[1] There is no doubt that _auspex_ = _avi-spex_ ("observer of
birds"), but the derivation of _augur_ is still unsettled. The
following have been suggested: (1) _augur_ (or _augus_) is a
substantive originally meaning "increase" (related to _augustus_ as
_robur_ to _robustus_), then transferred to the priest as the giver
of increase or blessing; (2) = _avi-gur_, the second part of the word
pointing to (a) _garrire_, "chatter," or (b) _gerere_, the augur
being conceived as "carrying" or guiding the flight of the birds; (3)
from a lost verb _augo_ = "tell," "declare." It is now generally
agreed that the science of augury is of Italian, not Etruscan,
origin.
AUGUST (originally _Sextilis_), the sixth month in the pre-Julian Roman
year, which received its present name from the emperor Augustus. The
preceding month, _Quintilis_, had been called "July" after Julius
Caesar, and the emperor chose August to be rechristened in his own
honour because his greatest good fortune had then happened. In that
month he had been admitted to the consulate, had thrice celebrated a
triumph, had received the allegiance of the soldiers stationed on the
Janiculum, had concluded the civil wars, and had subdued Egypt. As July
contained thirty-one days, and August only thirty, it was thought
necessary to add another day to the latter month, in order that the
month of Augustus might not be in any respect inferior to that of
Julius.
AUGUSTA, a city and the county-seat of Richmond county, Georgia, U.S.A.,
at the head of steamboat navigation on the Savannah river, 132 m. N.W.
of Savannah by rail and 240 m. by river course. Pop. (1890) 33,300;
(1900) 39,441, of whom 18,487 were negroes and only 995 were
foreign-born; (1910 census) 41,040. Augusta is served by the Southern,
the Augusta Southern (controlled by the Southern), the Atlantic Coast
Line, the Charleston & Western Carolina (controlled by the Atlantic
Coast Line), the Georgia and the Central of Georgia railways, by an
electric line to Aiken, South Carolina, and by a line of steamers to
Savannah. The city extends along the river bank for a distance of more
than 3 m., and is connected by a bridge with Hamburg, and with North
Augusta, South Carolina, two residential suburbs. Augusta is well known
as a winter resort (mean winter temperature, 47 deg. F.), and there are
many fine winter homes here of wealthy Northerners. There are good
roads, stretching from Augusta for miles in almost every direction. In
North Augusta there is a large hotel, and there is another in
Summerville (pop. in 1910, 4361), 2-1/2 m. N.W., an attractive
residential suburb and winter resort, in which there are a country club
and a large United States arsenal, established in 1831. Broad Street is
the principal thoroughfare of Augusta, and Greene Street, with a park in
the centre and flanking rows of oaks and elms, is the finest residential
street. Of historical interest is St Paul's church (Protestant
Episcopal); the present building was erected in 1819 and is the third St
Paul's church on the same site. The first church was "built by the
gentlemen of Augusta" in 1750. In the crypt of the church General
Leonidas Polk is buried; and in the churchyard are the graves of George
Steptoe Washington, a nephew of George Washington, and of William
Longstreet, the inventor. Among the city's principal buildings are the
Federal building, the Richmond county court house, the Augusta orphan
asylum, the city hospital, the Lamar hospital for negroes, and the
buildings of Richmond Academy (incorporated in 1783), of the Academy of
the Sacred Heart (for girls), of Paine's Institute (for negroes), of
Houghton Institute, endowed in 1852 to be "free to all the children of
Augusta," and of the medical school of the university of Georgia,
founded in 1829, and a part of the university since 1873. A granite
obelisk 50 ft. high was erected in 1861 as a memorial to the signers for
Georgia of the Declaration of Independence; beneath it are buried Lyman
Hall (1726-1790) and George Walton (1740-1804). There are two Italian
marble monuments in honour of Confederate soldiers, and monuments to the
Southern poets, Paul Hamilton Hayne and Richard Henry Wilde (1789-1847).
In commerce and manufacturing, Augusta ranks second among the cities of
Georgia. As a centre of trade for the "Cotton Belt," it has a large
wholesale and retail business; and it is an important cotton market. The
principal manufacture is cotton goods; among the other products are
lumber, flour, cotton waste, cotton-seed oil and cake, ice, silk,
boilers and engines, and general merchandise staples. Water-power for
factories is secured by a system of "water-power canals" from a large
dam across the Savannah, built in 1847 and enlarged in 1871; the
principal canal, owned by the city, is so valuable as nearly to pay the
interest on the municipal debt. In 1905 the value of the city's total
factory product was $8,829,305, of which $3,832,009, or 43.4%, was the
value of the cotton goods. The principal newspaper is the _Augusta
Chronicle_, founded in 1785.
Augusta was established in 1735-1736 by James Edward Oglethorpe, the
founder of Georgia, and was named in honour of the princess of Wales.
The Carolina colonists had a trading post in its vicinity before the
settlement by Oglethorpe. The fort, built in 1736, was first named Fort
Augusta, and in 1780, at the time of the British occupation, was
enlarged and renamed Fort Cornwallis; its site is now marked by a
Memorial Cross, erected by the Colonial Dames of Georgia in the
churchyard of St Paul's. Tobacco was the principal agricultural product
during the 18th century, and for its culture negro slaves were
introduced from Carolina, before the restrictions of the Georgia
Trustees on slavery were removed. During the colonial period several
treaties with Indians were made at Augusta; by the most important, that
of 1763, the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Cherokees and Catawbas agreed
(in a meeting with the governors of North and South Carolina, Virginia
and Georgia) to the terms of the treaty of Paris. At the opening of the
American War of Independence, the majority of the people of Augusta were
Loyalists. The town was taken by the British under Lieut.-Col. Archibald
Campbell (1739-1791) in January 1779, but was evacuated a month later;
it was the seat of government of Georgia for almost the entire period
from the capture of Savannah in December 1778 until May 1780, and was
then abandoned by the Patriots and was occupied chiefly by Loyalists
under Lieut.-Col. Thomas Brown. In September 1780 a force of less than
500 patriots under Col. Elijah Clarke marched against the town in three
divisions, and while one division, attacking a neighbouring Indian camp,
drew off most of the garrison, the other two divisions entered the town;
but British reinforcements arrived before Brown could be dislodged from
a building in which he had taken refuge, and Clarke was forced to
withdraw. A stronger American force, under Lieut.-Col. Henry Lee,
renewed the siege in May 1781 and gained possession on the 5th of June.
From 1783 until 1795 Augusta was again the seat of the state government.
It was the meeting-place of the Land Court which confiscated the
property of the Loyalists of Georgia, and of the convention which
ratified for Georgia the Constitution of the United States. In 1798 it
was incorporated as a town, and in 1817 it was chartered as a city.
Augusta was the home of the inventor, William Longstreet (1759-1814),
who as early as 1788 received a patent from the state of Georgia for a
steamboat, but met with no practical success until 1808; as early as
1801 he had made experiments in the application of steam to cotton gins
and saw-mills at Augusta. Near Augusta, on the site now occupied by the
Eli Whitney Country Club, Eli Whitney is said to have first set up and
operated his cotton gin; he is commemorated by a mural tablet in the
court house. The establishment of a steamboat line to Savannah in 1817
aided Augusta's rapid commercial development. There was a disastrous
fire in 1829, an epidemic of yellow fever in 1839, and a flood in 1840,
but the growth of the city was not seriously checked; the cotton
receipts of 1846 were 212,019 bales, and in 1847 a cotton factory was
built. During the Civil War Augusta was the seat of extensive military
factories, the tall chimney of the Confederate powder mills still
standing as a memorial. The economic development has, since the Civil
War, been steady and continuous. An exposition was held in Augusta in
1888, and another in 1893.
AUGUSTA, the capital of Maine, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Kennebec
county, on the Kennebec river[1] (at the head of navigation), 44 m. from
its mouth, 62 m. by rail N.E. of Portland, and 74 m. S.W. of Bangor.
Pop. (1890) 10,527; (1900) 11,683, of whom 2131 were foreign-born;
(1910, census) 13,211. It is served by the Maine Central railway, by
several electric lines, and by steamboat lines to Portland, Boston and
several other ports. It is built on a series of terraces, mostly on the
west bank of the river, which is spanned here by a bridge 1100 ft. long.
The state house, built of granite quarried in the vicinity, occupies a
commanding site along the south border of the city, and in it is the
state library. The Lithgow library is a city public library. Near the
state house is the former residence of James G. Blaine. On the other
side of the river, nearly opposite, is the Maine insane hospital. Among
other prominent buildings are the court house, the post office and the
city hall. In one of the parks is a soldiers' and sailors' monument. By
means of a dam across the river, 17 ft. high and nearly 600 ft. long,
good water-power is provided, and the city manufactures cotton goods,
boots and shoes, paper, pulp and lumber. A leading industry is the
printing and publishing of newspapers and periodicals, several of the
periodicals published here having an enormous circulation. The total
value of the factory products in 1905 was $3,886,833. Augusta occupies
the site of the Indian village, Koussinoc, at which the Plymouth Colony
established a trading post about 1628. In 1661 Plymouth sold its
interests, and soon afterward the four purchasers abandoned the post. In
1754, however, their heirs brought about the erection here of Fort
Western, the main building of which is still standing at the east end of
the bridge, opposite the city hall. Augusta was originally a part of the
township of Hallowell (incorporated in 1771); in 1797 the north part of
Hallowell was incorporated as a separate town and named Harrington; and
later in the same year the name was changed to Augusta. It became the
county-seat in 1799; was chosen by the Maine legislature as the capital
of the state in 1827, but was not occupied as such until the completion
of the state house in 1831; and was chartered as a city in 1849.