an­imal, through ob­serv­ing the ac­tion of oil bub­bles in a basin of wa­ter or through the ob­ser­va­tion of the move­ments of the heav­en­ly bod­ies, it is Shamash and Adad who, in the rit­ual con­nect­ed with div­ina­tion, are in­vari­ably in­voked. Sim­ilar­ly in the an­nals and vo­tive in­scrip­tions of the kings, when or­acles are re­ferred to, Shamash and Adad are al­ways named as the gods ad­dressed, and their or­di­nary des­ig­na­tion in such in­stances is bele biri, “lords of div­ina­tion.” The con­sort of Adad-​Ram­man is Sha­la, while as Amur­ru his con­sort is called As­chra­tum. (See BABY­LO­NI­AN AND AS­SYR­IAN RE­LI­GION.) (M. JA.)

ADA­GIO (Ital. ad agio, at ease), a term in mu­sic to in­di­cate slow time; al­so a slow move­ment in a sym­pho­ny, sonata, &c., or an in­de­pen­dent piece, such as Mozart’s pi­anoforte “Ada­gio in B mi­nor.”

ADAIR, JOHN (d. 1722), Scot­tish sur­vey­or and map-​mak­er of the 17th cen­tu­ry. Noth­ing is known of his parent­age, birth­place or ear­ly life. His name first came be­fore the pub­lic in 1683, when a prospec­tus was pub­lished in Ed­in­burgh en­ti­tled An Ac­count of the Scot­tish At­las, stat­ing that “the Privy Coun­cil of Scot­land has ap­point­ed John Adair, math­emati­cian and skil­full me­chan­ick, to sur­vey the shires.” In 1686 an act of ton­nage was passed in Adair’s favour. He was then em­ployed on a sur­vey of the Scot­tish coast and two years lat­er was made a fel­low of the Roy­al So­ci­ety. Two oth­er acts of ton­nage were passed for Adair, one in 1695 and the oth­er in 1705. In 1703 he pub­lished the first part of his De­scrip­tion of the Sea Coasts and Is­lands of Scot­land, for the use of sea­men. The sec­ond part nev­er ap­peared. He is thought to have died in Lon­don about the end of 1722. He must have lost a con­sid­er­able amount of mon­ey in the ex­ecu­tion of his work, and in 1723 some re­mu­ner­ation was made to his wid­ow by the gov­ern­ment. Some of his work is pre­served in the Ad­vo­cates’ Li­brary at Ed­in­burgh and in the King’s Li­brary of the British Mu­se­um, Lon­don.

ADAL­BERON, or AS­CELIN (d. 1030 or 1031), French bish­op and po­et, stud­ied at Reims and be­came bish­op of Laon in 977. When Laon was tak­en by Charles, duke of Lor­raine, in 988, he was put in­to prison, whence he es­caped and sought the pro­tec­tion of Hugh Capet, king of France. Win­ning the con­fi­dence of Charles of Lor­raine and of Ar­nulf, arch­bish­op of Reims, he was re­stored to his see; but he soon took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be­tray Laon, to­geth­er with Charles and Ar­nulf, in­to the hands of Hugh Capet. Sub­se­quent­ly he took an ac­tive part in ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal af­fairs, and died on the 19th of Ju­ly 1030 or 1031. Adal­beron wrote a satir­ical po­em in the form of a di­alogue ded­icat­ed to Robert, king of France, in which he showed his dis­like of Odi­lo, ab­bot of Cluny, and his fol­low­ers, and his ob­jec­tion to per­sons of hum­ble birth be­ing made bish­ops. The po­em was first pub­lished by H. Val­ois in the Car­men pan­egyricum in lau­dem Beren­garii (Paris, 1663), and in mod­ern times by J. P. Migne in the Pa­trolo­gia Lati­na, tome cxli. (Paris, 1844). Adal­beron must not be con­found­ed with his name­sake, Adal­beron, arch­bish­op of Reims (d. 988 or 989).

See Rich­er, His­to­ri­arum Lib­ri III. et IV., which ap­pears in the Mon­umen­ta Ger­ma­ni­ae his­tor­ica. Scrip­tores. Band iii. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826–1892); A. Ol­leris, OEu­vres de Ger­bert pape sous le nom de Sylvestre II. (Paris, 1867); His­toire lit­teraire de la France, tome vii. (Paris, 1865-1869).

ADAL­BERT, or ADEL­BERT (c. 1000-1072), Ger­man arch­bish­op, the most fa­mous ec­cle­si­as­tic of the 11th cen­tu­ry, was the son of Fred­er­ick, count of Goseck, a mem­ber of a no­ble Sax­on fam­ily. He was ed­ucat­ed for the church, and be­gan his cler­ical ca­reer at Hal­ber­stadt, where he at­tained to the dig­ni­ty of provost. Hav­ing at­tract­ed the no­tice of the Ger­man king, Hen­ry III., Adal­bert prob­ably served as chan­cel­lor of the king­dom of Italy, and in 1045 was ap­point­ed arch­bish­op of Ham­burg-​Bre­men, his province in­clud­ing the Scan­di­na­vian coun­tries, as well as a larg­er part of North Ger­many. In 1046 he ac­com­pa­nied Hen­ry to Rome, where he is said to have re­fused the pa­pal chair; and in 1052 he was made legate by Pope Leo IX., and giv­en the right to nom­inate bish­ops in his province. He sought to in­crease the in­flu­ence of his arch­bish­opric, sent mis­sion­ar­ies to Fin­land, Green­land and the Orkney Is­lands, and aimed at mak­ing Bre­men a pa­tri­ar­chal see for north­ern Eu­rope, with twelve suf­fra­gan bish­oprics. He con­sol­idat­ed and in­creased the es­tates of the church, ex­er­cised the pow­ers of a count, de­nounced si­mo­ny and ini­ti­at­ed fi­nan­cial re­forms. The pres­ence of this pow­er­ful and ac­tive per­son­al­ity, who was more­over a close friend of the em­per­or, was great­ly re­sent­ed by the Sax­on duke, Bernard II., who re­gard­ed him as a spy sent by Hen­ry in­to Sax­ony. Adal­bert, who wished to free his lands en­tire­ly from the au­thor­ity of the duke, aroused fur­ther hos­til­ity by an at­tack on the priv­ileges of the great abbeys, and af­ter the em­per­or’s death in 1056 his lands were rav­aged by Bernard. He took a lead­ing part in the gov­ern­ment of Ger­many dur­ing the mi­nor­ity of King Hen­ry IV., and was styled pa­tronus of the young king, over whom he ap­pears to have ex­er­cised con­sid­er­able in­flu­ence. Hav­ing ac­com­pa­nied Hen­ry on a cam­paign in­to Hun­gary in 1063, he re­ceived large gifts of crown es­tates, and ob­tained the of­fice of count pala­tine in Sax­ony. His pow­er aroused so much op­po­si­tion that in 1066 the king was com­pelled to as­sent to his re­moval from court. In 1069 he was re­called by Hen­ry, when he made a fur­ther at­tempt to es­tab­lish a north­ern pa­tri­ar­chate, which failed ow­ing to the hos­til­ity of the pa­pa­cy and the con­di­tion of af­fairs in the Scan­di­na­vian king­doms. He died at Goslar on the 16th or 17th of March 1072, and was buried in the cathe­dral which he had built at Bre­men. Adal­bert was a man of proud and haughty bear­ing, with large ideas and a strong, en­er­get­ic char­ac­ter. He made Bre­men a city of im­por­tance, and it was called by his bi­og­ra­pher, Adam of Bre­men, the New Rome.

See Adam of Bre­men, Ges­ta Ham­men­bur­gen­sis ec­cle­si­ae pon­tif­icum, edit­ed by J. M. Lap­pen­berg, in the Mon­umen­ta Ger­ma­ni­ae his­tor­ica. Scrip­tores. Band vii. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826-1892); C. Grun­hagen, Adal­bert Erzbischof von Ham­burg und die Idee eines Nordis­chen Pa­tri­ar­chats (Leipzig, 1854).

ADAL­BERT (orig­inal­ly VOYTECH), (c. 950-997), known as the apos­tle of the Prus­sians, the son of a Bo­hemi­an prince, was born at Li­bice (Lob­nik, Lu­bik), the an­ces­tral seat near the junc­tion of the Cidli­na and the Elbe. He was ed­ucat­ed at the monastery of Magde­burg; and in 983 was cho­sen bish­op of Prague. The ex­treme sever­ity of his rule re­pelled the Bo­hemi­ans, whom he vain­ly strove to wean from their na­tion­al cus­toms and pa­gan rites. Dis­cour­aged by the ill-​suc­cess of his min­istry, he with­drew to Rome un­til 993, when, in obe­di­ence to the com­mand 0f the pope, he re­turned to his own peo­ple. Find­ing lit­tle amend­ment, how­ev­er, in their course of liv­ing, he soon af­ter­wards went again to Rome, and ob­tained per­mis­sion from the pope to de­vote him­self to mis­sion­ary labours, which he car­ried on chiefly in North Ger­many and Poland. While preach­ing in Pomera­nia (997) he was as­sas­si­nat­ed by a hea­then priest.

See U. Cheva­lier, Reper­toire des sources his­toriques du moyen age, Bio.-Bibl. (1905); Bol­land, Ac­ta Sanc­to­rum, April 23; H. G. Voigt, Adal­bert von Prag (1898), a thor­ough­ly ex­haus­tive mono­graph.

ADALIA (med. An­taliyah; the cru­saders’ Sa­talia), the an­cient At­talia (q.v.), the largest sea­port on the south coast of Asia Mi­nor, though in point of trade it is now sec­ond to Mersi­na. The un­suit­abil­ity of the har­bour for mod­ern steam­ers, the bad an­chor­age out­side and the ex­ten­sion of rail­ways from Smyr­na have great­ly less­ened its for­mer im­por­tance as an em­po­ri­um for west cen­tral Ana­to­lia. It is not con­nect­ed by a chaussee with any point out­side its im­me­di­ate province, but it has con­sid­er­able im­por­tance as the ad­min­is­tra­tive cap­ital of a rich and iso­lat­ed san­jak. Adalia played a con­sid­er­able part in the me­dieval his­to­ry of the Lev­ant. Kil­ij Ar­slan had a palace there. The army of Louis VII. sailed thence for Syr­ia in 1148, and the fleet of Richard of Eng­land ral­lied there be­fore the con­quest of Cyprus. Con­quered by the Seljuks of Ko­nia, and made the cap­ital of the province of Tekke, it passed af­ter their fall through many hands, in­clud­ing those of the Vene­tians and Ge­noese, be­fore its fi­nal oc­cu­pa­tion by the Ot­toman Turks un­der Mu­rad II. (1432). In the 18th cen­tu­ry, in com­mon with most of Ana­to­lia, its ac­tu­al lord was a Dere Bey. The fam­ily of Tekke Oglu, domi­ciled near Per­ga, though re­duced to sub­mis­sion in 1812 by Mah­mud II., con­tin­ued to be a ri­val pow­er to the Ot­toman gov­er­nor till with­in the present gen­er­ation, sur­viv­ing by many years the fall of the oth­er great Beys of Ana­to­lia. The records of the Lev­ant (Turkey) Com­pa­ny, which main­tained an im­por­tant agen­cy here till 1825, con­tain cu­ri­ous in­for­ma­tion as to the lo­cal Dere Beys. The present pop­ula­tion of Adalia, which in­cludes many Chris­tians and Jews, still liv­ing, as in the mid­dle ages, in sep­arate quar­ters, the for­mer round the walled mi­na or port, is about 25,000. The port is served by coast­ing steam­ers of the lo­cal com­pa­nies on­ly. Adalia is an ex­treme­ly pic­turesque, but ill-​built and back­ward place. The chief thing to see is the city wall, out­side which runs a good and clean prom­enade. The gov­ern­ment of­fices and the hous­es of the bet­ter class are all out­side the walls.

See C. Lanck­oron­ski, Villes de la Pam­phylie et de La Pi­si­die, i. (1890). (D.G.H.)

ADAM, the con­ven­tion­al name of the first cre­at­ed man ac­cord­ing to the Bible.

1. The Name.—The use of “Adam” (mem ka­matz daleth ka­matz aleph) as a prop­er name is an ear­ly er­ror. Prop­er­ly the word adam des­ig­nat­ed man as a species; with the ar­ti­cle pre­fixed (Gen. ii. 7, 8, 16, iv. 1; and doubt­less il. 20, iii. 17) it means the first man. On­ly in Gen. iv. 25 and v. 3-5 is adam a quasi-​prop­er name, though LXX. and Vul­gate use “Adam” (Adam) in this way freely. Gen. ii. 7 sug­gests a pop­ular He­brew deriva­tion from adamah, “the ground.” In­to the ques­tion whether the orig­inal sto­ry did not give a prop­er name which was af­ter­wards mod­ified in­to “Adam” —im­por­tant as this ques­tion is—we can­not here en­ter.

2. Cre­ation of Adam.–For con­ve­nience, we shall take “Adam” as a sym­bol for “the first man,” and in­quire first, what does tra­di­tion say of his cre­ation? In Gen. ii. 4b-8 we read thus: -“At the time when Yah­weh-​Elo­him1 made earth and heav­en,–earth was as yet with­out bush­es, no herbage was as yet sprout­ing, be­cause Yah­weh-​Elo­him had not caused it to rain up­on the earth, and no men were there to till the ground, but a stream2 used to go up from the earth, and wa­ter all the face of the ground,—then Yah­weh-​Elo­him formed the man of dust of the ground,3 and blew in­to his nos­trils breath of life,4 and the man be­came a liv­ing be­ing. And Yah­weh-​Elo­him plant­ed a gar­den5 in Eden, east­ward; and there he put the man whom he had formed.” (See Eve.)

How great­ly this sim­ple and frag­men­tary tale of Cre­ation dif­fers from that in Gen. i. 1-ii. 4a (see COS­MOGONY) need hard­ly be men­tioned. Cer­tain­ly the priest­ly writ­er who pro­duced the lat­ter could not have said that God mod­elled the first man out of moist­ened clay, or have adopt­ed the sin­gu­lar ac­count of the for­ma­tion of Eve in ii. 21-23. The lat­ter sto­ry in par­tic­ular (see Eve) shows us how child­like was the mind of the ear­ly men, whose God is not “won­der­ful in coun­sel” (Isa. xxvi­ii. 29), and fails in his first at­tempt to re­lieve the lone­li­ness of his favourite. For no beast how­ev­er mighty, no bird how­ev­er grace­ful, was a fit com­pan­ion for God’s mas­ter­piece, and, apart from the ser­pent, the an­imals had no fac­ul­ty of speech. All there­fore that Adam could do, as they passed be­fore him, was to name them, as a lord names his vas­sals. But here aris­es a dif­fi­cul­ty. How came Adam by the req­ui­site in­sight and pow­er of ob­ser­va­tion? For as yet he had not snatched the per­ilous boon of wis­dom. Clear­ly the Par­adise sto­ry is not ho­mo­ge­neous.

3. How the An­imals were named.—Some mod­erns, e.g. von Bohlen, Ewald, Driv­er (in Gen­esis, p. 55, but cp. p. 42), have found in ii. 19, 20 an ear­ly ex­pla­na­tion of the ori­gin of lan­guage. This is hard­ly right. The nar­ra­tor as­sumes that Adam and Eve had an in­nate fac­ul­ty of speech.6 They spoke just as the birds sing, and their lan­guage was that of the race or peo­ple which de­scend­ed from them. Most prob­ably the ob­ject of the sto­ry is, not to an­swer any cu­ri­ous ques­tion (such as, how did hu­man speech arise, or how came the an­imals by their names?), but to de­hort its read­ers or hear­ers from the abom­inable vice re­ferred to in Lev. xvi­ii. 23.7 There may have been sto­ries in cir­cu­la­tion like that of Ea-​bani (sec. 8), and even such as those of the Ski­di Pawnee, in which “peo­ple” mar­ry an­imals, or be­come an­imals. Against these it is said (ver. 20b) that “for Adam he found no helper (qual­ified) to match him.”

4. Three Rid­dles.—Man­ifold are the prob­lems sug­gest­ed by the Eden-​sto­ry (see EDEN; PAR­ADISE). For in­stance, did the orig­inal sto­ry men­tion two trees, or on­ly one, of which the fruit was taboo? bn iii. 3(cp. vv. 6, 11) on­ly “the tree in the midst of the gar­den” is spo­ken of, but in ii. 9 and iii. 22 two trees are re­ferred to, the fruit of both of which would ap­pear to be taboo. To this we must add that in ii. 17 “the tree of the knowl­edge of good and evil” ap­pears to have the qual­ities of a “tree of life,” ex­cept in­deed to Adam. This pas­sage seems to give us the key to the mys­tery. There was on­ly one tree whose fruit was for­bid­den; it might be called ei­ther “the tree of life” or “the tree of knowl­edge,” but cer­tain­ly not “the tree of knowl­edge of good and evil.” 8 The words “life” and “knowl­edge” (= “wis­dom”) are prac­ti­cal­ly equiv­alent; per­fect knowl­edge (so prim­itive man be­lieved) would en­able any be­ing to es­cape death (an idea spir­itu­al­ized in Prov. iii. 18).

Next, which of the trees is the “tree of life”? Var­ious sa­cred trees were known to the Semitic peo­ples, such as the fig-​tree (cp. iii. 7), which some­times ap­pears, con­ven­tion­al­ized, as a sa­cred tree.9 But clear­ly the tree re­ferred to was more than a “sa­cred tree”; it was a tree from whose fruit or juice, as cul­ture ad­vanced, some in­tox­icat­ing drink was pro­duced. The Gaok­er­ena of the Ira­ni­ans 10 is ex­act­ly par­al­lel. At the res­ur­rec­tion, those who drink of the life-​giv­ing juice of this plant will ob­tain “per­fect wel­fare,” in­clud­ing death­less­ness. It is not, how­ev­er, ei­ther from Iran or from In­dia that the He­brew tree of life is de­rived, but from Ara­bia and Baby­lo­nia, where date-​wine (cp. Enoch xxiv. 4) is the ear­li­est in­tox­icant. Of this drink it may well have been said in prim­itive times (cp. Rig Ve­da, ix. 90. 5, of So­ma) that it “cheers the heart of gods” (in the speech of the vine, Judg. ix. 13). Lat­er writ­ers spoke of a “tree of mer­cy,” dis­till­ing the “oil of life,” 11 i.e. the oil that heals, but 4 Es­dr. ii. 12 (cp. vi­ii. 53) speaks of the “tree of life,” and Rev. xxii. 2 (vir­tu­al­ly) of “trees of life,” whose leaves have a heal­ing virtue (cp. Ezek. xlvii. 12). The oil-​tree should doubt­less be grouped with the riv­er of oil in lat­er writ­ings (see PAR­ADISE). Orig­inal­ly it was enough that there should be one tree of life, i.e. that height­ened and pre­served vi­tal­ity.

A third enig­ma—why no “foun­tain of life”? The ref­er­ences to such a foun­tain in Proverbs (xi­ii. 14, &c.) prove that the idea was fa­mil­iar,12 and in Rev. xxii. 1 we are told that the riv­er of Par­adise was a “riv­er of wa­ter of life” (see PAR­ADISE). The ser­pent, too, in mythol­ogy is a reg­ular sym­bol of wa­ter. Pos­si­bly the nar­ra­tor, or redac­tor, de­sired to tone down the traces of mythol­ogy. Just as the Gathas (the an­cient Zoroas­tri­an hymns) omit Gaok­er­ena, and the He­brew prophets on the whole avoid mytho­log­ical phras­es, so this old He­brew thinker prunes the prim­itive ex­uber­ance of the tra­di­tion­al myth.

5. The Ser­pent.—The keen-​wit­ted, flu­ent­ly speak­ing ser­pent gives rise to fresh rid­dles. How comes it that Adam’s ru­in is ef­fect­ed by one of those very “beasts of the field” which he had but late­ly named (ii. 19), that in speech he is Adam’s equal and in wis­dom his su­pe­ri­or? Is he a pale form of the Baby­lo­ni­an chaos-​drag­on, or of the ser­pent of Ira­ni­an mythol­ogy who sprang from heav­en to earth to blight the “good cre­ation”? It is true that the ser­pent of Eden has mytho­log­ical affini­ties. In iii. 14, 15, in­deed, he is de­grad­ed in­to a mere typ­ical snake, but iii. 1-5 shows that he was not so orig­inal­ly. He is per­haps best re­gard­ed, in the light of Ara­bi­an folk-​lore, as the man­ifes­ta­tion of a de­mon re­sid­ing in the tree with the mag­ic fruit.13 He may have been a prince among the demons, as the mag­ic tree was a prince among the plants. Hence per­haps his strange bold­ness. For some un­known rea­son he was ill dis­posed to­wards Yah­weh Elo­him (See iii. 3b), which has sug­gest­ed to some that he may be akin to the great en­emy of Cre­ation. To Adam and Eve, how­ev­er, he is not un­kind. He bids them raise them­selves in the scale of be­ing by eat­ing the for­bid­den fruit, which he de­clares to be not fa­tal to life but an open­er of the eyes, and ca­pa­ble of equal­iz­ing men with gods (iii. 4, 5). To the phrase “ye shall be as gods” a lat­er writ­er may have added “know­ing good and evil,” but “to be as gods” orig­inal­ly meant “to live the life of gods–wise, pow­er­ful, hap­py.” The ser­pent was in the main right, but there is one point which he did not men­tion, viz. that for any be­ing to re­tain this in­ten­si­fied vi­tal­ity the eat­ing of the fruit would have to be con­stant­ly re­newed. On­ly thus could even the gods es­cape death.14

6. The Di­vine Com­mand bro­ken.—The ser­pent has gone the right way to work; he com­pre­hends wom­an’s na­ture bet­ter than Adam com­pre­hends that of the ser­pent. By her cu­rios­ity Eve is un­done. She looks at the fruit; then she takes and eats; her hus­band does the same (iii. 6). The con­se­quence (ver. 7) may seem to us rather slight: “they knew (be­came sen­si­ble) that they were naked, and sewed fig-​leaves to­geth­er, and made them­selves gir­dles (aprons).” But the re­al mean­ing is not slight; the sex­ual dis­tinc­tion has been dis­cov­ered, and a new sense of shame sends the hu­man pair in­to the thick­est shades, when Yah­weh-​Elo­him walks abroad. The God of these prim­itive men is sur­prised: “Where art thou?” By de­grees, he ob­tains a full con­fes­sion—not from the ser­pent, whose speech might not have been ed­ify­ing, but from Adam and Eve. The sen­tences which he pass­es are de­ci­sive, not on­ly for the hu­man pair and the ser­pent, but for their re­spec­tive races. Painful toil shall be the lot of man; sub­jec­tion and pangs that of wom­an.15 The ser­pent too (whose unique form pre­oc­cu­pied the ear­ly men) shall be hu­mil­iat­ed, as a per­pet­ual warn­ing to man–who is hence­forth his en­emy—of the dan­ger of rea­son­ing on and dis­obey­ing the will of God.

7. Ver­sions of the Adam-​sto­ry.–The­olo­gians in all ages have al­le­go­rized this strange nar­ra­tive.16 The ser­pent be­comes the in­ner voice of temp­ta­tion, and the say­ing in iii. 15 be­comes an an­tic­ipa­tion of the fi­nal vic­to­ry of good over evil–a view which prob­ably arose in Jew­ish cir­cles di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the Zoroas­tri­an es­cha­tol­ogy. But al­le­go­ry was far from the thoughts of the orig­inal nar­ra­tors. An­oth­er ver­sion of the Adam-​sto­ry is giv­en by Ezekiel (xxvi­ii. 11-19), for un­der­neath the king of Tyre (or per­haps Mis­sor)17 we can trace the ma­jes­tic fig­ure of the first man. This Adam, in­deed, is not like the first man of Gen. ii.-iii., but more iike the “bright an­gel” who is the first man in the Chris­tian Book of Adam (i. 10; Malan, p. 12). He dwells on a glo­ri­ous for­est-​moun­tain (cp. Ezekiel xxxi. 8, 18), and is led away by pride to equal­ize him­self with Elo­him (cp. xxvi­ii. 2, 2 Thess. ii. 4), and pun­ished. And with this pas­sage let us group Job xv. 7, 8, where Job is iron­ical­ly de­scribed as vy­ing with the first man, who was “brought forth be­fore the hills” (cp. Prov. vi­ii. 25) and “drew wis­dom to him­self” by “hear­ken­ing in the coun­cil of Elo­him.” No ref­er­ence is made in Job to this hero’s fall. The omis­sion, how­ev­er, is re­paired, not on­ly in Ezek. xxvi­ii. 16, but al­so in Isa. xiv. 12-15, where the king, whose name is giv­en in the En­glish Bible as “Lu­cifer” (or mar­gin, “day-​star”), “son of the morn­ing,” and who, like the oth­er king in Ezekiel, is threat­ened with death, is a copy of the myth­ical Adam.

The two con­cep­tions Of the first man are wide­ly dif­fer­ent. The pas­sages last re­ferred to har­mo­nize with the ac­count giv­en in Gen. i. 26, for “in our im­age” cer­tain­ly sug­gests a be­ing equal in bright­ness and in ca­pac­ities to the an­gels—a view which, as we know, be­came the favourite one in apoc­ryphal and Hag­gadic de­scrip­tions of the Adam be­fore the Fall. And though the priest­ly writ­er, to whom the first Cre­ation-​sto­ry in its present form is due, says noth­ing about a sa­cred moun­tain as the dwelling-​place of the first-​cre­at­ed man, yet this moun­tain be­longs to the type of tra­di­tion which the pas­sage, Gen. i. 26-28, im­per­fect­ly but tru­ly rep­re­sents. The glo­ri­ous first man of Ezekiel, and the god-​like first men of the cos­mogony (cp. Ps. vi­ii. 5) who held the re­gen­cy of the earth,18 re­quire a dwelling-​place as far above the com­mon lev­el of the earth as they are them­selves above the child­like Adam of the sec­ond cre­ation-​nar­ra­tive (Gen. ii.). On this sa­cred moun­tain, see COS­MOGONY.

8. Ori­gin of the Adam-​sto­ry—That the He­brew sto­ry of the first man in both its forms is no mere re­cast of a Baby­lo­ni­an myth, is gen­er­al­ly ad­mit­ted. The holy moun­tain is no doubt Baby­lo­ni­an, and the plan­ta­tions of sa­cred trees, one of which at least has mag­ic virtue, can be par­al­leled from the mon­uments (see EDEN). But there is no com­plete par­al­lel to the de­scrip­tion of Par­adise in Gen. ii., or to the sto­ry of the rib, or to that of the ser­pent. The first part of the lat­ter has def­inite Ara­bi­an affini­ties; the sec­ond is as def­inite­ly He­brew. We may now add that the in­ser­tion of iii. 7 (from “were opened”) to 19—a pas­sage which has prob­ably sup­plant­ed a more ar­cha­ic and def­inite­ly mytho­log­ical pas­sage—may well have been the con­se­quence of the change in the con­cep­tion of the first man re­ferred to above. Still there are four Baby­lo­ni­an sto­ries which may serve as par­tial il­lus­tra­tions of the He­brew Adam-​sto­ry.

The first is con­tained in a frag­ment of a cos­mogony in Berossus, now con­firmed in the main by the sixth tablet of the Cre­ation-​epic. It rep­re­sents the cre­ation of man as due to one of the in­fe­ri­or gods who (at Bel’s com­mand) min­gled with clay the blood which flowed from the sev­ered head of Bel (see COS­MOGONY). The three oth­ers are the myths of Ada­pa,19 Ea-​bani and Etana. As to Ada­pa, it may be men­tioned here that Fos­sey has shown rea­son for hold­ing that the true read­ing of the name is Adamu. It thus be­comes plau­si­ble to hold that “Adam” in Gen. ii.-iii. was orig­inal­ly a prop­er name, and that it was de­rived from Baby­lo­nia. More prob­ably, how­ev­er, this is but an ac­ci­den­tal co­in­ci­dence; both adam and adamu may come from the same Semitic root mean­ing “to make.” Cer­tain­ly Adamu (if it is not more con­ve­nient to write “Ada­pa”) was not re­gard­ed as the pro­gen­itor of the hu­man race, like the He­brew Adam. He was, how­ev­er, cer­tain­ly a man–one of those men who were not, of course, ri­val first-​men, but were spe­cial­ly cre­at­ed and en­dowed. Adamu or Ada­pa, we are told, re­ceived from his di­vine fa­ther the gift of wis­dom,20 but not that of ev­er­last­ing life. He had a chance, how­ev­er, of ob­tain­ing the gift, or at least of eat­ing the food and drink­ing the wa­ter which makes the gods age­less and im­mor­tal. But through a de­ceit prac­tised up­on him by his di­vine fa­ther Ea, he sup­posed the food and drink of­fered to him on a cer­tain oc­ca­sion by the gods to be “food of death,” “wa­ter of death,” just as Adam and Eve at first be­lieved that the fruit of the mag­ic tree would pro­duce death (Gen. iii. 4, 5).

The sec­ond sto­ry is that of Ea-​bani,21 who was formed by the god­dess Arusu (=the moth­er-​god­dess Ishtar) of a lump of clay (cp. Gen. ii. 7). This hu­man crea­ture, long-​haired and sen­su­al, was drawn away from a sav­age mode of life by a har­lot, and Jas­trow, fol­lowed by G. A. Bar­ton, Worces­ter and Ten­nant, con­sid­ers this to be par­al­lel to the sto­ry which may un­der­lie the ac­count of the fail­ure of the beasts, and the suc­cess of the wom­an Eve, as a “help-​meet” for Adam. This, how­ev­er, is most un­cer­tain.

The third is that of Etana.22 Here the main points are that Etana is in­duced by an ea­gle to mount up to heav­en, that he may win a boon from the kind­ly god­dess Ishtar. Borne by the ea­gle, he soared high up in­to the ether, but be­came afraid. Down­ward the ea­gle and his bur­den fell, and in the epic of Gil­gamesh we find Etana in the nether world. Ac­cord­ing to Jas­trow, this at­tempt­ed as­cen­sion was an of­fence against the gods, and his fall was his pun­ish­ment. We are not told, how­ev­er, that Etana had the im­pi­ous de­sire of Ezekiel’s first man, and if he fell, it was through his own timid­ity (con­trast Ezek. xxvi­ii. 16). But cer­tain­ly the myth does help us to imag­ine a sto­ry in which, for some sin against the gods, some favoured hero was hurled down from the di­vine abode, and such a sto­ry may some day be dis­cov­ered.

To these il­lus­tra­tions it is un­safe to add the scene on a cylin­der pre­served in the British Mu­se­um, rep­re­sent­ing two fig­ures, a man (with horns) and per­haps a wom­an, both clothed, on ei­ther side of a fruit-​tree, to­wards which they stretch out their hands.23 For the mean­ing of this is ex­treme­ly prob­lem­at­ical. Some bet­ter mon­umen­tal il­lus­tra­tion may some day be found, for it is clear that the Baby­lo­ni­an sa­cred lit­er­ature had much to tell of of­fences against the gods in the primeval age.

The stu­dent may nat­ural­ly ask, Whence did the Is­raelites (a com­par­ative­ly young peo­ple) ob­tain the orig­inal myth? It is most prob­able that they ob­tained it through the me­di­ation ei­ther of the Canaan­ites or of the North Ara­bi­ans. Baby­lo­ni­an in­flu­ence, as is now well known, was strong­ly felt for many cen­turies in Canaan, and even the cuneiform script was in com­mon use among the high of­fi­cials of the coun­try. When the Is­raelites en­tered Canaan, they would learn myths part­ly of Baby­lo­ni­an ori­gin. North Ara­bi­an in­flu­ence must al­so have been strong among the Is­raelites, at least while they so­journed in North Ara­bia. From the Ken­ites, at any rate, they may have re­ceived, not on­ly a strong re­li­gious im­pulse, but a store of tales of the prim­itive age, and these stoties too may have been part­ly in­flu­enced by Baby­lo­ni­an tra­di­tions. We must al­low for stages of de­vel­op­ment both among the Is­raelites and among their tu­tors.

9. Bib­li­cal Ref­er­ences to the Adam-​sto­ry.—It is re­mark­able how lit­tle in­flu­ence the Adam-​sto­ry has had on the ear­li­er parts of the Old Tes­ta­ment. The gar­den of Eden is re­ferred to in Isa. li. 3, Ezek. xxxvi, 35. Joel ii. 5; cp. Ezek. xxvi­ii. 13, xxxi. 8, 9, 16, 18, all of which are lat­er. And it is most­ly in the “hu­man­is­tic” book of Proverbs that we find al­lu­sions to the “tree of life” (Prov. iii. 18, xi. 30, xi­ii. 12, xv. 4), and to the “foun­tain of life”–per­haps (see sec. 4) an omit­ted por­tion of the old Par­adise sto­ry (Prov. x. 11, xi­ii. 14, xiv. 27, xvi. 22),–the on­ly oth­er Bib­li­cal ref­er­ence (apart from Rev. xxi. 6) be­ing in that exquisite pas­sage, Ps. xxxvi. 9. One can hard­ly be sur­prised at this. The Adam-​sto­ry is plain­ly of for­eign ori­gin, and could not please the greater pre-​ex­il­ic prophets. In late post-​ex­il­ic times, how­ev­er, for­eign tales, even if of myth­ical ori­gin, nat­ural­ly came in­to favour, es­pe­cial­ly as re­li­gious sym­bols. If even now philoso­phers and the­olo­gians can­not re­sist the temp­ta­tion to al­le­go­rize, how in­evitable was it that this course should be pur­sued by ear­ly Jew­ish the­olo­gians!

10. In­cip­ient Re­flex­ion on the Sto­ry.–Let us give some in­stances of this. In Enoch lx­ix. 6 we find the sto­ry of Eve’s temp­ta­tion read in the light of that of the fall­en an­gels (Gen. vi. 1, 2, 4) who con­veyed an evil knowl­edge to men, and so sub­ject­ed mankind to mor­tal­ity. Ev­ident­ly the writ­er fears cul­ture. Else­where eat­ing the fruit of the “tree of wis­dom” is giv­en as the cause of the ex­pul­sion of the hu­man pair. In the Wis­dom of Solomon (x. 1, 2) we find an­oth­er view. Here, as in Ezekiel, the first man is pre-​em­inent­ly wise and strong; though he trans­gressed, wis­dom res­cued him, i.e. taught him re­pen­tance (cp. Life of Adam and Eve, sec. sec. 1-8). Else­where (ii. 24; cp. Jos. Ant. i. 1, 4) death is traced to the en­vy of the dev­il, still im­ply­ing an ex­alt­ed view of Adam. It is held that, but for his sin, Adam would have been im­mor­tal. Clear­ly the Jew­ish mind is ex­posed to some fresh for­eign in­flu­ences. As in the Tal­mud and the Jerusalem Tar­gum, the ser­pent has even be­come the dev­il, i.e. Sa­tan. The pe­ri­od of syn­cretism has ful­ly come, and Zoroas­tri­an­ism in par­tic­ular, more in­di­rect­ly than di­rect­ly, is ex­er­cis­ing an at­trac­tive pow­er up­on the Jews. For all that, the the­olog­ical think­ing is char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly Jew­ish, and such guid­ance as Jew­ish thinkers re­quired was main­ly giv­en by Greek cul­ture. On this sub­ject see fur­ther EVE, sec. 5.

11. Growth of a The­ol­ogy.—Let us now turn to the Apoc­alypses of Baruch and of Ezra (both about 70 A.D.). Dif­fer­ent views are here ex­pressed. Ac­cord­ing to one (xvii. 3, xix. 8, xxi­ii. 4) the sin of Adam was the cause of phys­ical death; ac­cord­ing to an­oth­er (liv. 15, lvi. 6), on­ly of pre­ma­ture phys­ical death, while ac­cord­ing to a third (xlvi­ii. 42, 43) it is spir­itu­al death which is to be laid to his ac­count. Of these three views, it is on­ly the sec­ond which har­mo­nizes with Gen. ii.-iii. In one of the two pas­sages which ex­press it we are al­so told that each mem­ber of thc hu­man race is “the Adam of his own soul.” Adam, like Sa­tan in Ec­clus. xxi; 27, has be­come a psy­cho­log­ical sym­bol. Tru­ly, a wor­thy de­vel­op­ment of the seed-​thoughts of the orig­inal nar­ra­tor, and (must we not add?) en­tire­ly op­posed to any doc­trine of Orig­inal Sin.

In 4 Ezra, too, we find no re­al en­dorse­ment of such a doc­trine. It is true, not on­ly phys­ical death (iii. 7), but spir­itu­al, is traced to the act of Adam (iii. 21, 22, iv. 30, 31, vii. 118-121). But two mod­ify­ing facts should be no­ticed. One is that Adam is said to have had from the first a wicked heart, ow­ing to which he fell, and his pos­ter­ity like­wise, in­to sin and guilt. All men have the same seed of evil in them that Adam had; they sin and die, like him. The oth­er is that, ac­cord­ing to iii. 7-12, there are at least two ages of the world. The first end­ed with the Flood, so that any con­se­quences of Adam’s sin were, strict­ly speak­ing, of lim­it­ed du­ra­tion. The sec­ond be­gan with righ­teous Noah and his house­hold, “of whom came all righ­teous men.” It was the de­scen­dants of these who “be­gan again to do un­god­li­ness more than the for­mer ones.” Doubt­less the prob­lem of evil is most im­per­fect­ly treat­ed, even from the writ­er’s point of view. But it would be cru­el to pick holes in a writ­er whose think­ing, like that of St Paul, is coloured by emo­tion.

At this point we might well make more than a pass­ing ref­er­ence to St Paul (Rom. v. 14; 1 Cor. xv. 22, 45, 47), whose doc­trine of sin is ev­ident­ly of mixed ori­gin. But we can­not find space for this here. In com­pen­sa­tion let it be men­tioned that in Rev. xii. 9 (cp. xx. 2) the “great drag­on,” who per­se­cut­ed the wom­an “clothed with the sun,” is iden­ti­fied with “the old ser­pent, that is called the Dev­il and Sa­tan.” The iden­ti­fi­ca­tion is in­cor­rect. But it may be no­ticed here that the phrase “the old ser­pent” sheds some light on the Pauline phras­es “the first man Adam” and “the last Adam” (1 Cor. xv. 45, 47). The un­der­ly­ing idea is that the new age (that of the new heav­en and earth) will be opened by events par­al­lel to those which opened the first age. As the old ser­pent de­ceived man of old, so shall it be again. And as at the head of the first age stands the first Adam, whose do­ings af­fect­ed all his de­scen­dants to their harm, so at the head of the sec­ond shall stand the sec­ond Adam, whose ac­tions shall be po­tent for good. There is rea­son to sus­pect that the ex­pres­sion “the sec­ond Adam” is the coinage ei­ther of St Paul or of some one close­ly con­nect­ed with him (as Prof. G. F. Moore has shown), for there is no proof that such terms as “the last,” or “the sec­ond Adam,” were gen­er­al­ly cur­rent among the Jews.

12. Jew­ish Leg­ends.—The par­al­lelism be­tween the first and sec­ond Adam in 1 Cor. xv. 45 is a par­al­lelism of con­trast. Jew­ish leg­ends, how­ev­er, sug­gest an­oth­er sort of par­al­lelism. The Hag­gadah gives the most ex­trav­agant de­scrip­tions of the glo­ry of Adam be­fore his fall. The most promi­nent idea is that be­ing in the im­age of God–the God whose essence is light–he must have had a lu­mi­nous body (like the an­gels). “I made thee of the light,” says God in the Book of Adam and Eve (Malan, p. 16), “and I willed to bring chil­dren of light from thee.” Sim­ilar­ly in Ba­ba ba­tra, 58a, we read, “he was of ex­traor­di­nary beau­ty and sun-​like bright­ness.” So glo­ri­ous was he that even the an­gels were com­mand­ed through Michael to pay homage to Adam. Sa­tan, dis­obey­ing, was cast out of heav­en; hence his ill-​will to­wards Adam (Life of Adam and Eve, sec. sec. 13-17; cp. Ko­ran, xvii. 63, xx. 115, xxxvi­ii. 74).

It on­ly re­mains to give due hon­our to one of the most beau­ti­ful of leg­ends, that of the de­liv­er­ance of Adam’s spir­it from the nether world by the Christ, the ear­li­est form of which is a Chris­tian in­ter­po­la­tion in Apoc. Moses, sec. 42 (cp. Malan, Adam and Eve, iv. 15, end). We may com­pare a part­ly par­al­lel pas­sage in sec. 37, where the agent is Michael, and no­tice that such leg­endary de­vel­op­ments were equal­ly pop­ular among Jews and Chris­tians.

AU­THOR­ITIES– On the apoc­ryphal Books of Adam, see Hort, Dict. of Chr. Bi­og­ra­phy, i. 37 ff. In En­glish we have Malan’s trans­la­tion of the Ethiopic Book of Adam (1882), and Is­saver­den’s trans­la­tion of an­oth­er Book of Adam from the Ar­me­ni­an (Venice, 1901). In Ger­man, see Fuchs’s trans­la­tions in Kautzsch’s Die Apokryphen, ii. 506 ff. For full bib­li­og­ra­phy see Schur­er, Gesch. des jud. Folkes, ed. 3, iii. 288 f. On Jew­ish and Ma­hommedan leg­ends, see Jew­ish Cy­clopae­dia, “Adam.” On the be­lief in the Fall, see Ten­nant, The Sources of the Doc­trine of the Fall and Orig­inal Sin (1903). (T. K. C.)

1 The En­glish Bible gives “the LORD GOD.” This, how­ev­er, does not ad­equate­ly rep­re­sent the He­brew.

2 See com­men­taries of Gunkel and Cheyne. As in v.10, the oceanstream is meant. (See EDEN.)

3 A wide­ly spread myth­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion. (Cp. COS­MOGONY.)

4 See an il­lus­tra­tion from Nav­ille’s Book of the Dead (Egyp­tian) in Jew­ish Cy­clopae­dia, i. 174a.

5 Or park. (See PAR­ADISE.)

6 The lat­er Jews, how­ev­er, sup­posed that be­fore the Fall the an­imals could speak, and that they had all one lan­guage (Ju­bilees, iii. 28; Jos. An­tiq­ui­ties, i. I, 4).

7 Cheyne, Gen­esis and Ex­odus, re­fer­ring to Dorsey, Tra­di­tions of the Ski­di Pawnee, pp. 280 ff.

8 “Good and evil” may be a late marginal gloss. See fur­ther En­cy. Bib. col. 3578, and the com­men­taries (Driv­er leaves the phrase); al­so Jas­trow, Re­lig. of. Bab. and Ass. p. 553; Sayce, Hi­bbert Lec­tures, p. 242.

9 See il­lus­tra­tion in Toy’s Ezekiel (Sa­cred Books of the Old Tes­ta­ment), p. 182.

10 Gaok­er­ena is the myth­ic white hao­ma plant (Zen­dav­es­ta, Ven­di­dad, xx. 4; Bun­dahish, xxvii. 4). It is an ide­al­iza­tion of the yel­low hao­ma of the moun­tains which was used in sac­ri­fices (Yas­na, x. 6-10). It cor­re­sponds to the so­ma plant As­cle­pias aci­da of the an­cient Aryans of In­dia. On the il­lus­tra­tive val­ue of Gaok­er­ena see Cheyne, Ori­gin of the Psalter, pp. 400-439.

11 See Life of Adam and Eve (apoc­ryphal), sec. sec. 36, 40; Apoc­al. Mos. sec. 9; Se­crets of Enoch, vi­ii. 7, xxii. 8, 9. “Oil of life,” in a Bab. hymn, Die Keilin­schriften und das Alte Tes­ta­ment, ed. 3, p. 526.

12 Cp. the Bab. myths of Ada­pa and of the De­scent of Ishtar.

13 W. R. Smith, Re­lig. of Semites, pp. 133, 442; En­cy. Bib., “Ser­pent,”

14 Note the food and drink of the gods in the Baby­lo­ni­an Ada­pa (or Adamu?) myth.

15 The mor­tal­ity of man forms no part of the curse (cp. iii. 19, “dust thou art”).

16 See H. Schultz, Alttest. The­olo­gie, ed. 4, pp. 679 ff., 720; Driv­er, Gen­esis, p. a4.

17 See Cheyne, Gen­esis and Ex­odus.

18 The “fair shep­herd” Yi­ma of the Aves­ta (Vend. ii.), the first man and the founder of civ­iliza­tion to the Ira­ni­ans,though not like the Ya­ma of the Vedas.

19 See Jas­trow, Rel. of Bab. and Ass. pp. 548-554; R. J. Harp­er, in Acade­my, May 30, 1891; Jensen, Keilin­schr. Bib­lio­thek, vi. 93 ff.

20 The wis­dom was prob­ably to qual­ify him as a ruler. It is too much to say with Hom­mel that “Ada­pa is the archetype of the Jo­han­nine Lo­gos.”

21 Jas­trow, op. cit. p. 474 ff.; Jensen, Keil. Bibl. vi. 120 ff.

22 Jas­trow, p. 522 f.; Jensen, vi. 112 ff.

23 See Smith and Sayce, Chal­daean Gen­esis, p. 88; Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? p. 90; Ba­bel and Bible, Eng. trans., p. 56, with note on pp. 114-118; Zim­mern, Die Keilin­schr. und das A.T., ed. 3, p. 529; Jeremias, Das Alte Test. im Lichte d. Al­ten Ori­ent. pp. 104-106.

ADAM OF BRE­MEN, his­to­ri­an and ge­og­ra­pher, was prob­ably born in Up­per Sax­ony (at Meis­sen, ac­cord­ing to one tra­di­tion) be­fore 1045. He came to Bre­men about 1067-1068, most like­ly on the in­vi­ta­tion of Arch­bish­op Adal­bert, and in the 24th year of the lat­ter’s epis­co­pate (1043?-1072); in 1069 he ap­pears as a canon of this cathe­dral and mas­ter of the cathe­dral school. Not long af­ter this he vis­it­ed the king of Den­mark, Sweyn Es­trith­son, in Zealand; on the death of Adal­bert, in 1072, he be­gan the His­to­ria Hammabur­geni­sis Ec­cle­si­ae, which he fin­ished about 1075. He died on the 12th of Oc­to­ber of a year un­known, per­haps 1076. Adam’s His­to­ria—known al­so as Ges­ta Hammabur­gen­sis Ec­cle­si­ae Pon­tif­icum, Bre­men­si­um prae­su­lum His­to­ria, and His­to­ria ec­cle­si­as­ti­ca–is a pri­ma­ry au­thor­ity, not on­ly for the great dio­cese of Ham­burg-​and-​Bre­men, but for all North Ger­man and Baltic lands (down to 1072), and for the Scan­di­na­vian colonies as far as Amer­ica. Here oc­curs the ear­li­est men­tion of Vin­land, and here are al­so ref­er­ences of great in­ter­est to Rus­sia and Kiev, to the hea­then Prus­sians, the Wends and oth­er Slav races of the South Baltic coast, and to Fin­land, Thule or Ice­land, Green­land and the Po­lar seas which Har­ald Hardra­da and the no­bles of Frisia had at­tempt­ed to ex­plore in Adam’s own day (be­fore 1066). Adam’s ac­count of North Eu­ro­pean trade at this time, and es­pe­cial­ly of the great mar­kets of Jumne at the mouth of the Oder, of Bir­ka in Swe­den and of Os­trog­ard (Old Nov­gorod?) in Rus­sia, is al­so of much val­ue. His work, which places him among the first and best of Ger­man an­nal­ists, con­sists of four books or parts, and is com­piled part­ly from writ­ten records and part­ly from oral in­for­ma­tion, the lat­ter main­ly gath­ered from ex­pe­ri­ence or at the courts of Adal­bert and Sweyn Es­trith­son. Of his mi­nor in­for­mants he names sev­er­al, such as Adel­ward, dean of Bre­men, and William the En­glish­man, “bish­op of Zealand,” for­mer­ly chan­cel­lor of Canute the Great, and an in­ti­mate of Sweyn Es­trith­son. The fourth (per­haps the most im­por­tant) book of Adam’s His­to­ry, Var­ious­ly en­ti­tled Li­bel­lus de Situ Da­ni­ae et reli­quarum quae trans Da­ni­am sunt re­gion­um, De­scrip­tio In­su­larum Aquilo­nis, &c., has of­ten been con­sid­ered, but wrong­ly, as a sep­arate work.

Ten MSS. ex­ist, of which the chief are (1-2) Copen­hagen, Roy­al Li­brary, Old Roy­al Col­lec­tion, No. 2296, of 12th to 13th cents.; No. 718, of 15th cent.; (3) Ley­den Uni­ver­si­ty, Voss. Lat. 123, of 11th cent.; (4) Rome, Vat­ican Li­brary, 2010; (5) Vi­en­na, Ho­fu. Staats­bib­lio­thek, 413, of 13th cent.; (6) Wolfen­but­tel, Ducal Li­brary, Gud. 83, of 15th cent.

There are 15 edi­tions of the His­to­ria, in whole or part; the first pub­lished at Copen­hagen, 1579 (the first of the Li­bel­lus or De­scrip­tio Ins. Aquil. ap­peared at Stock­holm in 1615), the best at Hanover, 1846 (by Lap­pen­berg, in Scrip­tores Re­rum Ger­mani­carum; reis­sued by L. Wei­land, 1876), and at Paris, 1884 (in Migne’s Pa­trolo­gia Lati­na, cxlvi.). There are al­so three Ger­man ver­sions, and one Dan­ish; the best is by J. C. M. Lau­rent (and W. Wat­ten­bach) in Geschichtss­chreiber d. deutsch. Vorzeit, part vii. (1850 and 1888) . See al­so J. As­mussen, De fon­tibus Ada­mi Bre­men­sis, 1834; Lap­pen­berg in Pertz, Archiv, vi, 770; Aug. Bernard, De Adamo Bre­men­si (Paris, 1895); Bea­zley, Dawn of Mod­ern Ge­og­ra­phy, ii. 514-548 (1901).

ADAM (or ADAN) DE LE HALE (died c. 1288), French trou­vere, was born at Ar­ras. His patronymic is gen­er­al­ly mod­ern­ized to La Halle, and he was com­mon­ly known to his con­tem­po­raries as Adam d’Ar­ras or Adam le Bossu, some­times sim­ply as Le Bossu d’Ar­ras. His fa­ther, Hen­ri de le Hale, was a well-​known Cit­izen of Ar­ras, and Adam stud­ied gram­mar, the­ol­ogy and mu­sic at the Cis­ter­cian abbey of Vau­celles, near Cam­brai. Fa­ther and son had their share in the civ­il dis­cords in Ar­ras, and for a short time took refuge in Douai. Adam had been des­tined for the church, but re­nounced this in­ten­tion, and mar­ried a cer­tain Marie, who fig­ures in many of his songs, ron­deaux, motets and jeux-​par­tis. Af­ter­wards he joined the house­hold of Robert II., count of Ar­tois; and then was at­tached to Charles of An­jou, broth­er of Charles IX., whose for­tunes he fol­lowed in Egypt, Syr­ia, Pales­tine and Italy. At the court of Charles, af­ter he be­came king of Naples, he wrote his Jeu de Robin et Mar­ion, the most fa­mous of his works. He died be­tween 1285 and 1288. Adam’s short­er pieces are ac­com­pa­nied by mu­sic, of which a tran­script in mod­ern no­ta­tion, with the orig­inal score, is giv­en in Cousse­mak­er’s edi­tion. His Jeu de Robin et Mar­ion is cit­ed as the ear­li­est French play with mu­sic on a sec­ular sub­ject. The pas­toral, which tells how Mar­ion re­sist­ed the knight, and re­mained faith­ful to Robert the shep­herd, is based on an old chan­son, Robin m’aime, Robin m’a. It con­sists of di­alogue var­ied by re­frains al­ready cur­rent in pop­ular song. The melodies to which these are set have the char­ac­ter of folk-​mu­sic, and are more spon­ta­neous and melo­di­ous than the more elab­orate mu­sic of his songs and motets. A mod­ern adap­ta­tion, by Julien Tier­sot, was played at Ar­ras by a com­pa­ny from the Paris Opera Comique on the oc­ca­sion of a fes­ti­val in 1896 in hon­our of Adam de le Hale. His oth­er play, Le jeu Adan or Le jeu de la Feuillee (c. 1262), is a satir­ical dra­ma in which he in­tro­duces him­self, his fa­ther and the cit­izens of Ar­ras with their pe­cu­liar­ities. His works in­clude a Con­ge, or satir­ical farewell to the city of Ar­ras, and an un­fin­ished chan­son de geste in hon­our of Charles of An­jou, Le roi de Sicile, be­gun in 1282; an­oth­er short piece, Le jeu du pelerin, is some­times at­tribut­ed to him.

The on­ly MS. which con­tains the whole of Adam’s work is the La Val­liere MS. (No. 25,566) in the Bib­lio­theque Na­tionale, Paris, dat­ing from the lat­ter half of the 13th cen­tu­ry. Many of his pieces are al­so con­tained in Douce MS. 308, in the Bodleian Li­brary, Ox­ford. His OEu­vres com­pletes (1872) were edit­ed by E. de Cousse­mak­er. See al­so an ar­ti­cle by Paulin Paris in the His­toire lit­teraire de La France (vol. xx. pp. 638-675); G. Ray­naud, Re­cueil des motets fran­cais des XI­Ie et XI­IIe siecles (1882); Can­chons et Par­tures des . . . Adan delle Hale (Halle, 1900), a crit­ical edi­tion by Rudolf Berg­er; an edi­tion of Adam’s two jeux in Mon­merque and Michel’s The­atre fran­cais au moyen age (1842); E. Lan­glois, Le jeu de Robin et Mar­ion (1896), with a trans­la­tion in mod­ern French; A. Gues­non, La Satire a Ar­ras au XI­IIe, siecle (1900); and a full bib­li­og­ra­phy of works on the sub­ject in No. 6 of the Bib­lio­theque de bib­li­ogra­phies cri­tiques, by Hen­ri Guy.

ADAM, ALEXAN­DER (1741-1809), Scot­tish writ­er on Ro­man an­tiq­ui­ties, was born on the 24th of June 1741, near For­res, in Morayshire. From his ear­li­est years he showed un­com­mon dili­gence and per­se­ver­ance in clas­si­cal stud­ies, notwith­stand­ing many dif­fi­cul­ties and pri­va­tions. In 1757 he went to Ed­in­burgh, where he stud­ied at the uni­ver­si­ty. His rep­uta­tion as a clas­si­cal schol­ar se­cured him a post as as­sis­tant at Wat­son’s Hos­pi­tal and the head­mas­ter­ship in 1761. In 1764 he be­came pri­vate tu­tor to Mr Kin­caid, af­ter­wards Lord Provost of Ed­in­burgh, by whose in­flu­ence he was ap­point­ed (in 1768) to the rec­tor­ship of the High School on the re­tire­ment of Mr Math­eson, whose sub­sti­tute he had been for some time be­fore. From this pe­ri­od he de­vot­ed him­self en­tire­ly to the du­ties of his of­fice and to the prepa­ra­tion of his nu­mer­ous works on clas­si­cal lit­er­ature. His pop­ular­ity and suc­cess as a teach­er are strik­ing­ly il­lus­trat­ed by the great in­crease in the num­ber of his pupils, many of whom sub­se­quent­ly be­came dis­tin­guished men, among them be­ing Sir Wal­ter Scott, Lord Brougham and Jef­frey. He suc­ceed­ed in in­tro­duc­ing the study of Greek in­to the cur­ricu­lum of the school, notwith­stand­ing the op­po­si­tion of the uni­ver­si­ty head­ed by Prin­ci­pal Robert­son. In 1780 the uni­ver­si­ty of Ed­in­burgh con­ferred up­on him the hon­orary de­gree of Doc­tor of Laws. He died on the 18th of De­cem­ber 1809, af­ter an ill­ness of five days, dur­ing which he oc­ca­sion­al­ly imag­ined him­self still at work, his last words be­ing, “It grows dark, boys, you may go.” Dr Adam’s first pub­li­ca­tion was his Prin­ci­ples o