+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| 4830 | 4489 | 4329 | 3997 | 3861 |
| 4709 | 4420 | 4242 | 3986 | 3804 |
| 4699 | 4371 | 4230 | 3947 | 3793 |
| 4661 | 4356 | 4225 | 3937 | 3704 |
| 4560 | 4344 | 4078 | 3880 | 3607 |
| 4550 | 4337 | 4067 | 3876 | 3589 |
+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
There are a number of optically bright lines of longer wave-length. For
the principal of these Angot (1) gives the following wave-lengths (unit
1 [mu][mu] or 1 X 10^(-9) metre):--630, 578, 566, 535, 523, 500.
Out of a total of 146 auroral lines, with wave-lengths longer than 3684
tenth-metres, Westman identifies 82 with oxygen or nitrogen lines at the
negative pole in vacuum discharges. Amongst the lines thus identified
are the two principal auroral lines having wave-lengths 4276.4 and
3913.5. The interval considered by Westman contains at least 300 oxygen
and nitrogen lines, so that approximate coincidence with a number of
auroral lines was almost inevitable, and an appreciable number of the
coincidences may be accidental. E.C.C. Baly (21), making use of the
observations of the Russian expedition in Spitsbergen in 1899, accepts
as the wave-lengths of the three principal auroral lines 5570, 4276 and
3912; and he identifies all three and ten other auroral lines ranging
between 5570 and 3707 with krypton lines measured by himself. In
addition to these, he mentions other auroral lines as very probably
krypton lines, but in their case the wave-lengths which he quotes from
Paulsen (22) are given to only three significant figures, so that the
identification is more uncertain. The majority of the krypton lines
which Baly identifies with auroral lines require for their production a
Leyden jar and spark gap.
If, as is now generally believed, aurora represents some form of
electrical discharge, it is only reasonable to suppose that the
auroral lines arise from atmospheric gases. The conditions, however,
as regards pressure and temperature under which the hypothetical
discharges take place must vary greatly in different auroras, or even
sometimes in different parts of the same aurora. Further, auroras are
often possessed of rapid motion, so that conceivably spectral lines
may receive small displacements in accordance with Doppler's
principle. Thus the differences in the wave-lengths of presumably the
same lines as measured by different Arctic observers may be only
partly due to unfavourable observational conditions. Many of the
auroral lines seen in any single aurora are exceedingly faint, so that
even their relative positions are difficult to settle with high
precision.
24. Whether or not auroral displays are ever accompanied by a
characteristic sound is a disputed question. If sound waves originate
at the seat of auroral displays they seem hardly likely to be audible
on the earth, unless the aurora comes very low and great stillness
prevails. It is thus to the Arctic one looks for evidence. According
to Captain H.P. Dawson (26), in charge of the British Polar Station at
Fort Rae in 1882-1883, "The Indians and _voyageurs_ of the Hudson Bay
Company, who often pass their nights in the open, say that it [sound]
is not uncommon ... there can be no doubt that distinct sound does
occasionally accompany certain displays of aurora." On the one
occasion when Captain Dawson says he heard it himself, "the sound was
like the swishing of a whip or the noise produced by a sharp squall of
wind in the upper rigging of a ship, and as the aurora brightened and
faded so did the sound which accompanied it." If under these
conditions the sound was really due to the aurora, the latter, as
Captain Dawson himself remarks, must have been pretty close.
25. Usually the electric potential near the ground is positive
compared to the earth and increases with the height (see ATMOSPHERIC
ELECTRICITY). Several Arctic observers, however, especially Paulsen
(18) have observed a diminution of positive potential, or even a
change to negative, for which they could suggest no explanation except
the presence of a bright aurora. Other Arctic observers have failed to
find any trace of this phenomenon. If it exists, it is presumably
confined to cases when the auroral discharge comes unusually low.
26. _Artificial Phenomena resembling Aurora._--At Sodankyla, the
station occupied by the Finnish Arctic Expedition of 1882-1883, Selim
Lemstrom and Biese (23) described and gave drawings of optical
phenomena which they believed to be artificially produced aurora. A
number of metallic points, supported on insulators, were connected by
wires enclosing several hundred square metres on the top of a hill.
Sometimes a Holtz machine was employed, but even without it
illumination resembling aurora was seen on several occasions,
extending apparently to a considerable height. In the laboratory, Kr.
Birkeland (19) has produced phenomena bearing a striking resemblance
to several forms of aurora. His apparatus consists of a vacuum vessel
containing a magnetic sphere--intended to represent the earth--and the
phenomena are produced by sending electric discharges through the
vessel.
27. _Theories._--A great variety of theories have been advanced to
account for aurora. All or nearly all the most recent regard it as
some form of electrical discharge. Birkeland (19) supposes the
ultimate cause to be cathode rays emanating from the sun; C. Nordmann
(24) replaces the cathode rays by Hertzian waves; while Svante
Arrhenius (25) believes that negatively charged particles are driven
through the sun's atmosphere by the Maxwell-Bartoli repulsion of light
and reach the earth's atmosphere. For the size and density of
particles which he considers most likely, Arrhenius calculates the
time required to travel from the sun as forty-six hours. By modifying
the hypothesis as to the size and density, times appreciably longer or
shorter than the above would be obtained. Cathode rays usually have a
velocity about a tenth that of light, but in exceptional cases it may
approach a third of that of light. Hertzian waves have the velocity of
light itself. On either Birkeland's or Nordmann's theory, the electric
impulse from the sun acts indirectly by creating secondary cathode
rays in the earth's atmosphere, or ionizing it so that discharges due
to natural differences of potential are immensely facilitated. The
ionized condition must be supposed to last to a greater or less extent
for a good many hours to account for aurora being seen throughout the
whole night. The fact that at most places the morning shows a marked
decay of auroral frequency and intensity as compared to the evening,
the maximum preceding midnight by several hours, is certainly
favourable to theories which postulate ionization of the atmosphere by
some cause or other emanating from the sun.
AUTHORITIES.--The following works are numbered according to the
references in the text:--(1) A. Angot, _Les Aurores polaires_ (Paris,
1895); (2) H. Fritz, _Das Polarlicht_ (Leipzig, 1881); (3) Svante
August Arrhenius, _Lehrbuch der kosmischen Physik_; (4) Joseph
Lovering, "On the Periodicity of the Aurora Borealis," _Mem. American
Acad._ vol. x. (1868); (5) Sophus Tromholt, _Catalog der in Norwegen
bis Juni 1878 beobachteten Nordlichter_; (6) _Observations
internationales polaires_ (1882-1883), _Expedition Danoise_, tome i.
"Aurores boreales"; (7) Carlheim-Gyllenskold, "Aurores boreales" in
_Observations faites au Cap Thorsden Spitzberg par l'expedition
suedoise_, tome ii. 1; (8) "Die Osterreichische Polar Station Jan
Mayen" in _Die Internationale Polarforschung_, 1882-1883, Bd. ii.
Abth. 1; (9) Henryk Arctowski, "Aurores australes" in _Expedition
antarctique belge ... Voyage du S. Y. "Belgica"_; (10) G.C. Amdrup,
_Observations ... faites par l'expedition danoise_; H. Ravn,
_Observations de l'aurore boreale de Tasiusak_; (11) _K. Sven.
Vet.-Akad. Hand_. Bd. 31, Nos. 2, 3, &c.; (12) _Sitz. d. k. Akad. d.
Wiss._ (Vienna), Math. Naturw. Classe, Bd. xcvii. Abth. iia, 1888;
(13) _Proc. Roy. Soc._, 1906, lxxvii. A, 141; (14) _Kongl. Sven.
Vet.-Akad. Hand._ Bd. 15, No. 5, Bd. 18, No. 1; (15) _Bull. Acad. Roy.
Danoise_, 1889, p. 67; (16) _Voyages ... pendant les annees 1838, 1839
et 1840 sur ... la Recherche_, "Aurores boreales," by MM. Lottin,
Bravais, &c.; (17) _Missions scientifiques ... au Spitzberg ... en
1899-1902, Mission suedoise_, tome ii. VIII^e Section, C. "Aurores
boreales"; (18) _Bull. Acad. R. des Sciences de Danemark_, 1894, p.
148; (19) Kr. Birkeland, _Expedition norvegienne 1899-1900 pour
l'etude des aurores boreales_ (Christiania, 1901); (20) _Terrestrial
Magnetism_, vol. iii. (1898), pp. 5, 53, 149; (21) _Astrophysical
Journal_, 1904, xix. p. 187; (22) _Rapports presentes au Congres
International de Physique reuni a Paris_, 1900, iii. 438; (23)
_Expedition polaire finlandaise_ (1882-1884), tome iii.; (24) Charles
Nordmann, _Theses presentees a la Faculte des Sciences de Paris_
(1903); (25) _Terrestrial Magnetism_, vol. 10, 1905, p. 1; (26)
_Observations of the International Polar Expeditions 1882-1883 Fort
Rae_ ... by Capt. H.P. Dawson, R.A. (C. Ch.)
AURUNCI, the name given by the Romans to a tribe which in historical
times occupied only a strip of coast on either side of the Mons Massicus
between the Volturnus and the Liris, although it must at an earlier
period have extended over a considerably wider area. Their own name for
themselves in the 4th century B.C. was _Ausones_, and in Greek writers
we find the name _Ausonia_ applied to Latium and Campania (see Strabo v.
p. 247; Aristotle, _Pol._ iv. (vii.) 10; Dion. Hal. i. 72), while in the
Augustan poets (e.g. Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 795) it is used as one of
many synonyms for Italy. In history the tribe appears only for a brief
space, from 340 to 295 B.C. (Mommsen, _C.I.L._ x. pp. 451, 463, 465),
and their struggle with the Romans ended in complete extermination;
their territory was parcelled out between the Latin colonies of Cales
(Livy viii. 16) and Suessa Aurunca (_id._ ix. 28) which took the place
of an older town called _Ausona_ (_id._ ix. 25; viii. 15), and the
maritime colonies Sinuessa (the older _Vescia_) and Minturnae (both in
295 B.C., Livy x. 21). The coin formerly attributed to Suessa Aurunca on
the strength of its supposed legend _Aurunkud_ has now been certainly
referred to Naples (see R.S. Conway, _Italic Dialects_, 145, and
_Verner's law in Italy_, p. 78, where the change of s to r is
explained as probably due to the Latin conquest). Seeing that the tribe
was blotted out at the beginning of the 3rd century B.C., we can
scarcely wonder that no record of its speech survives; but its
geographical situation and the frequency of the _co_-suffix in that
strip of coast (besides _Aurunci_ itself we have the names _Vescia_,
_Mons Massicus_, _Marica_, _Glanica_ and _Caedicii_; see _Italic
Dialects_, pp. 283 f.) rank them beyond doubt with their neighbours the
Volsci (q.v.). (R. S. C.)
AUSCULTATION (from Lat. _auscultare_, to listen), a term in medicine,
applied to the method employed by physicians for determining, by the
sense of hearing, the condition of certain internal organs. The ancient
physicians appear to have practised a kind of auscultation, by which
they were able to detect the presence of air or fluids in the cavities
of the chest and abdomen. Still no general application of this method of
investigation was resorted to, or was indeed possible, till the advance
of the study of anatomy led to correct ideas regarding the locality,
structure and uses of the various organs of the body, and the
alterations produced in them by disease. In 1761 Leopold Auenbrugger
(1722-1809), a Viennese physician, published his _Inventum Novum_,
describing the art of percussion in reference more especially to
diseases of the chest. This consisted in tapping with the fingers the
surface of the body, so as to elicit sounds by which the comparative
resonance of the subjacent parts or organs might be estimated.
Auenbrugger's method attracted but little attention till the French
physician J.N. Corvisart (1755-1828) in 1808 demonstrated its great
practical importance, and then its employment in the diagnosis of
affections of the chest soon became general. Percussion was originally
practised in the manner above mentioned (_immediate percussion_), but
subsequently the method of _mediate percussion_ was introduced by P.A.
Piorry (1794-1879). It is accomplished by placing upon the spot to be
examined some solid substance, upon which the percussion strokes are
made with the fingers. For this purpose a thin oval piece of ivory
(called a _pleximeter_, or stroke-measurer) may be used, with a small
hammer; but one or more fingers of the left hand applied flat upon the
part answer equally well, and this is the method which most physicians
adopt. Percussion must be regarded as a necessary part of auscultation,
particularly in relation to the examination of the chest; for the
physician who has made himself acquainted with the normal condition of
that part of the body in reference to percussion is thus able to
recognize by the ear alterations of resonance produced by disease. But
percussion alone, however important in diagnosis, could manifestly
convey only limited and imperfect information, for it could never
indicate the nature or extent of functional disturbance.
In 1819 the distinguished French physician R.T.H. Laennec (1781-1826)
published his _Traite de L'auscultation mediate_, embodying the present
methods of auscultatory examination, and venturing definite conclusions
based on years of his own study. He also invented the stethoscope
([Greek: staethos], the breast, and [Greek: skopein], to examine). Since
then many men have widened the scope of auscultation, notably Skoda,
Wintrich, A. Geigel, Th. Weber and Gerhardt. According to Laennec the
essential of a good stethoscope was its capability of intensifying the
tone vibrations. But since his time the opinion of experts on this
matter has somewhat changed, and there are now two definite schools. The
first and older condemns the resonating stethoscope, maintaining that
the tones are bound to be altered; the second and younger school warmly
advocates its use. In America, more than elsewhere, there is a type of
phonendoscope much used by the younger men, which has the advantage that
it can be used when the older type of instrument fails, viz. when the
patient is recumbent and too ill to be moved. By slipping it beneath the
patient's back a fairly accurate idea of the breathing over the bases of
the lungs behind can often be obtained.
Stethoscopes have been made of many forms and materials. They usually
consist of a hollow stem of wood, hard rubber or metal, with an enlarged
tip slightly funnel-shaped at one end, and an ear-plate with a hole in
the middle, fastened perpendicularly to the other end. To enable the
instrument to be more conveniently carried, the ear-plate can be
unscrewed from the tube. The length of the stem of the instrument is of
minor importance, but its bore should be as nearly as possible that of
the entrance of the external ear. A flexible stethoscope in general use
both in England and America transmits the sound from a funnel through
tubes to the ears of the observer. This is the common form of a binaural
resonating stethoscope. It is convenient and gives a loud tone, but is
condemned by the older school, who say that the resonance is confusing,
and that the slightest movement in handling gives rise to perplexing
murmurs. Nevertheless, it is this form of instrument which has by far
the greatest vogue. It is probable, however, that the most skilled
physicians of all find a special use in each form, the monaural
non-resonating type being more sensitive to high-pitched sounds, and of
greater assistance in differentiating the sounds and murmurs of the
heart, the ordinary binaural form being more useful in examining the
lungs and other organs. In using the stethoscope, it must be applied
very carefully, so that the edge of the funnel makes an air-tight
connexion with the skin, and in the monaural form the ear must be but
lightly applied to the ear-plate, not pressing heavily on the patient.
The numerous diseases affecting the lungs can now be recognized and
discriminated from each other with a precision which, but for
auscultation and the stethoscope, would have been altogether
unattainable. The same holds good in the case of the heart, whose varied
and often complex forms of disease can, by auscultation, be identified
with striking accuracy. But in addition to these its main uses,
auscultation is found to render great assistance in the investigation of
many obscure internal affections, such as aneurysms and certain diseases
of the oesophagus and stomach. To the accoucheur the stethoscope yields
valuable aid in the detection of some forms of uterine tumours, and
especially in the diagnosis of pregnancy--the only evidence now accepted
as absolutely diagnostic of that condition being the hearing of the
foetal heart sounds.
AUSONIUS, DECIMUS MAGNUS (c. 310-395), Roman poet and rhetorician, was
born at Burdigala [_Bordeaux_]. He received an excellent education,
especially in grammar and rhetoric, but confesses that his progress in
Greek was unsatisfactory. Having completed his studies, he practised for
some time as an advocate, but his inclination lay in the direction of
teaching. He set up (in 334) a school of rhetoric in his native place,
which was largely attended, his most famous pupil being Paulinus,
afterwards bishop of Nola. After thirty years of this work, he was
summoned by Valentinian to the imperial court, to undertake the
education of Gratian, the heir-apparent. The prince always entertained
the greatest regard for his tutor, and after his accession bestowed upon
him the highest titles and honours, culminating in the consulship (379).
After the murder of Gratian (383), Ausonius retired to his estates near
Burdigala. He appears to have been a (not very enthusiastic) convert to
Christianity. He died about 395.
His most important extant works are: in prose, _Gratiarum Actio_, an
address of thanks to Gratian for his elevation to the consulship;
_Periochae_, summaries of the books of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_; and
one or two _epistolae_; in verse, _Epigrammata_, including several free
translations from the Greek Anthology; _Ephemeris_, the occupations of
a day; _Parentalia_ and _Commemoratio Professorum Burdigalensium_, on
deceased relatives and literary friends; _Epitaphia_, chiefly on the
Trojan heroes; _Caesares_, memorial verses on the Roman emperors from
Julius Caesar to Elagabalus; _Ordo Nobilium Urbium_, short poems on
famous cities; _Ludus Septem Sapientum_, speeches delivered by the Seven
Sages of Greece; _Idyllia_, of which the best-known are the _Mosella_, a
descriptive poem on the Moselle, and the infamous _Cento Nuptialis_. We
may also mention _Cupido Cruciatus_, Cupid on the cross;
_Technopaegion_, a literary trifle consisting of a collection of verses
ending in monosyllables; _Eclogarum Liber_, on astronomical and
astrological subjects; _Epistolae_, including letters to Paulinus and
Symmachus; lastly, _Praefatiunculae_, three poetical epistles, one to
the emperor Theodosius. Ausonius was rather a man of letters than a
poet; his wide reading supplied him with material for a great variety of
subjects, but his works exhibit no traces of a true poetic spirit; even
his versification, though ingenious, is frequently defective.
There are no MSS. containing the whole of Ausonius's works. Editio
princeps, 1472; editions by Scaliger 1575, Souchay 1730, Schenkl 1883,
Peiper 1886; cf. _Mosella_, Bocking 1845, de la Ville de Mirmont
(critical edition with translation) 1889, and _De Ausonii Mosella_,
1892, Hosius 1894. See Deydou, _Un Poete bordelais_ (1868); Everat,
_De Ausonii Operibus_ (1885); Jullian, _Ausone et Bordeaux_ (1893); C.
Verrier and R. de Courmont, _Les Epigrammes d'Ausone_ (translation
with bibliography, 1905); R. Pichon, _Les Derviers Ecrivains profanes_
(1907).
AUSSIG (Czech _Ousti nad Labem_), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 68 m. N.
of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 37,255, mostly German. It is situated in
a mountainous district, at the confluence of the Biela and the Elbe,
and, besides being an active river port, is an important junction of the
northern Bohemian railways. Aussig has important industries in
chemicals, textiles, glass and boat-building, and carries on an active
trade in coal from the neighbouring mines, stone and stoneware, corn,
fruit and wood. It was the birthplace of the painter, Raphael Mengs
(1728-1779). Aussig is mentioned as a trading centre as early as 993. It
was made a city by Ottokar II. in the latter part of the 13th century.
In 1423 it was pledged by King Sigismund to the elector Frederick of
Meissen, who occupied it with a Saxon garrison. In 1426 it was besieged
by the Hussites, who on the 16th of June, though only 25,000 strong,
defeated a German army of 70,000, which had been sent to its relief,
with great slaughter. The town was stormed and sacked next day. After
lying waste for three years, it was rebuilt in 1429. It suffered much
during the Thirty Years' and Seven Years' Wars, and in 1830 it had only
1400 inhabitants. Not far from Aussig is the village of Kulm, where, on
the 29th and 30th of August 1813, a battle took place between the French
under Vandamme and an allied army of Austrians, Prussians and Russians.
The French were defeated, and Vandamme surrendered with his army of
10,000 men.
AUSTEN, JANE (1775-1817), English novelist, was born on the 16th of
December 1775 at the parsonage of Steventon, in Hampshire, a village of
which her father, the Rev. George Austen, was rector. She was the
youngest of seven children. Her mother was Cassandra Leigh, niece of
Theophilus Leigh, a dry humorist, and for fifty years master of Balliol,
Oxford. The life of no woman of genius could have been more uneventful
than Miss Austen's. She did not marry, and she never left home except on
short visits, chiefly to Bath. Her first sixteen years were spent in the
rectory at Steventon, where she began early to trifle with her pen,
always jestingly, for family entertainment. In 1801 the Austens moved to
Bath, where Mr Austen died in 1805, leaving only Mrs Austen, Jane and
her sister Cassandra, to whom she was always deeply attached, to keep up
the home; his sons were out in the world, the two in the navy, Francis
William and Charles, subsequently rising to admiral's rank. In 1805 the
Austen ladies moved to Southampton, and in 1809 to Chawton, near Alton,
in Hampshire, and there Jane Austen remained till 1817, the year of her
death, which occurred at Winchester, on July 18th, as a memorial window
in the cathedral testifies.
During her placid life Miss Austen never allowed her literary work to
interfere with her domestic duties: sewing much and admirably, keeping
house, writing many letters and reading aloud. Though, however, her days
were quiet and her area circumscribed, she saw enough of middle-class
provincial society to find a basis on which her dramatic and humorous
faculties might build, and such was her power of searching observation
and her sympathetic imagination that there are not in English fiction
more faithful representations of the life she knew than we possess in
her novels. She had no predecessors in this genre. Miss Austen's "little
bit (two inches wide) of ivory" on which she worked "with so fine a
brush"--her own phrases--was her own invention.
Her best-known, if not her best work, _Pride and Prejudice_, was also
her first. It was written between October 1796 and August 1797,
although, such was the blindness of publishers, not issued until 1813,
two years after _Sense and Sensibility_, which was written, on an old
scenario called "Eleanor and Marianne," in 1797 and 1798. Miss Austen's
inability to find a publisher for these stories, and for _Northanger
Abbey_, written in 1798 (although it is true that she sold that MS. in
1803 for L10 to a Bath bookseller, only, however, to see it locked away
in a safe for some years, to be gladly resold to her later), seems to
have damped her ardour; for there is no evidence that between 1798 and
1809 she wrote anything but the fragment called "The Watsons," after
which year she began to revise her early work for the press. Her other
three books belong to a later date--_Mansfield Park_, _Emma_ and
_Persuasion_ being written between 1811 and 1816. The years of
publication were _Sense and Sensibility_, 1811; _Pride and Prejudice_,
1813; _Mansfield Park_, 1814; and _Emma_, 1816--all in their author's
lifetime. _Persuasion_ and _Northanger Abbey_ were published
posthumously in 1818. All were anonymous, agreeably to their author's
retiring disposition.
Although _Pride and Prejudice_ is the novel which in the mind of the
public is most intimately associated with Miss Austen's name, both
_Mansfield Park_ and _Emma_ are finer achievements--at once riper and
richer and more elaborate. But the fact that _Pride and Prejudice_ is
more single-minded, that the love story of Elizabeth Bennet and D'Arcy
is not only _of_ the book but _is_ the book (whereas the love story of
Emma and Mr Knightley and Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram have parallel
streams), has given _Pride and Prejudice_ its popularity above the
others among readers who are more interested by the course of romance
than by the exposition of character. Entirely satisfactory as is _Pride
and Prejudice_ so far as it goes, it is, however, thin beside the
niceness of analysis of motives in _Emma_ and the wonderful management
of two housefuls of young lovers that is exhibited in _Mansfield Park_.
It has been generally agreed by the best critics that Miss Austen has
never been approached in her own domain. No one indeed has attempted any
close rivalry. No other novelist has so concerned herself or himself
with the trivial daily comedy of small provincial family life,
disdaining equally the assistance offered by passion, crime and
religion. Whatever Miss Austen may have thought privately of these
favourite ingredients of fiction, she disregarded all alike when she
took her pen in hand. Her interest was in life's little perplexities of
emotion and conduct; her gaze was steadily ironical. The most untoward
event in any of her books is Louisa's fall from the Cobb at Lyme Regis,
in _Persuasion_; the most abandoned, Maria's elopement with Crawford, in
_Mansfield Park_. In pure ironical humour Miss Austen's only peer among
novelists is George Meredith, and indeed _Emma_ may be said to be her
_Egoist_, or the _Egoist_ his _Emma_. But irony and fidelity to the fact
alone would not have carried her down the ages. To these gifts she
allied a perfect sense of dramatic progression and an admirably lucid
and flowing prose style which makes her stories the easiest reading.
Recognition came to Miss Austen slowly. It was not until quite recent
times that to read her became a necessity of culture. But she is now
firmly established as an English classic, standing far above Miss Burney
(Madame d'Arblay) and Miss Edgeworth, who in her day were the popular
women novelists of real life, while Mrs Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis,
whose supernatural fancies' _Northanger Abbey_ was written in part to
ridicule, are no longer anything but names. Although, however, she has
become only lately a household word, Miss Austen had always her
panegyrists among the best intellects--such as Coleridge, Tennyson,
Macaulay, Scott, Sydney Smith, Disraeli and Archbishop Whately, the last
of whom may be said to have been her discoverer. Macaulay, whose
adoration of Miss Austen's genius was almost idolatrous, considered
_Mansfield Park_ her greatest feat; but many critics give the palm to
_Emma_. Disraeli read _Pride and Prejudice_ seventeen times. Scott's
testimony is often quoted: "That young lady had a talent for describing
the involvements, feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to
me the most wonderful I have ever met with. The big bow-wow I can do
myself like any one going; but the exquisite touch which renders
commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the
description and the sentiment is denied to me."
Many monographs on Miss Austen have been written, in addition to the
authorized _Life_ by her nephew J.E. Austen Leigh in 1870, and the
collection of her _Letters_ edited by Lord Brabourne in 1884. The
chief books on her and around her are _Jane Austen_, by S.F. Malden
(1889); _Jane Austen_, by Goldwin Smith (1890); _Jane Austen: Her
Contemporaries and Herself_, by W.H. Pollock; _Jane Austen: Her Homes
and Her Friends_, by Constance Hill (1902); _Jane Austen and Her
Times_, by G.E. Mitton (1905); _Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers_, by J
H. and E.C. Hubback (1906); and the essay on her in Lady Richmond
(Thackeray) Ritchie's _Book of Sibyls_ (1883). (E. V. L.)
AUSTERLITZ (Czech _Slavkov_), a town of Austria, in Moravia, 15 m.
E.S.E. of Brunn by rail. Pop. (1900) 3145, mostly Czech. It contains a
magnificent palace belonging to the prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg, and a
beautiful church.
[Illustration: (map of Austerlitz battle site)]
The great battle in which the French under Napoleon I. defeated the
Austrians and Russians on the 2nd of December 1805, was fought in the
country to the west of Austerlitz, the position of Napoleon's left wing
being almost equi-distant from Brunn and from Austerlitz. The wooded
hills to the northward throw out to the south and south-west long spurs,
between which are the low valleys of several rivers and brooks. The
scene of the most important fighting was the Pratzen plateau. The famous
"lakes" in the southern part of the field were artificial ponds, which
have long since been drained. On the west or Brunn side of the Goldbach
is another and lower ridge, which formed in the battle the first
position of the French right and centre. On the other wing is the mass
of hills from which the spurs and streams descend: here the Olmutz-Brunn
road passes. The road from Brunn to Vienna, Napoleon's presumed line of
retreat, runs in a southerly direction, and near the village of Raigern
(3 m. west of Monitz) is very close to the extreme right of the French
position, a fact which had a great influence on the course of the
battle. (The course of events which led to the action is described under
NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS.) Napoleon, falling back before the advance of the
allied Austrians and Russians from Olmutz, bivouacked west of the
Goldbach, whilst the allies, holding, near Austerlitz, the junction of
the roads from Olmutz and from Hungary, formed up in the valleys east of
the Pratzen heights. The cavalry of both sides remained inactive,
Napoleon's by express order, the enemy's seemingly from mere negligence,
since they had 177 squadrons at their disposal. Napoleon, having
determined to fight, as usual called up every available battalion; the
splendid III. corps of Davout only arrived upon the field after a heavy
march, late on the night of December 1st. The plan of the allies was to
attack Napoleon's right, and to cut him off from Vienna, and their
advanced guard began, before dark on the 1st of December, to skirmish
towards Telnitz. At that moment Napoleon was in the midst of his troops,
thousands of whom had made their bivouac-straw into torches in his
honour. The glare of these seemed to the allies to betoken the familiar
device of lighting fires previous to a retreat, and thus confirmed them
in the impression which Napoleon's calculated timidity had given. Thus
encouraged, those who desired an immediate battle soon gained the upper
hand in the councils of the tsar and the emperor Francis. The attack
orders for the 2nd of December (drawn up by the Austrian general
Weyrother, and explained by him to a council of superior officers, of
whom some were hostile, the greater part indifferent, and the chief
Russian member, General Kutusov, asleep) gave the five columns and the
reserve, into which the Austro-Russian army was organized, the following
tasks: the first and second (Russians) to move south-westward behind the
Pratzen ridge towards Telnitz and Sokolnitz; the third (Russian) to
cross the southern end of the plateau, and come into line on the right
of the first two; the fourth (Austrians and Russians under Kolowrat) on
the right of the third to advance towards Kobelnitz. An Austrian
advanced guard preceded the 1st and 2nd columns. Farther still on the
right the 5th column (cavalry under Prince John of Liechtenstein) was to
hold the northern part of the plateau, south of the Brunn-Olmutz road;
across the road itself was the corps of Prince Bagration, and in rear of
Liechtenstein's corps was the reserve (Russians under the grand-duke
Constantine). Thus, the farther the four main columns penetrated into
the French right wing, the wider would the gap become between Bagration
and Kolowrat, and Liechtenstein's squadrons could not form a serious
obstacle to a heavy attack of Napoleon's centre. The whole plan was
based upon defective information and preconceived ideas; it has gone
down to history as a classical example of bad generalship, and its
author Weyrother, who was perhaps nothing worse than a pedant, as a
charlatan.
Napoleon, on the other hand, with the exact knowledge of the powers of
his men, which was the secret of his generalship, entrusted nearly half
of his line of battle to a division (Legrand's) of Soult's corps, which
was to be supported by Davout, some of whose brigades had marched, from
Vienna, 90 m. in forty-eight hours. But the ground which this thin line
was to hold against three columns of the enemy was marshy and densely
intersected by obstacles, and the III. corps was the best in the _Grande
Armee_, while its leader was perhaps the ablest of all Napoleon's
marshals. The rest of the army formed in the centre and left. "Whilst
they march to turn my right," said Napoleon in the inspiriting
proclamation which he issued on the eve of the battle, "they present me
their flank," and the great counterstroke was to be delivered against
the Pratzen heights by the French centre. This was composed of Soult's
corps, with Bernadotte's in second line. On the left, around the hill
called by the French the Santon (which was fortified) was Lannes' corps,
supported by the cavalry reserve under Murat. The general reserve
consisted of the Guard and Oudinot's grenadiers.
The attack of the allies was begun by the first three columns, which
moved down from their bivouacs behind the Pratzen plateau before dawn on
the 2nd, towards Telnitz and Sokolnitz. The Austrian advanced guard
engaged at daybreak, and the French in Telnitz made a vigorous defence;
both parties were reinforced, and Legrand drew upon himself, in
fulfilling his mission, the whole weight of the allied attack. The
contest was long and doubtful, but the Russians gradually drove back
Legrand and a part of Davout's corps; numerous attacks both of infantry
and cavalry were made, and by the successive arrival of reinforcements
each side in turn received fresh impetus. Finally, at about 10 A.M., the
allies were in possession of the villages on the Goldbach from Sokolnitz
southwards, and Davout's line of battle had reformed more than a mile to
rearward, still, however, maintaining touch with the French centre on
the Goldbach at Kobelnitz. Between the two lines the fighting continued
almost to the close of the battle. With 12,500 men of all arms the
Marshal held in front of him over 40,000 of the enemy.
In the centre, the defective arrangements of the allied staff had
delayed the 4th column (Kolowrat), the line of march of which was
crossed by Liechtenstein's cavalry moving in the opposite direction. The
objective of this column was Kobelnitz, and the two emperors and Kutusov
accompanied it. The delay had, however, opened a gap between Kolowrat
and the 3rd column on his left; and towards this gap, and the denuded
Pratzen plateau, Napoleon sent forward St Hilaire's division of Soult's
corps for the decisive attack. Kutusov was pursuing this march to the
south-west when he was surprised by the swift advance of Soult's men on
the plateau itself. Napoleon had here double the force of the allies;
Kutusov, however, displayed great energy, changed front to his right and
called up his reserves. The French did not win the plateau without a
severe struggle. St Hilaire's (the right centre) division was fiercely
engaged by Kolowrat's column, General Miloradovich opposed the left
centre attack under Vandamme, but the French leaders were two of the
best fighting generals in their army. The rearmost troops of the Russian
2nd column, not yet committed to the fight on the Goldbach, made a bold
counter stroke against St Hilaire's right flank, but were repulsed, and
Soult now turned to relieve the pressure on Davout by attacking
Sokolnitz. The Russians in Sokolnitz surrendered, an opportune cavalry
charge further discomfited the allied left, and the Pratzen plateau was
now in full possession of the French. Even the Russian Guard failed to
shake Vandamme's hold. In the meanwhile Lannes and Murat had been
engaged in the defence of the Santon. Here the allied leaders displayed
the greatest vigour, but they were unable to drive back the French. The
cavalry charges in this quarter are celebrated in the history of the
mounted arm; and Kellermann, the hero of Marengo, won fresh laurels
against the cavalry of Liechtenstein's command. The French not only held
their ground, but steadily advanced and eventually forced back the
allies on Austerlitz, thereby barring their retreat on Olmutz. The last
serious attempt of the allies in the centre led to some of the hardest
fighting of the day; the Russian Imperial Guard under the grand-duke
Constantine pressed closely upon St Hilaire and Vandamme on the plateau,
and only gave way when the French Guard and the Grenadiers came into
action. After the "Chevalier Guards" had been routed by Marshal
Bessieres and the Guard cavalry, the allies had no more hope of victory;
orders had already been sent to Buxhowden, who commanded the three
columns engaged against Davout, to retreat on Austerlitz. No further
attempt was made on the plateau, which was held by the French from
Pratzen to the Olmutz road. The allied army was cut in two, and the last
confused struggle of the three Russian columns on the Goldbach was one
for liberty only. The fighting in Telnitz was perhaps the hardest of the
whole battle, but the inevitable retreat, every part of which was now
under the fire of the French on the plateau, was terribly costly. Soult
now barred the way to Austerlitz, and the allies turned southward
towards Satschan. As they retreated, the ice of the Satschan pond was
broken up by the French artillery, and many of the fugitives were
drowned. In the twelve hours from 7 A.M. to nightfall, the 65,000 French
troops had lost 6800 men, or about 10%; the allies (82,500 engaged) had
12,200 killed and wounded, and left in the enemy's hands 15,000
prisoners (many wounded) and 133 guns.
AUSTIN, ALFRED (1835- ), English poet-laureate, was born at Headingley,
near Leeds, on the 30th of May 1835. His father, Joseph Austin, was a
merchant of the city of Leeds; his mother, a sister of Joseph Locke,
M.P. for Honiton. Mr Austin was educated at Stonyhurst, Oscott, and
London University, where he graduated in 1853. He was called to the bar
four years later, and practised as a barrister for a short time; but in
1861, after two comparatively false starts in poetry and fiction, he
made his first noteworthy appearance as a writer with a satire called
_The Season_, which contained incisive lines, and was marked by some
promise both in wit and observation. In 1870 he published a volume of
criticism, _The Poetry of the Period_, which was again conceived in a
spirit of satirical invective, and attacked Tennyson, Browning, Matthew
Arnold and Swinburne in no half-hearted fashion. The book aroused some
discussion at the time, but its judgments were extremely uncritical. In
1881 Mr Austin returned to verse with a tragedy, _Savonarola_, to which
he added _Soliloquies_ in 1882, _Prince Lucifer_ in 1887, _England's
Darling_ in 1896, _The Conversion of Winckelmann_ in 1897, &c. A keen
Conservative in politics, for several years he edited _The National
Review_, and wrote leading articles for _The Standard_. On Tennyson's
death in 1892 it was felt that none of the then living poets, except
Swinburne or William Morris, who were outside consideration on other
grounds, was of sufficient distinction to succeed to the laurel crown,
and for several years no new poet-laureate was nominated. In the
interval the claims of one writer and another were much canvassed, but
eventually, in 1896, Mr Austin was appointed. As poet-laureate, his
occasional verses did not escape adverse criticism; his hasty poem in
praise of the Jameson Raid in 1896 being a notable instance. The most
effective characteristic of Mr Austin's poetry, as of the best of his
prose, is a genuine and intimate love of nature. His prose idylls, _The
Garden that I love_ and _In Veronica's Garden_, are full of a pleasant,
open-air flavour, which is also the outstanding feature of his _English
Lyrics_. His lyrical poems are wanting in spontaneity and individuality,
but many of them possess a simple, orderly charm, as of an English
country lane. He has, indeed, a true love of England, sometimes not
without a suspicion of insularity, but always fresh and ingenuous. A
drama by him, _Flodden Field_, was acted at His Majesty's theatre in
1903.
AUSTIN, JOHN (1790-1859), English jurist, was born on the 3rd of March
1790. His father was the owner of flour mills at Ipswich and in the
neighbourhood, and was in good circumstances. John was the eldest of
five brothers. One of his brothers, Charles (1799-1874), obtained great
distinction at the bar. John Austin entered the army at a very early
age; he is said to have been only sixteen. He served with his regiment
under Lord William Bentinck in Malta and Sicily. He seems to have liked
his profession, and to have joined in the amusements and even in the
follies of his brother officers. Yet it appears from a journal kept by
him at the time that he occupied himself with studies of a far more
serious kind than is common amongst young officers in the army. He notes
having read in the course of one year Dugald Stewart's _Philosophical
Essays_, Drummond's _Academical Questions_, Enfield's _History of
Philosophy_, and Mitford's _History of Greece_, and upon all of these he
makes observations which disclose much thought and a capacity for
criticism which must have come from extensive reading elsewhere. The
prevailing note of this journal is one of bitter self-depreciation. He
says in it that the retrospect of the past year (1811) "has hardly given
rise to one single feeling of satisfaction," and farther on he says that
"indolence, always the prominent vice of my character," has "assumed
over me an empire I almost despair of shaking off." It is difficult to
believe that a man only just of age, whose serious reading consisted of
such books, and who (as appears from the same journal) was in the habit
of turning to the classics as an alternative, could have deserved the
reproach of indolence.
In 1812, he resigned his commission in the army, and returned home. He
then began to read law in the chambers of a barrister. He was called to
the bar in the year 1818, and joined the Norfolk circuit, but he never
obtained any large practice, and he finally retired from the bar in
1825. In 1819 he married Sarah Taylor (see AUSTIN, SARAH).
Although Austin had failed to attain success at the bar it was not long
before he had an opportunity of exercising his abilities and in a manner
peculiarly suited to his particular turn of mind. In 1826 a number of
eminent men were engaged in the foundation of University College, and it
was determined to establish in it a chair of jurisprudence. This chair
was offered to Austin and he agreed to accept it. As he was not called
upon to begin his lectures immediately, he resolved to proceed to
Germany in order to prepare himself for his duties by studying the
method of legal teaching pursued at German universities. He resided
first at Heidelberg, and afterwards at Bonn, where he lived on terms of
intimacy with such distinguished lawyers as Savigny and K.J.A.
Mittermaier; and such eminent men of letters as Niebuhr, Brandis,
Schlegel and A.W. Heffter. He began lecturing in 1828, and at first was
not without encouragement. His class was a peculiarly brilliant one. It
included a number of men who afterwards became eminent in law, politics
and philosophy--Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Charles Buller, Charles
Villiers, Sir Samuel Romilly and his brother Lord Romilly, Edward Strutt
afterwards Lord Belper, Sir William Erie and John Stuart Mill were all
members of his class. All of these have left on record expressions of
the profound admiration which the lectures excited in the minds of those
who heard them. But the members of his class, though exceptional in
quality, were few in number, and as there was no fixed salary attached
to the professorship, Austin could not afford to remain in London, and
in 1832 he resigned. In that year he published his _Province of
Jurisprudence determined_, being the first ten of his delivered lectures
compressed into six.
There is ample testimony that Austin's lectures were very highly
appreciated by those who heard them. Their one fault was that they were
over-elaborated. In his desire to avoid ambiguity, he repeats his
explanations and qualifications to an extent which must have tired his
hearers. Nevertheless the lectures excited an admiration which almost
amounted to enthusiasm. Nor was Austin's influence confined to his
lectures. Sir William Erle says in a letter written to him in 1844, "The
interchange of mind with you in the days of Lincoln's Inn I regard as a
deeply important event in my life, and I ever remember your friendship
with thankfulness and affection." John Stuart Mill, whose views on
political subjects were entirely opposed to those of Austin, spoke of
him after his death as the man "to whom he (Mill) had been
intellectually and morally most indebted," and he expressed the opinion
"that few men had contributed more by their individual influence, and
their conversation, to the formation and growth of the most active minds
of the generation."
In 1833 a royal commission was issued to draw up a digest of criminal
law and procedure. Of this commission Austin was a member. The first
report was signed by all the commissioners, and was presented in June
1834. Nevertheless it appears from some notes made at the time that
Austin, though he thought it his duty to sign the report, strongly
objected to some passages which it contained. It is pretty obvious from
the nature of these objections that nothing would have satisfied him
short of a complete recasting of the criminal law, whereas what the
commissioners were ordered to produce was not a code but a digest.
Probably Austin felt, as Mr Justice Wills felt some years later, that
the anomalies which a code would remove would "choke a digest."
In 1834 the benchers of the Inner Temple appointed Austin to give
lectures on the "General Principles of Jurisprudence and International
Law." He delivered a few lectures in the spring of that year, but in
June the course was by order of the benchers suspended on account of the
smallness of the attendance, and it was never resumed. He then went to
live with his wife and only child Lucie (afterwards Lady Duff-Gordon) at
Boulogne. Here he remained for about a year and a half. He then accepted
an appointment offered him by Sir James Stephen to go as royal
commissioner to Malta in conjunction with Mr (afterward Sir George)
Cornewall Lewis, to inquire into the nature and extent of the grievances
of which the natives of that island complained.
The Austins remained in Malta until July 1838. After their return they
lived a good deal abroad, and in 1844 they settled in Paris, where they
remained until driven out of France by the revolution of 1848. They then
took a house at Weybridge, and there Austin remained until his death in
December 1859. He was urged by his friends to publish a second edition
of the _Province of Jurisprudence_, which was then out of print, and he
went so far as to allow a prospectus to be issued by Mr Murray of an
extended work on "The Principles and Relations of Jurisprudence and
Ethics." But nothing came of it.
In 1842 Austin published in the _Edinburgh Review_ an attack upon
Friedrich List's system of trade protection (_Das nationale System der
politischen Okonomie_). And in 1859 he published a pamphlet entitled "A
Plea for the Constitution." This was occasioned by the publication of
Lord Grey's essay on "Parliamentary Government." Its main object was to
show that the consequences to be anticipated from Parliamentary Reform
were all of them either impossible of realization or mischievous. He
thought any attempt on the part of the poorer classes to improve their
position was barred by the inexorable laws of political economy; and
that if they obtained power they would only use it to plunder the rich;
whilst, on the other hand, he seems not to have had any suspicion that
the "proprietary class" were likely to disregard the interests of the
poor. He thinks that political power is safest in the hands of those
possessed of hereditary or acquired property; and that without property
even intelligence and knowledge afford no presumption of political
capacity. Undoubtedly Austin was a utilitarian in the Benthamite sense,
and remained so to the end of his life. It must be remembered that
Bentham's sole and immutable test of human action was the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. This is a principle which an
aristocrat may adopt if he chooses, no less than a democrat; an
individualist no less than a socialist; and there is nothing in the
"Plea for the Constitution" which contravenes this. But Austin thought,
and in this no doubt he differed from Bentham, that the mass of the
people did not know their own interests so well as "an aristocracy of
independent gentlemen" who might be trusted to provide for the wants of
all classes alike.
Austin's position as a jurist is much more difficult to estimate. Twice
his influence appeared likely to produce some impression upon English
law, but upon both occasions it lasted only a short time, and never
extended very far. The men whom he influenced were very eminent, but in
numbers they were few. As a rule, students for the bar never at any time
paid any attention to his teaching. The first published lectures were
almost forgotten when Mr (afterwards Sir Henry) Maine was appointed to
lecture on jurisprudence at the Inner Temple. Both in his private and
public lectures Maine constantly urged upon his hearers the importance
of Austin's analytical inquiries into the meaning of legal terms. He
used to say that it was Austin's inquiries which had made a philosophy
of law possible. Undoubtedly Maine's influence revived for a short time
the interest in Austin's teaching. Maine was lecturing about the time of
Austin's death, and in 1861 Mrs Austin published a second edition of the
_Province of Jurisprudence_, and this was followed soon after by two
volumes which contained in addition in a fragmentary form the remaining
lectures delivered at University College and other notes (_Lectures on
Jurisprudence; or The Philosophy of Positive Law_).
It cannot be said that Austin's views of jurisprudence have had, as yet,
any visible influence whatever on the study of English law. But if we
consider what it was that Austin endeavoured to teach, it can hardly be
said that the subject is one which a lawyer can with impunity neglect.
He proposes to distinguish law from morals; to explain the notions
which have been entertained of duty, right, liberty, injury, punishment
and redress; and their connexion with, and relations to, sovereignty; to
examine the distinction between rights _in rem_ and rights _in
personam_, and between rights _ex contractu_ and rights _ex delicto_;
and further to determine the meaning of such terms as right, obligation,
injury, sanction, person, thing, act and forbearance. These are some of
the terms, notions and distinctions which Austin endeavoured to explain.
They are daily in the mouth of every practising lawyer. The only portion
of Austin's work which has attracted much attention of recent years is
his conception of sovereignty, and his dictum that all laws properly so
called must be considered as sanctioned expressly or tacitly by the
sovereign. This has been indignantly denied. It has been considered
enough to justify this denial to point out that there are in existence
states where the seat of sovereignty, and the ultimate source of law,
cannot be accurately indicated. But this criticism is entirely
misplaced; for as pointed out by Maine (_Early History of Institutions_,
Lecture xii.), in an elaborate discussion of Austin's views, which in
the main he accepts, what Austin was engaged upon was not an inquiry
into the nature of sovereignty as it is found to exist, but an inquiry
into what was the connexion between the various forms of political
superiority. And this inquiry was undertaken in order to enable him to
distinguish the province of jurisprudence properly so called from the
province of morality; an inquiry which was hopeless unless the connexion
just stated was clearly conceived. Austin's views of sovereignty,
therefore, was an abstraction, useless it is true for some purposes, but
by no means useless for others. "There is," as Maine says, "not the
smallest necessity for accepting all the conclusions of these great
writers (i.e. Bentham and Austin) with implicit deference, but there
is the strongest necessity for knowing what these conclusions are. They
are indispensable, if for no other object, for the purpose of clearing
the head." These last words exactly express the work which Austin set
himself to do. It was to clear his own head, and the heads of his
hearers, that he laboured so hard. As Austin once said of himself, his
special vocation was that of untying intellectual knots. The
disentangling of classifications and distinctions, the separation of
real from accidental distinctions, the analysis of ideas confusedly
apprehended, these (as has been truly said) were the characteristics of
Austin's work which specially distinguished him. Austin thought that
this somewhat irksome task was a necessary preliminary both to the study
of law as a science, and to the production of a code. It is a curious
reflection that whilst the lectures in which these inquiries were begun
(though not completed) excited the admiration of his contemporaries,
hardly any one now thinks such inquiries worth pursuing.
The _Lectures on Jurisprudence_ were reviewed by J.S. Mill in the
_Edinburgh Review_ of October 1863, and this review is republished in
Mill's _Dissertations and Discussions_, vol. 3, p. 206. Professor
Jethro Brown has published (1906) an edition of Austin's earlier
lectures, in which they are stated in an abbreviated form. There is a
sketch of his life by his widow in the preface to the _Lectures on
Jurisprudence_, which she published after his death. (W. Ma.)
AUSTIN, SARAH (1793-1867), English author, was born in 1793, the
daughter of John Taylor (d. 1826), a wool-stapler and a member of the
well-known Taylor family of Norwich. Her great grandfather, Dr John
Taylor (1694-1761), had been pastor of the Presbyterian church there,
and wrote a once famous polemical work on _The Scripture Doctrine of
Original Sin_ (1738), which called forth celebrated treatises by
Jonathan Edwards on _Original Sin_. Her mother, Susannah Cook, was an
exceedingly clever woman who transmitted both her beauty and her talent
to her daughter. Their friends included Dr Alderson and his daughter Mrs
Opie, Henry Crabbe Robinson, the Gurneys and Sir James Mackintosh. Sarah
Taylor married in 1820 John Austin (q.v.). They lived in Queen Square,
Westminster, where Mrs. Austin, whose tastes, unlike her husband's, were
extremely sociable, gathered round her a large circle, Jeremy Bentham,
James Mill and the Grotes being especially intimate. She received many
Italian exiles, who found a real friend in her. In 1821 was born her
only child, Lucie, afterwards Lady Duff-Gordon. Mrs. Austin never
attempted any considerable original work, contenting herself chiefly
with translations, of which the most important are the _History of the
Reformation in Germany_ and the _History of the Popes_ (1840), from the
German of Leopold von Ranke, _Report on the State of Public Instruction
in Prussia_ (1834) from the French of V. Cousin, and F.W. Carove's _The
Story without an End_ (1864). After her husband's death in 1859 she
edited his _Lectures on Jurisprudence_. She also edited the _Memoirs of
Sydney Smith_ (1855) and Lady Duff-Gordon's _Letters from Egypt_ (1865).
She died at Weybridge on the 8th of August 1867.
See _Three Generations of Englishwomen_ (1888), by her grand-daughter,
Mrs Janet Ross.
AUSTIN, STEPHEN FULLER (1793-1836), American pioneer, was born in
Austinville, Wythe county, Virginia, on the 3rd of November 1793. He was
the son of Moses Austin (1767-1821), a native of Durham, Connecticut,
who in 1820 obtained from Mexico a grant of land for an American colony
in Texas, but died before he could carry out his project. The son was
educated in New London, Connecticut, and at Transylvania University,
Lexington, Kentucky, and settled in Missouri, where he was a member of
the territorial legislature from 1813 to 1819. In 1819 he removed to
Arkansas Territory, where he was appointed a circuit judge. After his
father's death he obtained a confirmation of the Texas grants from the
newly established Mexican government, and in 1821-1823 he established a
colony of several hundred American families on the Brazos river, the
principal town being named, in his honour, San Felipe de Austin. He was
a firm defender of the rights of the Americans in Texas, and in 1833 he
was sent to the city of Mexico to present a petition from a convention
in Texas praying for the erection of a separate state government. While
there, despairing of success for his petition, he wrote home
recommending the organization of a state without waiting for the consent
of the Mexican congress. This letter falling into the hands of the
Mexican government, Austin, while returning home, was arrested at
Saltillo, carried as a prisoner back to Mexico, and imprisoned for a
year without trial. Returning to Texas in 1835, he found the Texans in
armed revolt against Mexican rule, and was chosen commander-in-chief of
the revolutionary forces, but after failing to take San Antonio he
resigned the command, for which he had never considered himself fitted,
and in November 1835 went to the United States as a commissioner to
secure loans and supplies, and to learn the position the United States
authorities would be likely to take in the event of a declaration of
Texan independence. He succeeded in raising large sums, and received
assurances that satisfied him that Americans would look with great
favour on an independent Texas. Returning to Texas in the summer of
1836, he became a candidate, rather reluctantly, for the presidency of
the newly established republic of Texas, but was defeated by Samuel
Houston, under whom he was secretary of state until his sudden death on
the 7th of December 1836.
See _A Comprehensive History of Texas_, edited by D.G. Wooten (2
vols., Dallas, 1898).
AUSTIN, a city and the county-seat of Mower county, Minnesota, U.S.A.,
on the Red Cedar river and Turtle creek, (by rail) 105 m. S. of
Minneapolis and 100 m. from St Paul. Pop. (1900) 5474; (1905, state
census) 6489 (913 foreign-born); (1910, U.S. census) 6960. It is served
by the Chicago Great Western and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul
railways. Austin is the seat of the Southern Minnesota Normal College
and Austin School of Commerce (1896), and has a Carnegie library, court
house and city hall. It is a market for livestock, and for dairy and
farm products, and has slaughtering and packing establishments, flour
mills, creameries and cheese factories, canning and preserving
factories, carriage works, a flax fibre mill and grain elevators. Brick,
tile, sewer-pipe, and hydraulic cement are manufactured, and there are
railway repair shops. A valuable water-power is utilized for
manufacturing purposes. Fresh-water pearls of considerable value and
beauty are found in the Red Cedar river. The city owns and operates its
own water-supply system and electric-lighting plant. Austin was settled
in 1855, was incorporated as a village in 1868, and was chartered as a
city in 1873.
AUSTIN, the capital of Texas, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Travis
county, on the N. bank of the Colorado river, near the centre of the
state and about 145 m. W.N.W. of Houston. Pop. (1890) 14,575; (1900)
22,258, of whom 5822 were negroes; (1910 census) 29,860. Austin is
served by the Houston & Texas Central, the International & Great
Northern, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways. The city is built
on high bluffs 40-120 ft. above the river, which is spanned here by a
bridge, built in 1874. The Texas State Capitol, a handsome building of
red Texas granite, with a dome 318 ft. high, cost more than $3,500,000,
and stands in a square in the centre of the city. It was built
(1881-1888) by Chicago capitalists in exchange for a land grant of
3,000,000 acres. It is in the form of a Greek cross, with an extreme
length of 556.5 ft. and an extreme width of 288.8 ft. Next to the
National Capitol at Washington, it is the largest capitol building in
the United States, and it is said to be one of the ten largest buildings
in the world. Austin is the seat of the University of Texas (opened in
1883; co-educational); the medical department of the state university is
at Galveston, and the departments in Austin are the college of arts,
department of education, department of engineering, department of law,
school of pharmacy, and school of nursing. The government of the
university is vested in a board of eight regents nominated by the
governor and appointed with the advice and consent of the state senate.
At Austin are also state institutions and asylums for the insane, the
blind, the coloured deaf and blind; the state school for the deaf and
dumb; the state Confederate home; the Confederate woman's home (1907;
for wives and widows of Confederate soldiers and sailors), maintained by
the Daughters of the Confederacy; St Mary's Academy (Roman Catholic,
under the supervision of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, founded 1875,
chartered 1886); St Edward's College (Roman Catholic, chartered 1885);
the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary (Presbyterian Church,
South), opened in 1902 by the Synod of Texas, and after 1905 partly
controlled by the Synod of Arkansas; Tillotson College (a negro school
under Congregational control, founded by the American Missionary
Association, chartered in 1877, and opened in 1881), and Samuel Huston
College (for negroes; Methodist Episcopal; opened in 1900 and named in
honour of an Iowan benefactor). The principal newspapers of Austin are
the _Statesman_ (Democratic, established in 1871), a morning paper, and
the _Tribune_ (Democratic, established in 1891), an evening paper. The
_Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Society_ is published here.
Austin is the principal trade and jobbing centre for central and western
Texas, is an important market for livestock, cotton, grain and wool, and
has extensive manufactories of flour, cotton-seed oil, leather goods,
lumber and wooden ware; the value of the factory product in 1905 was
$1,569,353, being 105.2% more than in 1900. The city owns and operates
its water-supply system. In 1890-1893 one of the largest dams in the
world, an immense structure of granite masonry, 1200 ft. long. 60-70 ft.
high, and 18 to 66 ft. thick, was constructed across the Colorado river
2 m. above the city for the purpose of supplying water and power,
creating a reservoir (Lake M'Donald) about 30 m. long. Freshets in the
spring of 1900, however, undermined the wall, and on the 7th of April
the dam broke with a resulting loss of several lives and about
$1,000,000 worth of property. The rebuilding of the dam was projected in
1907. Austin was first settled in 1838 and was named Waterloo, but in
1839, when it was chosen as the site of the capital of the Republic of
Texas, it was renamed in honour of Stephen F. Austin, one of its
founders. Under the influence of General Sam Houston the capital was for
a time in 1842-1845 removed from Austin to Houston, but in 1845 an
ordinance was passed making Austin the capital, and it remained the
state capital after Texas entered the Union, although Huntsville and
Tehuacana Springs in 1850 and Houston in 1872 attempted in popular
elections to be chosen in its place. The first Anglo-American settlement
in Texas, established on the Brazos river in 1823 by members of the
Austin colony, was San Felipe de Austin now San Felipe. In 1909 Austin
adopted a commission form of government.
AUSTRALASIA, a term used by English geographers in a sense nearly
synonymous with the Oceania of continental writers. It thus comprises
all the insular groups which extend almost continuously from the
south-eastern extremity of Asia to more than half-way across the
Pacific. Its chief divisions are Malaysia with the Philippines;
Australia with Tasmania and New Zealand; Melanesia, that is, New Guinea,
New Britain, New Ireland, Admiralty, the Solomons, New Hebrides, Santa
Cruz, Fiji, Loyalties and New Caledonia; Micronesia, that is, the
Ladrones, Pelew and Carolines, with the Marshall and Gilbert groups;
lastly, Polynesia, that is, Samoa, Tonga, Cook, Tahiti, the Marquesas,
Ellice, Hawaii and all intervening clusters. The term is so far
justified in that it harmonizes better than Oceania did with the names
of the other continents, and also embodies the two essential facts that
it is a south-eastern extension of Asia, and that its central and most
important division is the great island-continent of Australia. In a more
restricted sense the term Australasia corresponds to the large division
including Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand.
See _Australasia_, 2 vols. Stanford Compendium Series, new issue
(London, 1907-1908).
AUSTRALIA, the only continent entirely in the southern hemisphere. It
lies between 10 deg. 39' and 39 deg. 11-1/2' S., and between 113 deg. 5'
and 153 deg. 16' E. Its greatest length is 2400 m. from east to west,
and the greatest breadth 1971 m. from north to south. The area is,
approximately, 2,946,691 sq. m., with a coast line measuring about 8850
m. This is equal to 1 m. to each 333 sq. m. of land, the smallest
proportion of coast shown by any of the continents.