of department Charente, on the Charente, 60 miles N.N.E. of Bordeaux, on
the summit of a rocky hill. It has a fine old cathedral, built in the
twelfth century and restored in 1875, a beautiful modern town hall, built
in 1858, a lyceum, public library, natural history museum, &c. There are
manufactures of paper, woollens, and linens; distilleries, sugar-works,
tanneries, &c. Calvin lived here for three years (1527-30). Pop. 38,211.
ANGRA DO HEROISMO, the chief seaport of Terceira, one of the Azores, with
the only convenient harbour in the whole group. It has a cathedral, a
military college and arsenal, &c., and is the residence of the
Governor-General of the Azores, and of the foreign consuls. Pop. 10,057.
ANGRA PEQUENA ([.a]n'gr[.a] pe-k[=a]'n[.a]; Port. 'little bay'), a bay on
the coast of former German S.W. Africa, where the Bremen commercial firm
Luederitz in 1883 acquired a strip of territory and established a trading
station. In 1884, notwithstanding some weak protests of the British,
Germany took under her protection the whole coast territory from the Orange
River to 26deg S. lat., and soon after extended the protectorate to the
Portuguese frontier, but not including the British settlement of Walvis
Bay. Angra Pequena, called by the Germans Luederitzbucht, was captured by
the South African forces in Sept., 1915. See _South-West Africa_.
ANGRI ([.a]n'gr[=e]), a town of Southern Italy, 12 miles N.W. of Salerno,
in the centre of a region which produces grapes, cotton, and tobacco in
great quantities. In the vicinity of Angri, Teias, King of the Ostrogoths,
was defeated by Narses. Pop. 11,574.
ANGUILLA (an-gwil'la). See _Eel_.
ANGUILLA (ang-gil'a), or SNAKE ISLAND, one of the British West India
Islands, 60 miles N.E. of St. Kitts; about 20 miles long, with a breadth
varying from 3 to 1 1/4 miles; area, 35 sq. miles. A little sugar, cotton,
tobacco, and maize is grown. There is a saline lake in the centre, which
yields salt. Pop. 4075, of whom 100 are white.
ANGUIS (ang'gwis). See _Blind-worm_.
ANGUS (ang'gus), a name of Forfarshire.
AN'HALT, formerly a duchy of North Germany, lying partly in the plains of
the Middle Elbe, and partly in the valleys and uplands of the Lower Harz,
and almost entirely surrounded by Prussia; area, 888 sq. miles. All sorts
of grain, wheat especially, are grown in abundance; also flax, rape,
potatoes, tobacco, hops, and fruit. Excellent cattle are bred. The
inhabitants are principally occupied in agriculture, though there are some
iron-works and manufactures of woollens, linens, beet-sugar, tobacco, &c.
The dukes of Anhalt traced their origin to Bernard (1170-1212), son of
Albert the Bear. In time the family split up into numerous branches, and
the territory was afterwards held by three dukes (Anhalt-Koethen,
Anhalt-Bernburg, and Anhalt-Dessau). In 1863 the Duke of Anhalt-Dessau
became sole heir to the three duchies. The united principality,
incorporated in the German Empire, had one vote in the Bundesrath and two
in the Reichstag. The executive power, previous to the changes resulting
from the European War, was vested in the duke, and the legislative in a
Diet of thirty-six members. The reigning duke in 1918 was Eduard, who
succeeded his brother on 21st April, 1918. With the outbreak of the
revolution in Germany in 1918 Anhalt became a republic, but its status in
the German Republic still remains to be determined. Pop. (1919), 331,258,
almost all Protestants. The chief towns are Dessau, Bernburg, Koethen, and
Zerbst.
AN'HOLT, an island belonging to Denmark, in the Cattegat, midway between
Jutland and Sweden, 7 miles long, 4 1/2 broad, largely covered with
drift-sand, and surrounded by dangerous banks and reefs. Pop. 300.
ANHY'DRIDE, a chemical term synonymous with acidic oxide (see _Chemistry_)
and applied to those oxides which unite with water to form acids. They were
formerly called _anhydrous acids_.
ANHY'DRITE, anhydrous sulphate of calcium, a mineral presenting several
varieties of structure and colour. The _vulpinite_ of Italy possesses a
granular structure, resembling a coarse-grained marble, and is used in
sculpture. Its colour is greyish-white, intermingled with blue.
ANI (ae'n[=e]), a ruined city in Armenia, formerly the residence of the
Armenian dynasty of the Bagratidae, having in the eleventh century a
population of 100,000 and 1000 churches. In the thirteenth century it was
taken by the Tartars, and was destroyed by an earthquake in 1319.
ANICHE ([.a]-n[=e]sh), a town or village in the French department Nord,
arrondissement Douai, with coal-mines, glass-works, chemical-works, &c.
Pop. 6927.
ANIENE ([.a]-n[=e]-[=a]'n[=a]). See _Anio_.
AN'ILINE, C_6H_5NH_2, is an extremely important substance as it forms the
starting-point in the preparation of a large number of substances. It was
first prepared by Unverdorben, in 1826, by distillation of indigo. Aniline
is present in small quantity in coal-tar, and is prepared commercially from
benzene by transforming it by means of nitric acid into nitro-benzene and
reducing this with scrap-iron and hydrochloric acid. The substance can also
be prepared by reducing nitro-benzene electrolytically. It is a liquid of
peculiar odour, boiling at 182deg C., colourless when quite pure, but
rapidly darkening in colour on standing, so that commercial aniline is
usually dark-brown. It is a basic substance, and forms crystalline salts
with acids. The salts, like aniline itself, become coloured on exposure to
air. Aniline contains the characteristic chemical group NH_2, the amino
group, and substances containing this group react with nitrous acid at 0deg
C., forming diazonium compounds; these combine readily with phenols,
naphthols, and other amino compounds to form azo compounds, highly-coloured
compounds many of which are dyes. Many dyes are prepared from aniline, e.g.
rosaniline, magenta, methylene blue, aniline blue, &c., also some
explosives, e.g. tetranitraniline, which is a powerful explosive prepared
by nitrating aniline and the substance tetranitromethylaniline, "tetryl",
used in detonators. Several medicinal substances are also prepared from
aniline, for instance, antifebrin and atoxyl.
AN'ILISM, aniline poisoning, a name given to the aggregate of symptoms
which often show themselves in those employed in aniline works, resulting
from the inhalation of aniline vapours. It may be either acute or chronic.
In a slight attack of the former kind, the lips, cheeks, and ears become of
a bluish colour, and the person's walk may be unsteady; in severe cases
there is loss of consciousness. Chronic anilism is accompanied by
derangement of the digestive organs and of the nervous system, headaches,
eruptions on the skin, muscular weakness, &c.
ANIMAL, an organized and sentient living being. Life in the earlier periods
of natural history was attributed almost exclusively to animals. With the
progress of science, however, it was extended to plants. In the case of the
higher animals and plants there is no difficulty in assigning the
individual to one of the two great kingdoms of organic nature, but in their
lowest manifestations the vegetable and animal kingdoms are brought into
such immediate contact that it becomes almost impossible to assign them
precise limits, and to say with certainty where the one begins and the
other ends. From _form_ no absolute distinction can be fixed between
animals and plants. Many animals, such as the sea-shrubs, sea-mats, &c., so
resemble plants in external appearance that they were, and even yet
popularly are, looked upon as such. With regard to _internal structure_ no
line of demarcation can be laid down, all plants and animals being, in this
respect, fundamentally similar; that is, alike composed of molecular,
cellular, and fibrous tissues. Neither are the chemical characters of
animal and vegetable substances more distinct. Animals contain in their
tissues and fluids a larger proportion of nitrogen than plants, whilst
plants are richer in carbonaceous compounds than the former. In some
animals, moreover, substances almost exclusively confined to plants are
found. Thus the outer wall of the Sea-squirts contains _cellulose_, a
substance largely found in plant-tissues; whilst _chlorophyll_, the
colouring-matter of plants, occurs in Hydra and many other lower animals.
_Power of motion_, again, though broadly distinctive of animals, cannot be
said to be absolutely characteristic of them. Thus many animals, as
oysters, sponges, corals, &c., in their mature condition are rooted or
fixed, while the embryos of many plants, together with numerous
fully-developed forms, are endowed with locomotive power by means of
vibratile, hair-like processes called cilia. The distinctive points between
animals and plants which are most to be relied on are those derived from
the _nature and mode of assimilation of the food_. Plants feed on
_inorganic matters_, consisting of water, ammonia, carbonic acid, and
mineral matters. They can only take in food which is presented to them in a
_liquid_ or _gaseous_ state. The exceptions to these rules are found
chiefly in the case of plants which live _parasitically_ on other plants or
animals, in which cases the plant may be said to feed on organic matters,
represented by the juices of their hosts. Animals, on the contrary, require
_organized_ matters for food. They feed either upon plants or upon other
animals. But even carnivorous animals can be shown to be dependent upon
plants for subsistence; since the animals upon which Carnivora prey are in
their turn supported by plants. Animals, further, can subsist on _solid_
food in addition to liquids and gases; but many animals (such as the
Tapeworms) live by the mere imbibition of fluids which are absorbed by
their tissues, such forms possessing no distinct digestive system. Animals
require a due supply of _oxygen gas_ for their sustenance, this gas being
used in respiration. Plants, on the contrary, require _carbonic acid_. The
animal exhales or gives out carbonic acid as the part result of its
tissue-waste, whilst the plant, taking in this gas, is enabled to decompose
it into its constituent carbon and oxygen. The plant retains the former for
the uses of its economy, and liberates the oxygen, which is thus restored
to the atmosphere for the use of the animal. Animals receive their food
into the interior of their bodies, and assimilation takes place in their
internal surfaces. Plants, on the other hand, receive their food into their
external surfaces, and assimilation is effected in the external parts, as
is exemplified in the leaf-surfaces under the influence of sunlight. Cf.
T. J. Parker and W. A. Haswell, _Text-Book of Zoology_; _Cambridge Natural
History_.
ANIMAL CHEMISTRY. See _Chemistry_.
ANIMALCULE (an-i-mal'k[=u]l), a general name given to many forms of animal
life from their minute size. The larger examples are just visible to the
naked eye, but most of them are strictly microscopic. Some are pigmented,
but the majority are colourless. The term is not applicable to a particular
zoological type, but it is customary to confine it to the 'Protozoa',
'Rotifera', or 'Wheel Animalcules'.
ANIMAL HEAT. All animals possess a certain amount of heat or temperature
which is necessary for the performance of vital action. The only classes of
animals in which a constantly-elevated temperature is kept up are birds and
mammals. The bodily heat of the former varies from 39.4deg to 43.9deg C.,
and of the latter from 35.5deg to 40.5deg C. The mean or average heat of
the human body is about 99deg F., and it never falls much below this in
health. Below birds, animals are named 'cold-blooded', this term meaning in
its strictly-physiological sense that their temperature is usually that of
the medium in which they live, and that it varies with that of the
surrounding medium. The temperature of 'warm-blooded' animals is remarkably
constant, although there are individual variations. In man this variation
is slight, amounting only to fractions of a degree. The cause of the
evolution of heat in the animal body is referred to the union (by a process
resembling ordinary combustion) of the carbon and hydrogen of the system
with the oxygen taken in from the air in the process of respiration.
ANIMAL MAGNETISM. See _Hypnotism_, _Mesmer_.
ANIMALS, CRUELTY TO, an offence against which societies have been formed
and laws passed in England and other countries. According to English law,
if any person shall cruelly beat, ill-treat, overdrive, abuse, or torture
any domestic animal, he shall forfeit a sum not exceeding L5 for every such
offence. Bull-baiting, cock-fighting, and the like are also prohibited.
Provision is also made for the punishment of persons unlawfully and
maliciously killing, maiming, or wounding cattle, dogs, birds, beasts, and
other animals.
ANIMAL WORSHIP, a practice found to prevail, or to have prevailed, in the
most widely-distant parts of the world, both the Old and the New, but
nowhere to such an amazing extent as in ancient Egypt, notwithstanding its
high civilization. Nearly all the more important animals found in the
country were regarded as sacred in some part of Egypt, and the degree of
reverence paid to them was such that throughout Egypt the killing of a hawk
or an ibis, whether voluntary or not, was punished with death. The worship,
however, was not, except in a few instances, paid to them as actual
deities. The animals were merely regarded as sacred to the deities, and the
worship paid to them was symbolical.
AN'IMA MUN'DI. See _Pantheism_.
ANIME (an'i-me), a resin obtained from the trunk of an American tree
(_Hymenaea Courbaril_). It is of a transparent amber colour, has a light,
agreeable smell, and is soluble in alcohol. It strongly resembles copal,
and, like it, is used in making varnishes. See _Copal_.
AN'IMISM, the system of medicine propounded by Stahl, and based on the idea
that the soul (_anima_) is the seat of life. In modern usage the term is
applied to express the general doctrine of souls and other spiritual
beings, and especially to the tendency, common among savage races, to
attribute souls or spirits to inanimate things, and to explain phenomena
not due to obvious natural causes by attributing them to spiritual agency.
Amongst the beliefs of animism is that of a human apparitional soul,
bearing the form and appearance of the body, and living after death a sort
of semi-human life.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sir J. G. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_;
Andrew Lang, _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_.
ANIO (now ANI[=E]NE or TEVER[=O]NE), a river in Italy, a tributary of the
Tiber, which it enters from the east a short distance above Rome, renowned
for the natural beauties of the valley through which it flows, and for the
remains of ancient buildings there situated, as the villas of Maecenas and
the Emperor Hadrian.
ANISE (an'is; _Pimpinella An[=i]sum_), an annual plant of the nat. ord.
Umbelliferae, a native of Eastern Asia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean
coasts, and cultivated in Spain, France, Italy, Malta, &c., whence the
fruit, popularly called _aniseed_, is imported. This fruit is ovate, with
ten narrow ribs, between which are oil-vessels. It has an aromatic smell,
and is largely employed to flavour liqueurs (aniseed or anisette),
sweetmeats, &c. _Star-anise_ is the fruit of an evergreen Asiatic tree
(_Illicium anis[=a]tum_), nat. ord. Magnoliaceae, and is brought chiefly
from China. Its flavour is similar to that of anise, and it is used for the
same purposes. An essential oil is obtained from both kinds of anise, and
is used for scenting soaps and in the preparation of cordials.
ANJOU ([.a][n.]-zhoe), an ancient province of France, now forming the
department of Maine-et-Loire, and parts of the departments of
Indre-et-Loire, Mayenne, and Sarthe; area, about 3000 sq. miles. In 1060
the province passed into the hands of the House of Gatinais, of which
sprang Count Godfrey V, who, in 1127, married Matilda, daughter of Henry I
of England, and so became the ancestor of the Plantagenet kings. Anjou
remained in the possession of the English kings up to 1204, when John lost
it to the French king Philip Augustus. In 1226 Louis VIII bestowed this
province on his brother Charles; but in 1328 it was reunited to the French
Crown. John I raised it to the rank of a duchy, and gave it to his son
Louis. Henceforth it remained separate from the French Crown till 1480,
when it fell to Louis XI.
ANKARSTROEM ([.a]n'k[.a]r-streum), Jan Jakob, the murderer of Gustavus III
of Sweden, was born about 1762, and was at first a page in the Swedish
Court, afterwards an officer in the royal bodyguard. He was a strenuous
opponent of the sovereign's measures to restrict the privileges of the
nobility, and joined Counts Horn and Ribbing in a plot to assassinate
Gustavus. The assassination took place on 15th March, 1792. Ankarstroem was
tried, tortured, and executed in April, dying boasting of his deed.
ANKER, an obsolete measure used in Britain for spirits, beer, &c.,
containing 8-1/2 imperial gallons. A measure of similar capacity was used
in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
AN'KLAM, a town in Prussia, province of Pomerania, 47 miles north-west of
Stettin, on the River Peene, which is here navigable. Shipbuilding, woollen
and cotton manufactures, soap-boiling, tanning, &c., are carried on. Pop.
15,280.
ANKO'BAR, or ANKO'BER, a town in Abyssinia, former capital of Shoa, on a
steep conical hill 8200 feet high. Pop. 2000.
ANKYLO'SIS, or ANCHYLO'SIS, stiffness of the joints caused by a more or
less complete coalescence of the bones through ossification, often the
result of inflammation or injury. False ankylosis is stiffness of a joint
when the disease is not in the joint itself, but in the tendinous and
muscular parts by which it is surrounded.
ANKYLOSTOMI'ASIS, a 'worm disease' to which miners are subject in some
localities, is caused by vast numbers of small parasitic worms
(_Ankylostoma_ or _Anchylostoma duodenale_) in the duodenum or upper
portions of the intestinal canal. Deriving their sustenance from the
system, these worms produce anaemia or bloodlessness (that is, deficiency
of the red corpuscles of the blood), the sufferers being pallid, feeble,
short-breathed, liable to faint, and unequal to any laborious work, and
death may result if a cure is not effected. Fortunately the disease is not
difficult to cure if the remedies are applied--remedies such as will expel
the worms from the intestine. The disease is said to be common in tropical
and sub-tropical countries all over the world. In Europe it was perhaps
first observed in 1879 in the case of workmen engaged in excavating the St.
Gothard tunnel. Since 1896 it has been well known in some of the German
mines; and in 1903 it was detected among the miners engaged in the Dolcoath
mine in Cornwall. The eggs of the worms are carried from the body with the
faeces; under favourable circumstances they develop into larvae, which may
gain entrance again into the human body by the mouth (perhaps in
drinking-water), to attain full development in the intestine. Careful
sanitary arrangements are a preventive of the disease, which is also known
as 'miner's worm', 'miner's anaemia', &c.
ANN, or ANNAT, in Scottish law, the half-year's stipend of a living, after
the death of the clergyman, payable to his family or next of kin. The right
to the ann is not vested in the clergyman himself, but in his
representatives; and, accordingly, it can neither be disposed of by him nor
attached for his debts.
ANNA, an Anglo-Indian money of account, the sixteenth part of a rupee, and
of the value of one penny; it is divided into four pice.
AN'NABERG, a town in Saxony, 47 miles south-west of Dresden. Mining (for
silver, cobalt, iron, &c.) is carried on, and there are manufactures of
lace, ribbons, fringes, buttons, &c. Pop. 17,025.
ANNA COMNE'NA, daughter of Alexius I, Comnenus, Byzantine emperor. She was
born 1083, and died 1148. After her father's death she endeavoured to
secure the succession for her husband, Nicephorus Briennius, but was
baffled by his want of energy and ambition. She wrote (in Greek) a life of
her father Alexius (_The Alexiad_, a work in fifteen books). She is a
character in Sir Walter Scott's _Count Robert of Paris_.
ANNA IVANOV'NA, Empress of Russia, born in 1693, the daughter of Ivan, the
elder half-brother of Peter the Great. She was married in 1710 to the Duke
of Courland, in the following year was left a widow, and in 1730 ascended
the throne of the tsars on the condition proposed by the senate, that she
would limit the absolute power of the tsars, and do nothing without the
advice of the council composed of the leading members of the Russian
aristocracy. But no sooner had she ascended the throne than she declared
her promise null, and proclaimed herself autocrat of all the Russias. She
chose as her favourite Ernest John von Biren or Biron, who was soon
all-powerful in Russia, and ruled with great severity. Several of the
leading nobles were executed, and many thousand men exiled to Siberia. In
1737 Anna forced the Courlanders to choose Biren as their duke, and
nominated him at her death regent of the empire during the minority of
Prince Ivan (of Brunswick). Anna died in 1740. See _Biren_.
AN'NALS, a history of events in chronological order, each event being
recorded under the year in which it occurred. The name is derived from the
first annual records of the Romans, which were called _ann[=a]les
pontificum_ or _ann[=a]les max[)i]mi_, drawn up by the _pontifex maximus_
(chief pontiff). The practice of keeping such annals was afterwards adopted
also by various private individuals, as by Fabius Pictor, Calpurnius Piso,
and others. The name hence came to be applied in later times to historical
works in which the matter was treated with special reference to
chronological arrangement, as to the _Annals_ of Tacitus.