the snow-line, standing upon the massif of a mountain split
by frost action along joints or planes of cleavage with
sides too steep for snow to rest upon them. Aiguilles are
thus the forms remaining from the splitting up of the high
ridges with houseroof structure into detached pinnacles.
AIGUILLETTE (Fr. diminutive of AIGUILLE, a needle; the
obsolete English form is ``aglet''), originally a tag of
metal, often made of precious metals and richly chased,
attached to the end of a lace or ribbon, and pointed, so
as to pass more easily through eyelet holes. The term
was, in time, applied to any bright ornament or pendant
for the dress made of metal, and is now specially used of
ornamental cords and tags of gold and silver lace, worn on
naval and military uniforms. The aiguillette is fastened
to the shoulder, the various cords hanging down therefrom
being fastened at their other end on the front of the coat.
AIGUILLON, EMMANUEL ARMAND DE WIGNEROD DU PLESSIS DE
RICHELIEU, DUC D' (1720-1782), French statesman, nephew
of the marechal de Richelieu, was born on the 31st of July
1720. He entered the army at the age of seventeen, and
at the age of nineteen was made colonel of the regiment of
Brie. He served in the campaigns in Italy during the War of
the Austrian Succession, was seriously wounded at the siege
of Chateau-Dauphin (1744), was taken prisoner (1746) and
was made marechal de camp in 1748. His marriage in 1740
with Louise Felicite de Brehan, daughter of the comte de
Plelo, coupled with his connexion with the Richelieu family,
gave, him an important place at court. He was a member of
the so-called parti devot, the faction opposed to Madame de
Pompadour, to the Jansenists and to the parlement, and his
hostility to the new ideas drew upon him the anger of the
pamphleteers. In 1753 he was appointed commandant (governor)
of Brittany and soon became unpopular in that province, which
had retained a large number of privileges called ``liberties.''
He first came into collision with the provincial estates on the
question of the royal imposts (1758), but was then blamed for
his inertia in the preparation of a squadron against England
(1759), and finally alienated the parlement of Brittany by
violating the privileges of the province (1762). In June 1764
the king, at the instance of d'Aiguillon, quashed a decree of
the parlement forbidding the levying of new imposts without the
consent of the estates, and refused to receive the remonstrances
of the parlement against the duke. On the 11th of November
1765 La Chalotais, the procureur of the parlement, was
arrested, but whether at the instigation of d'Aiguillon is not
certain. The conflict between d'Aiguillon and the Bretons
lasted two years. In the place of the parlement, which had
resigned, d'Aiguillon organized a tribunal of more or less
competent judges, who were ridiculed by the pamphleteers
and ironically termed the bailliage d'Aiguillon. In 1768
the duke was forced to suppress this tribunal, and returned
to court, where he resumed his intrigue with the parti
devot and finally obtained the dismissal of the minister
Choiseul (December 24, 1770). When Louis XV., acting on
the advice of Madame Dubarry, reorganized the government
with a view to suppressing the resistance of the parlements,
d'Aiguillon was made minister of foreign affairs, Maupeou
and the Abbe Terray (1715-1778) also obtaining places in the
ministry. The new ministry, albeit one of reform, was very
unpopular, and was styled the ``triumvirate.'' All the failures
of the government were attributed to the mistakes of the
ministers. Thus d'Aiguillon was blamed for having provoked
the coup d'etat of Gustavus III., king of Sweden, in 1772,
although the instructions of the comte de Vergennes, the
French ambassador in Sweden, had been written by the minister,
the duc de la Vrilliere. D'Aiguillon, however, could do
nothing to rehabilitate French diplomacy; he acquiesced in
the first division of Poland, renewed the Family Compact,
and, although a supporter of the Jesuits, sanctioned the
suppression of the society. After the death of Louis XV.
he quarrelled with Maupeou and with the young queen, Marie
Antoinette, who demanded his dismissal from the ministry
(1774). He died, forgotten, in 1782. In no circumstances
had he shown any special ability. He was more fitted for
intrigue than for government, and his attempts to restore
the status of French diplomacy met with scant success.
See Memoires du ministere du duc d'Aiguillon (3rd ed.,
Paris and Lyons, 1792), probably written by J. L. Soulavie.
On d'Aiguillon's governorship of Brittany see Carre, La
Chalotais et le duc d'Aiguillon (Paris, 1893); Marion, La
Bretagne et le duc d'Aiguillon (Paris, 1898); and Barthelemy
Pocquet, Le Duc d'Aiguillon et La Chalotais (Paris,
1901--1902). The three last have full biblioaraphies. See also
Flammermont, Le Chancelier Maupeou et les parlements (Paris,
1883); Frederic Masson, Le Cardinal de Bernis (Paris, 1884).
AIGUILLON, MARIE MADELEINE DE WIGNEROD DU PONT DE COURLAY,
DUCHESSE D' (1604-1675), daughter of Cardinal Richelieu's
sister. In 1620 she married a nephew of the constable de
Luynes, Antoine de Beauvoir du Roure, sieur de Combalet, who
died in 1622. In 1625, through her influence, she was made
a lady-in-waiting (dame d'atour) to Ihe queen-mother, and
in 1638 was created duchess of Aiguihon. She did not marry
a second time, although Richelieu wished to marry her to
a prince--either to the comte de Soissons or to the king's
brother. After the death of the cardinal (1642) she retained
her honours and titles, but withdrew from the court, and
devoted herself entirely to works of charity. She entered into
relations with Saint Vincent de Paul and helped him to establish
the hospital for foundlings. She also took part in organizing
the General Hospital and several others in the provinces.
She died on the 17th of April 1675. She was the patroness of
Corneille, who in 1636 dedicated to her his tragedy of The Cid.
See E. Flechier, Oraison funebre de Mme. Marie de
Wignerod, duchesse d'Aiguillon; Bonneau-Avenant,
La duchesse d'Aiguillon (1879); M.emoires de
Saint-Simon, ed. by A. de Boislisle (1879 et seq..)
AIGUN, or AIHUN (also Sakhalyan-ula-khoto), a town of
China, province Hei-lung-kiang, in northern Manchuria, situated
on the right bank of the Amur, in a fertile and populous
region, 20 m. below Blagovyeshchensk, where it occupies
nearly 2 m. on the bank of the river. There is a palisaded
fort in the middle of the town, inside of which is the house
of the fu-tu (governor). Its merchants carry on an active
local trade in grain, mustard, oil and tobacco, and some of
its firms supply the Russian administration with grain and
flour. During the ``Boxer'' rising of 1900 it was, for a few
weeks, the centre of military action directed against the
Russians. The population, of some 20,000, includes a few hundred
Mussulmans. The town was founded first on the left bank of
the Amur, below the mouth of the Zeya, but was abandoned, and
the present town was founded in 1684. It was here that Count
Muraviev concluded, in May 1857, the Aihun treaty, according
to which the left bank of the Amur was conceded to Russia.
AIKEN, a city and the county-seat of Aiken county, South
Carolina, U.S.A., 17 m. E.N.E. of Augusta, Georgia. Pop.
(1890) 2362; (1900) 3414 (2131 of negro descent); (1910)
3911. It is served by the Southern railway, and by an electric
line connecting with Augusta. Aiken is a fashionable winter
resort, chiefly frequented by Northerners, and is pleasantly
situated about 500 ft. above sea level in the heart of the
famous sand-hill and pine-forest region of the state. The dry
and unusually equable temperature (mean for winter 50 deg. F.,
for spring 57 deg. F., and for autumn 64 deg. F.) and the balmy air
laden with the fragrance of the pine forests have combined to
make Aiken a health and pleasure resort; its climate is said
to be especially beneficial for those afflicted with pulmonary
diseases. There are fine hotels, club houses and cottages,
and the Palmetto Golf Links near the city are probably the
finest in the southern states; fox-hunting, polo, tennis
and shooting are among the popular sports. There are some
excellent drives in the vicinity. The city is the seat of
the Aiken Institute (for whites) and the Schofield Normal
and Industrial School (for negroes). There are lumber mills,
cotton mills and cotton-gins; and cotton, farm products
and artificial stone are exported. Considerable quantities
of aluminium are obtained from the kaolin deposits in the
vicinity. The city's water supply is obtained from artesian
wells. Aiken was settled in the early part of the 19th century,
but was not incorporated until 1835, when it was named in
honour of William Aiken (1806-1887), governor of the state in
1844--1847, and a representative in Congress in 1851-1857.
AIKIN, ARTHUR (1773-1854), English chemist and mineralogist,
was born on the 19th of May 1773, at Warrington in Lancashire.
He studied chemistry under Priestley and gave attention to
the practical applications of the science. To mineralogy
he was likewise attracted, and he was one of the founders
of the Geological Society of London, 1807, and honorary
secretary, 1812-1817. To the transactions of that society
he contributed papers on the Wrekin and the Shropshire
coalfield, &c. Later he became secretary of the Society of
Arts, and in 1841 treasurer of the Chemical Society. In
early life he had been for a short time a Unitarian minister.
He was highly esteemed as a man of sound judgment and wide
knowledge. He died in London on the 15th of April 1854.
PUBLICATIONS.--Journal of a Tour through North Wales and part
of Shropshire with observations in Mineralogy and other branches
of Natural History (London, 1797); A Manual of Mineralogy
(1814; ed. 2, 1815); A Dictionary of Chemistry and Mineralogy
(with his brother C. R. Aikin), 2 vols. (London, 1807, 1814).
AIKIN, JOHN (1747-1822), English doctor and writer, was
born at Kibworth-Harcourt, and received his elementary
education at the Noncomformist academy at Warrington, where
his father was tutor. He studied medicine in the university
of Edinburgh, and in London under Dr Wilham Hunter. He
practised as a surgeon at Chester and Warrington. Finally,
he went to Leyden, took the degree of M.D. (1780), and in
1784 established himself as a doctor in Yarmouth. In 1792
he removed to London, where he practised as a consulting
physician. But he concerned himself more with the advocacy
of liberty of conscience than with his professional duties,
and he began at an early period to devote himself to literary
pursuits. In conjunction with his sister, Mrs Barbauld
(q.v.), he published a popular series of volumes entitled
Evenings at Home (6 vols., 1792-1795), excellently adapted
for elementary family reading, which were translated into
almost every European language. In 1798 Dr Aikin retired
from professional life and devoted himself with great industry
to various literary undertakings, among which his General
Biography (10 vols., 1799-1815) holds a conspicuous place.
Besides these, he published Biog. Memoirs of Medicine
(1780); Lives of John Selden and Archbishop Usher (1812)
and other works. He edited the Monthly Magazine from 1796
to 1807, and conducted a paper called the Athenaeum from
1807 to 1809, when it was discontinued. Aikin died in 1822.
His daughter, LUCY AIKIN (1781-1864), born at Warrington
on the 6th of November 1781, had some repute as a historical
writer. After producing various books for the young, and a
novel, Lorimer (1814), she published in 1818 her Memoirs of
the Court of Queen Elizabeth, which passed through several
editions. This was followed by Memoirs of the Court of James
I. (1822), Memoirs of the Court of Charles I. (1833) and a
Life of Addison (1843). Miss Aikin died at Hampstead, where
she had lived for forty years, on the 29th of January 1864.
See a Memoir of John Aikin, with selections of his miscellaneous
pieces (1823), by his daughter; and the Memoirs, Miscellanies
and Letters of William Ellery Channing, edited by P. H. Le Breton.
AIKMAN, WILLIAM (1682-1731), British portrait-painter, was
born at Cairney, Forfarshire. He was intended by his father
for the bar, but followed his natural bent by becoming a
pupil under Sir John Medina, the leading painter of the day in
Scotland. In 1707 he went to Italy, resided in Rome for three
years, afterwards travelled to Constantinople and Smyrna, and
in 1712 returned home. In Edinburgh, where he practised as
a portrait-painter for some years, he enjoyed the patronage
of the duke of Argyll; and on his removal to London in 1723
he soon obtained many important commissions. Perhaps his
most successful work was the portrait of the poet Gay. He
also painted portraits of himself, Fletcher of Saltoun,
William Carstares and Thomson the poet. The likenesses were
generally truthful and the style was modelled very closely
upon that of Sir Godfrey Kneller. Aikman held a good position
in literary society and counted among his personal friends
Swift, Pope, Thomson, Allan Ramsay, Somervile and Mallet.
AILANTHUS (more correctly ailantus, from ailanto, an
Amboyna word probably meaning ``Tree of the Gods,'' or ``Tree
of Heaven''), a genus of trees belonging to the natural order
Simarubaceae. The best known species, A. glandulosa, Chinese
sumach or tree of heaven, is a handsome, quick-growing tree
with spreading branches and large compound leaves, resembling
those of the ash, and bearing numerous pairs of long pointed
leaflets. The small greenish flowers are borne on branched
panicles; and the male ones are characterized by having a
disgusting odour. The fruits are free in clusters, and each
is drawn out into a long wing with the seed in the middle.
The wood is fine grained and satiny. The tree, which is a
native of China and Japan, was introduced into England in
1751 and is a favourite in parks and gardens. A silk spinning
moth, the ailanthus moth (Bombyx or Philosamia cynthia),
lives on its leaves, and yields a silk more durable and
cheaper than mulberry silk, but inferior to it in fineness and
gloss. This moth is common near many towns in the eastern United
States; it is about 5 in. across, with angulated wings, and
in colour olive brown, with white markings. Other species of
ailanthus are: A. imberbifiora and A. punctata, important
Australian timber-trees; and A. excelsa, common in India.
AILLY, PIERRE D, (1350-1420), French theologian, was
born at Compiegne in 1350 of a bourgeois family, and
studied in Paris at the celebrated college of Navarre.
He became a licentiate of arts in 1367, procurator of
the French ``nation'' in 1372, bachelor of theology in
1372, and licentiate and doctor in that faculty in 1381.
Since 1378 Western Christendom, in consequence of the election
of the two popes Urban VI. and Clement VII., had been divided
into two obediences. In the spring of 1379 Pierre d'Ailly,
in anticipation even of the decision of the university of
Paris, had carried to the pope of Avignon the ``role'' of
the French nation, but notwithstanding this prompt adhesion
he was firm in his desire to put an end to the schism, and
when, on the 20th of May 1381, the university decreed that
the best means to this end was to try to gather together a
general council, Pierre d'Ailly supported this motion before
the king's council in the presence of the duke of Anjou.
The dissatisfaction displayed shortly after by the government
obliged the university to give up this scheme, and was probably
the cause of Pierre d'Ailly's temporary retirement to Noyon,
where he held a canonry. There he continued the struggle for
his side in a humorous work, in which the partisans of the
council are amusingly taken to task by the demon Leviathan.
After his return to Paris, where from 1384 onwards he
filled the position of master of the college of Navarre, and
took part in a violent campaign against the chancellor of
Notre-Dame, he was twice entrusted with a mission to Clement
VII. in 1388 to defend the doctrines of the university, and
especially those concerning the Immaculate Conception of the
Virgin, against the preaching friar Jean de Montson, and in
1389 to petition in the name of the king for the canonization
of the young cardinal Peter of Luxemburg. The success which
attended his efforts on these two occasions, and the eloquence
which he displayed, perhaps contributed to his choice as the
king,s almoner and confessor. At the same time, by means
of an exchange, he obtained to the highest dignity in the
university, becoming chancellor of Notre-Dame de Paris.
When in 1394 Benedict XIII. succeeded Clement VII. at Avignon,
Pierre d'Ailly was entrusted by the king with a mission of
congratulation to the new pontiff. His obsequious language
on this occasion, and the favours with which it was rewarded,
formed a too violent contrast to the determined attitude of
the university of Paris, which, tired of the schism, was even
then demanding the resignation of the two pontiffs. Pierre
d'Ailly himself had not long before taken part in the drawing
up of a letter to the king in which the advantages of this
double abdication were set forth, but since then his zeal
had seemed to cool a little. None the less, on his return
from Avignon, he again in the presence of the king enlarged
upon the advantages offered by the way which the university
commended. But the suspicions aroused by his conduct found
further confirmation when he caused himself--or allowed
himself--to be nominated bishop of Le Puy by Benedict XIII.
(April 2, 1395 ). The great number of benefices which he
held left room for some doubt as to his disinterestedness.
Henceforward he was under suspicion at the university, and was
excluded from the assemblies where the union was discussed.
Some time afterwards Pierre d'Ailly became bishop of Cambrai
(March 19, 1397) by the favour of the pope, who had yielded no
whit, and, by virtue of this position, became also a prince
of the empire. In order to take possession of his new see,
he had to brave the wrath of the duke of Burgundy, override
the resistance of the clergy and bourgeoisie, and even
withstand an armed attack on the part of several lords; but his
protector, the duke of Orleans, had his investiture performed by
Wenceslaus, king of the Romans. The latter, though a partisan
of the pope of Rome, took the opportunity of enjoining on
Pierre d'Ailly to go in his name and argue with the pope of
Avignon, a move which had as its object to persuade Benedict
XIII. to an abdication, the necessity of which was becoming
more and more evident. However, the language of the bishop
of Cambrai seems on this occasion to have been lacking in
decision; however that may be, it led to no felicitous result.
France next tried to bring violent pressure to bear to
conquer the obstinacy of Benedict XIII. by threatening a
formal withdrawal from his obedience. Pierre d'Ailly, who,
in spite of his attachment to the pope, had been carried away
by the example of the kingdom, was among the first who, in
1403, after experience of what had happened, counselled and
celebrated the restoration of obedience. He was sent by
Charles VI. on an embassy to Benedict XIII. and seized this
opportunity of lavishing on the pontiff friendly congratulations
mingled with useful advice. Two years later, before the same
pontiff, he preached in the city of Genoa a sermon which
led to the general institution, in the countries of the
obedience of Avignon, of the festival of the Holy Trinity.
At the ecclesiastical council which took place at Paris
in 1406 Pierre d'Ailly made every effort to avert a new
withdrawal from the obedience and, by order of the king,
took the part of defender of Benedict XIII., a course
which yet again exposed him to attacks from the university
party. The following year he and his disciple Gerson formed
part of the great embassy sent by the princes to the two
pontiffs, and while in Italy he was occupied in praiseworthy
but vain efforts to induce the pope of Rome to remove himself
to a town on the Italian coast, in the neighbourhood of his
rival, where it was hoped that the double abdication would
take place. Discouraged by his failure to effect this,
he returned to his diocese of Cambrai at the beginning of
1408. At this time he was still faithful to Benedict
XIII., and the disinclination he felt to joining the members
of the French clergy who were on the point of ratifying
the royal declaration of neutrality excited the anger of
Charles VI.'s government, and a mandate, which was however
not executed, ordered the arrest of the bishop of Cambrai.
It was not till after the cardinals of the two colleges had
led to the convocation of the general council of Uisa that
Tierre d'Aiily renounced the support of Benedict XIII., and,
for want of a better policy, again allied himself with the
cause which he had championed in his youth. In the council lay
now, to judge from his words, the only chance of salvation;
and, in view of the requirements of the case, he began to argue
that, in case of schism, a council could be convoked by any one
of the faithful, and would have the right to judge and even to
depose the rival pontiffs. This was, in fact, the procedure of
the council of Pisa, in which Pierre d'Ailly took part. After
the declaration of the deposition of Gregory XII. and Benedict
XIII. it went on to the election of Alexander V. (June 26th,
1409), This pope reigned only ten months; his successor, John
XXIII., raised Pierre d'Ailly to the rank of cardinal (June
6, 1411), and furtuer, to indemnify him for the loss of the
bishopric of Cambrai, conferred upon him the administration
of that of Limoges (November 3, 1412), which was shortly after
exchanged for the bishopric of Orange. He also nominated
Pierre d'Ailly as his legate in Germany (March 18, 1413).
Forgetting these benefits, the cardinal of Cambrai was one of
the most formidable adversaries of John XXIII. at the council of
Constance. Convinced as he was of the necessity for union and
reform, he contributed more than any one to the adoption of
the principle that, since the schism had survived the council
of Pisa, it was necessary again to take up the work for a
fundamental union, without considering the rights of John
XXIII. any more than they had those of Gregory XII. and Benedict
XIII. From this point of view Pierre d'Ailly, together with
his compatriot Cardinal Fillastre, took the preponderating part
during the first few months. Afterwards, seeing the trend of
events, he showed some uneasiness and hesitation. He refused,
however, to undertake the defence of John XXIII., and only
appeared in the trial of this pope to make depositions against
him, which were sometimes of an overwhelming character.
Among the important matters which claimed his attention at
Constance may be mentioned also the condemnation of the errors
of Wycliffe and the trial of John Huss. The reading in public
of his two treatises De Potestate ecclesiastica and De
Reformalione Ecclesiae revealed, besides ideas very peculiar
to himself on the reform and constitution of the church, his
design of reducing the power of the English in the council by
denying them the right of forming a separate nation (October
1-November 1, 1416). By this campaign, which exposed him
to the worst retaliation of the English, he inaugurated his
role of ``procurator and defender of the king of France.''
When at last the question arose of giving the Christian world
a new pope, this time sole and uncontested, Pierre d'Ailly
defended the right of the cardinals, if not to keep the election
entirely in their own hands, at any rate to share in the election,
and he brought forward an ingenious system for reconciling
the pretensions of the council with the rights of the Sacred
College. In this way was elected Pope Martin V. (November 11,
1417), and the task of Pierre d'Ailly was at last finished.
The predominance of the Anglo-Burgundians in France having
made it impossible for him to stay there, he went to
Avignon to end his days in melancholy calculations arising
from the calamities of which he had been the witness, and
the astrological reckonings, in which he found pleasure,
of the chances for and against the world coming to an end
in the near future. He died on the 9th of August 1420.
Pierre d'Ailly's written works are numerous. A great part of
them was published with the works of Gerson (by Elhes du Pin,
Antwerp, 1706); another part appeared in the 15th century,
probably at Brussels, and there are many treatises and sermons
still unpublished. In philosophy he was a nominalist. Many
questions in science and astrology, such as the reform of the
calendar, attracted his attention. His other works consisted
of theological essays, ascetic or exegetic, questions of
ecclesiastical discipline and reform, and of various polemical
writings called forth for the most part by the schism.
Whatever reservations may be made as to a certain
interested or ambitious side of his character, Pierre
d'Ailly, whose devotion to the cause of union and reform
is incontestable, remains one of the leading spirits of
the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--P. Tschackert, Peter van Ailli (Gotha, 1877);
L. Salembier, Petrus de Alliaco (Lille, 1886); H. Denifle
et Em. Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, t.
iii. (Paris, 1894); N. Valois, La France et le Grand Schisme
d'Occident (Paris, 4 vols., 1896-1902); and Bibliotheque de
l'ecole des chartes, vol. lxv., 1904, pp. 557-574. (N. V.)
AILSA CRAIG, an island rock at the mouth of the Firth of
Clyde, 10 m. W. of Girvan, Ayrshire, Scotland. It is of
conoidal form, with an irregular elliptic base, and rises
abruptly to a height of 1114 ft. The only side from which the
rock can be ascended is the east; the other sides being for
the most part perpendicular, and generally presenting lofty
columnar forms, though not so regular as those of Staffa. This
island is composed of micro-granite with riebeckite, of great
interest on account of the rare occurrence of this type in
Britain. It is comparatively fine-grained and of a greyish
colour. Its essential constituents are felspar, quartz and
riebeckite--a soda amphibole. The last of these minerals
occurs in small irregular patches between the idiomorphic
felspars which Dr J. J. H. Tean has found to be a soda
orthoclase. The rock is allied to paisanite described by
C. A. Osann and has been termed ailsite by Professor M. F.
Heddle. It forms part of an intrusive mass which, on the
south and west cliffs of the island, has a columnar arrangement
and is traversed by dykes of dolerite, most of which run in
a north-west direction. The age of this mass is uncertain,
as its relations to other rocks are not visible in the
island. As riebeckite-granophyre has been found in Skye it
may be of Tertiary age. The rock is a favourite material for
curling-stones, about three-fourths (according to estimate)
of those in use in the countries where the game obtains being
made of it. On this account curling-stones are popularly
known as ``Ailsas'' or ``Ailsa Craigs.'' A columnar cave
exists towards the northern side of the island, and on the
eastern are the remains of a tower, with several vaulted
rooms. Two springs occur and some scanty grass affords
subsistence to rabbits, and, on the higher levels, to
goats. The precipitous parts are frequented by large
flocks of solan geese and other sea birds. The lighthouse
on the southern side shows a flashing light visible for 13
m. In 1831 the twelfth earl of Cassillis became first marquis
of Ailsa, taking the title from the Craig, which was his
property. When John Keats was in Girvan during his Scottish
tour in 1818 he apostrophized the rock in a fine sonnet.
AIMAK, or EIMAK (Mongolian for ``clan,'' or section of a
tribe), the name given to certain nomadic or semi-nomadic
tribes of Mongolian stock inhabiting the north and north-west
Afghan highlands immediately to the north of Herat. They
were originally known as ``chahar (the four) Eimaks,''
because there were four principal tribes: the Taimani
(the predominating element in the population of Ghur), the
Ferozkhoi, the Jamshidi and, according to some authorities, the
Hazara. The Aimak peoples number upwards of a quarter of a
million, and speak a dialect said to be closely related to
the Kalmuck. They are Sunnite Mahommedans in distinction
from the Hazara who are Shiites. They are predominantly
of Iranian or quasi-Iranian blood, while the Hazara are
Turanian. They are a bold, wild people and renowned fighters.
AIMARD, GUSTAVE, the pen-name of OLIVIER GLOUX (1818-1883),
French novelist, who was born in Paris on the 13th of September
1818. He made use of the materials collected in a roving
and adventurous youth and early manhood in numerous romances
in the style of J. Fenimore Cooper. Among the best of
them are: Les Trappeurs de l'Arkansas (1858); La Grande
flibuste (1860); Nuits mexicaines (1863); La Foret
vierge (1870). He died in Paris on the 20th of June
1883. Many of his novels have been translated into English.
AIMOIN (c. 960-c. 1010), French chronicler, was born
at Villefranche de Longchapt about 960, and in early life
entered the monastery of Fleury, where he became a monk and
passed the greater part of his life. His chief work is a
Historia Francorum, or Libri v. de Gestis Francorum,
which deals with the history of the Franks from the earliest
times to 653, and was continued by other writers until the
middle of the 12th century. It was much in vogue during
the middle ages, but its historical value is now regarded as
slight. It has been edited by G. Waitz and published in
the Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores, Band xxvi.
(Hanover and Berlin, 1826-1892). He also wrote a Vita
Abbonis, abbatis Floriacensis, the last of a series of lives
of the abbots of Fleury, all of which, except the life of
Abbo, have been lost. This has been published by J. Mabillon
in the Acta sanctorum ordinis sancti Benedicti (Paris,
1668-1701). Aimoin's third work was the composition of books
ii. and iii. of the Miracula sancti Benedicti, the first
book of which was written by another monk of Fleury named
Adrevald. This also appears in the Acta sanctorum ordinis sancti
Benedicti. Aimoin, who died about 1010, must be distinguished
from Aimoin, a monk of St Germain-des-Pres, who wrote De
mircalis sancti Germani, and a fragment De Normanorum
gestis circa Parisiacam urbem et de divine in eos ultione
tempore Caroli calvi. Both of these are published in the
Historiae Francorum Scriptores, Tome ii. (Paris, 1639-1649).
See Histoire litteraire de la France, tome vii. (Paris, 1865-1869).
AIN, a department on the eastern frontier of France, formed
in 1790 from Bresse, the Pays de Gex, Bugey, Dombes and
Valromey, districts of Burgundy. It is bounded N. by the
departments of Jura and Saone-et-Loire, W. by Saone-et-Loire
and Rhone, S. by Isere, and E. by the departments of
Savoie and Haute-Savoie and the Swiss cantons Geneva and
Vaud. Pop. (1906) 345,856. Area 2248 sq. m. The department
takes its name from the river Ain, which traverses its centre
in a southerly direction and separates it roughly into two
well-marked physical divisions--a region of mountains to
the east. and of plains to the west. The mountainous region
is occupied by the southern portion of the Jura, which is
divided into parallel chains running north and south and
decreasing in height from east to west. The most easterly
of these chains, that forming the Pays de Gex in the extreme
north-east of the department, contains the Cret de la Neige
(6653 ft.) and other of the highest summits in the whole
range. The district of Bugey occupies the triangle formed
by the Rhone in the south-east of the depart- . ment. West
of the Ain, with the exception of the district covered by the
Revermont, the westernmost chain of the Jura, the country is
flat, consisting in the north of the south portion of the
Bresse, in the south of the marshy Dombes. The chief rivers of
the eastern region are the Valserine and the Seran, right-hand
tributaries of the Rhone, which forms the eastern and southern
boundary of the department; and the Albarine and Oignin,
left-hand aflluents of the Ain. The Bresse is watered by the
Veyle and the Reyssouze, both flowing into the Saone, which
washes the western limit of the department. The climate is
cold in the eastern and central districts of Ain, but it is on
the whole healthy, except in the Dombes. The average rainfall
is about 38 in. The soil in the valleys and plains of the
department, especially in the Bresse, is fertile, producing
large quantities of wheat, as well as oats, buckwheat and
maize. East of the Ain, forests of fir and oak abound on the
mountains, the lower slopes of which give excellent pasture for
sheep and cattle, and much cheese is produced. Horse-raising
is carried on in the Dombes. The pigs and fowls of the
Bresse and the geese and turkeys of the Dombes are largely
exported. The vineyards of Bugey and Revermont yield good
wines. The chief mineral product is the asphalt of the mines
of Seyssel on the eastern frontier, besides which potter's
clay, building stone, hydraulic lime and cement are produced
in the department. There are many corn and saw mills and
the wood-working industry is important. Silk fabrics, coarse
woollen cloth, paper and clocks are manufactured. Live-stock
and agricultural products are exported; the chief imports
are wood and raw silk. The department is within the judicial
circumscription of the appeal court of Lyons and the educational
circumscription (academie) of Lyons. It forms part of the
archiepiscopal province of Besancon. The Rhone and the Saone
are navigable for considerable distances in the department;
the chief railway is that of the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee
Company, whose line from Macon to Culoz traverses the
department. Ain is divided into five arrondissements--those
of Bourg and Trevoux in the west, and those of Gex, Nantua
and Belley in the east; containing in all 36 cantons and 455
communes. Bourg is the capital and Belley is the seat of a
bishop. Jujurieux, in the arrondissement of Nantua, has the most
important silk factory in the department, occupying over 1000
workpeople. Bellegarde on the eastern frontier is an industrial
centre; it has a manufactory of wood-pulp, and saw and flour
mills, power for which is obtained from the waters of the
Rhone, Oyonnax and its environs, north of Nantua, are noted
for the production of articles in wood and horn, especially
combs. St Rambert, in the arrondissement of Belley, besides
being of industrial importance for its manufactures of silk and
paper, possesses the remains of a Benedictine abbey, powerful
in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. The Gothic church
of Ambronay in the arrondissement of Belley, the church of
St Paul de Varax (about 9 m. S.W. of Bourg), a building in
the Romanesque style of Burgundy, and that of Nantua (12th
century), are of architectural interest. Ferney, 4 m. S.W. of
Gex, is famous as the residence of Voltaire from 1758-1778.
AINGER, ALFRED (1837-1904), English divine and man of letters,
was born in London on the 9th of February 1837, the son of an
architect. He was educated at King's College, London, and
at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was ordained in 1860 to a
curacy at Alrewas, near Rugeley. There he remained until 1864,
when he became an assistant master at the Sheffield Collegiate
School. His connexion with the Temple church, in London,
began in 1866, when he was appointed reader; and in 1894 he
succeeded Dr Vaughan as master. In 1887 he was presented to a
canonry in Bristol cathedral, and he was chaplain-in-ordinary
to Queen Victoria and King Edward VII. He died on the 8th
of February 1904. Canon Ainger's gentle wit and humour, his
generosity and lovable disposition, endeared him to a wide
circle. In literature his name is chiefly associated with
his sympathetic appreciation of Charles Lamb and Thomas
flood. His works include: Charles Lamb (1882) and Crabbe
(1903) in the ``English Men of Letters'' series; editions
of Lamb's Essays of Elia (1883) and of his Letters
(1888; 2nd ed., 1904), of the Poems (1897) of Thomas Hood,
with a biographical introduction; The Life and Works of
Charles Lamb (12 vols., 1899-1900), articles on Tennyson
and Du Maurier in the Dictionary of National Biography;
The Gospel and Human Life (1904), sermons; Lectures and
Essays (2 vols., 1905), edited by the Rev. H. C. Beeching.
See also Edith Sichel, The Life and Letters of Canon Ainger (1906).
AINMULLER, MAXIMILIAN EMMANUEL (1807-1870), German artist
and glass-painter, was born at Munich on the 14th of February
1807. By the advice of Gartner, director of the royal
porcelain manufactory, he devoted himself to the study of
glass-painting, both as a mechanical process and as an art,
and in 1828 he was appointed director of the newly-founded
royal painted-glass manufactory at Munich. The method
which he gradually perfected there was a development of the
enamel process adopted in the Renaissance, and consisted
in actually painting the design upon the glass, which was
subjected, as each colour was laid on, to carefully-adjusted
heating. The earliest specimens of Ainmuller's work are
to be found in the cathedral of Regensburg. With a few
exceptions, all the windows in Glasgow cathedral are from his
hand. Specimens may also be seen in St Paul's cathedral, and
Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Cologne cathedral contains some
of his finest productions. Ainmuller had considerable skill
as an oil-painter, especially in interiors, his pictures
of the Chapel Royal at Windsor and of Westminster Abbey
being much admired. He died on the 9th of December 1870.
AINSWORTH, HENRY (1571-1622), English Nonconformist divine
and scholar, was born of yeoman stock in 1570/1 at Swanton
Morley, Norfolk. He was for four years from December 1587 a
scholar of Caius College, Cambridge, and, after associating
with the Puritan party in the Church, eventually joined the
Separatists. Driven abroad about the year 1593, he found a
home in ``a blind lane at Amsterdam.'' He acted as ``porter''
to a scholarly bookseller in that city, who, on discovering
his skill in the Hebrew language, made him known to his
countrymen. When part of the London church, of which
Francis Johnson (then in prison) was pastor, reassembled in
Amsterdam, Ainsworth was chosen as their doctor or teacher.
In 1596 he took the lead in drawing up a confession of their
faith, which he reissued in Latin in 1598 and dedicated to
the various universities of Europe (including St Andrews,
Scotland). Johnson joined his flock in 1597, and in 1604 he
and Ainsworth composed An Apology or Defence of such true
Christians as are commonly but unjustly called Brownists. The
task of organizing the church was not easy and dissension was
rife. Of Ainsworth it may be said that, though often embroiled
in controversy, he never put himself forward; yet he was
the most steadfast and cultured champion of the principles
represented by the early Congregationalists. Amid all the
strife of controversy, he steadily pursued his rabbinical
studies. The combination was so unique that many, like the
encyclopaedists L. Moreri and J. H. Zedler, have made two
Henry Ainsworths--one Dr Henry Ainsworth, a learned biblical
commentator; the other H. Ainsworth, an arch-heretic and ``the
ringleader of the Separatists at Amsterdam.'' Some confusion
has also been occasioned through his not unfriendly controversy
with one John Ainsworth, who abjured the Anglican for the Roman
church. In 1608 Ainsworth answered Richard Bernard's The
Separatist Schisme. But his ablest and most arduous minor
work in controversy was his reply to John Smyth (commonly
called ``the Se-Baptist''), entitled a Defence of Holy
Scripture, Worship and Ministry used in the Christian Churches
separated from Antichrist, against the Challenges, Cavils
and Contradictions of Mr Smyth (1609). In 1610 he was
forced reluctantly to withdraw, with a large part of their
church, from F. Johnson and those who adhered to him. For
some time a difference of principle, as to the church's right
to revise its officers' decisions, had been growing between
them, Ainsworth taking the more Congregational view. (See
CONGREGATIONALISM.) But in spirit he remained a man of
peace. His memory abides through his rabbinical learning. The
ripe fruit of many years' labour appeared in his Annotations--on
Genesis (1616); Exodus (1617); Leviticus (1618); Numbers
(1619); Deuteronomy (1619); Psalms (including a metrical
version, 1612); Song of Solomon (1623). These were collected
in folio in 1627, and again in 1639, and later in various
forms. From the outset the Annotations took a commanding
place, especially among continental scholars, and he
established for English nonconformity a tradition of culture and
scholarship. There is no probability about the narrative
given by Neal in his History of the Puritans (ii. 47) that
he was poisoned by certain Jews. He died in 1622, or early
in 1623, for in that year was published his Seasonable
Discourse, or a Censure upon a Dialogue of the Anabaptists,
in which the editor speaks of him as a departed worthy.
LITERATURE.--John Worthington's Diary (Chetham
Society), by Crossley, i. 263-266; works of John Robinson
(1851); H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism of the Last
Three Hundred Years (1880); W. E. A. Axon, H. Ainsworth,
the Puritan Commentator (1889); F. J. Powicke, Henry
Barrow and the Exiled Church of Amsterdam (1900), J. H.
Shakespeare, Baptist and Congregational Pioneers (1906).
AINSWORTH, ROBERT (1660-1743), English schoolmaster and
author, was born at Eccles, near Manchester, in September
1660. After teaching for some time at Lever's Grammar
School in Bolton, he removed to London, where he conducted a
boarding-school, first at Bethnal Green and then at Hackney.
He soon made a moderate fortune which gave him leisure to
pursue his classical studies. Ainsworth's name is associated
with his Latin-English Dictionary, begun in 1714, and published
in 1736 as Thesaurus linguae Latinae compendiarius. It was
long extensively used in schools, and often reprinted, the
later editions being revised and enlarged by other hands,
but it is now superseded. Ainsworth was also the author of
some useful works on classical antiquities, and a sensible
treatise on education, entitled The most Natural and Easy
Way of Institution (1698), in which he advocates the teaching
of Latin by conversational methods and deprecates punishment
of any sort. He died in London on the 4th of April 1743.
AINSWORTH, WILLIAM HARRISON (1805-1882), English novelist,
son of Thomas Ainsworth, solicitor, was born at Manchester
on the 4th of February 1805. He was educated at Manchester
Grammar School and articled to the firm of which his father
was a member, proceeding to London in 1824 to complete his
legal training at the Inner Temple. At the age of twenty-one
he married a daughter of John Ebers the publisher, and started
in his father-in-law's line of business. This, however,
soon proved unprofitable and he decided to attempt literary
work. A novel called Sir John Chiverton, in which he appears
to have had a share, had attracted the praise of Sir Walter
Scott, and this encouragement decided him to take up fiction
as a career. In 1834 he published Rookwood, which had an
immediate success, and thenceforth he was always occupied
with the compilation of ``historical'' novels. He published
about forty such stories, of which the best-known are
Jack Sheppard (1839), The Tower Oglondon (1840), Guy
Fawkes (1841), Old St Paul's (1841) and Windsor Castle
(1843). He edited Bentley's Miscellany, in which Jack
Sheppard was published as a serial, and in 1842 he became
proprietor of Ainsworth's Magazine. In 1853 it ceased to
appear, and Ainsworth bought the New Monthly Magazine. He
continued his literary activity until his death, but his later
stories were less striking than the earlier ones. He died at
Reigate on the 3rd of January 1882 and was buried at Kensal
Green. Ainsworth had a lively talent for plot, and his books
have many attractive qualities. The glorification of Dick
Turpin in Rookwood, and of Jack Sheppard in the novel that
bears his name, caused considerable outcry among straitlaced
elders. In his later novels Ainsworth confined himself to
heroes less open to criticism. His style was not without
archaic affectation and awkwardness, but when his energies were
aroused by a striking situation he could be brisk, vigorous
and impressive. He did a great deal to interest the less
educated classes in the historical romances of their country,
and his tales were invariably instructive, clean and manly.
AINTAB (anc. Doliche), a town in the vilayet of Aleppo
and ancient Cyrrhestica district of N. Syria. Pop. 45,000,
two-thirds Moslem. The site of Doliche, famous for its
worship of Baal (Zeus Dolichenus), adopted by the Seleucids
and eventually spread all over the Roman empire, lies at
Duluk, two hours N.W.; but nothing is to be seen there except a
mound. The place was probably of Hittite origin and does not
appear to have been settled by Greeks. The bazaars of Aintab
are a great centre for ``Hittite'' antiquities, found at
various sites from Sakchegozu on the west to Jerablus on the
east. The modern town lies in the open treeless valley of
the Sajur, a tributary of the Euphrates, and on the right
bank, 65 m. north-east of Aleppo, with which it is connected
by a chaussee, passing through Kulis. This road proceeds
east to the great crossing of Euphrates at Birejik, and thus
Aintab lies on the highway between N. Syria and Urfa-Mosul
and has much transit trade and numerous khans. In the middle
ages its strong castle (Hamtab) was an important strategic
point, taken by Saladin about A.D. 1183; and it supplied the
last base from which Ibrahim Pasha marched in 1839 to win his
decisive victory over the Turksat Nezib, about 25 m. distant
north-east. Lying high (3500 ft.) and swept by purifying
winds, Aintab is a comparatively clean and healthy spot,
though not free from ophthalmia and the ``Aleppo button,''
and it has been selected by the American Mission Board as its
centre for N. Syria ``Central Turkey College,'' educational
and medical, lies on high ground west. It was burnt down in
1891, but rebuilt; it has a dependency for girls within the
town. Thanks to its presence the Armenian protestants are a
large and rich community, which suffered less in the massacre
of 1895 than the Gregorians. There is a small Episcopalian
body, which has a large unfinished church, and a schismatic
``catholicos,'' who has vainly tried to gain acceptance into
the Anglican communion. There is also a flourishing Franciscan
mission. Striped cloths and pekmez, a sweet paste made
from grapes, are the principal manufactures; and tobacco
and cereals the principal cultures. The town is unusually
well and solidly built, good stone being obtained near at
hand. The Moslem inhabitants are mainly of Turkoman origin,
and used to owe fealty to chieftains of the family of Chapan
Oglu, whose headquarters were at Yuzgat in Cappadocia. (D. G. H.)
AINU (``man''), a race inhabiting the northernmost islands
of Japan. Little definite is known about their earliest
history, but it is improbable that they are, as has been
urged, the aborigines of Japan. The most accurate researches
go to prove that they were immigrants, who reached Yezo
from the Kuriles, and subsequently crossing Tsugaru
strait, colonized a great part of the main island of Japan,
exterminating a race of pit-dwellers to whom they gave the
name of koro-pok-guru (men with sunken places). These
koro-pok-guru were of such small stature as to be considered
dwarfs. They wore skins of animals for clothing, and that
they understood the potter's art and used flint arrow-heads
is clearly proved by excavations at the sites of their
pits. The Ainu, on the contrary, never had any knowledge of
pottery. Ultimately the Ainu, coming into contact with the
Japanese, who had immigrated from the south and west, were
driven northward into the island of Yezo, where, as well as
in the Kuriles and in the southern part of Sakhalin, they are
still found in some numbers. When, at the close of the 18th
and the beginning of the 19th century, Russian enterprises
drew the attention of the Japanese government to the northern
districts of the empire, the Tokugawa shoguns adopted towards
the Ainu a policy of liberality and leniency consistent with
the best principles of modern colonization. But the doom
of unfitness appears to have begun to overtake the race long
ago. History indicates that in ancient times they were
fierce fighters, able to offer a stout resistance to the
incomparably better armed and more civilized Japanese.
To-day they are drunken, dirty, spiritless folk, whom it is
difficult to suppose capable of the warlike role they once
played. Their number, between 16,000 and 17,000, is virtually
stationary. The Ainu are somewhat taller than the Japanese,
stoutly built, well proportioned, with dark-brown eyes, high
cheek-bones, short broad noses and faces lacking length.
The hairiness of the Ainu has been much exaggerated. They
are not more hairy than many Europeans. Never shaving after
a certain age, the men have full beards and moustaches, but
the stories of Ainu covered with hair like a bear are quite
unjustified by facts. Men and women alike cut their hair
level with the shoulders at the sides of the head, but trim
it semicircularly behind. The women tattoo their mouths,
arms, and sometimes their foreheads, using for colour the
smut deposited on a pot hung over a fire of birch bark.
Their original dress is a robe spun from the bark of the elm
tree. It has long sleeves, reaches nearly to the feet, is
folded round the body and tied with a girdle of the same
material. Females wear also an undergarment of Japanese
cloth. In winter the skins of animals are worn, with leggings
of deerskin and boots made from the skin of dogs or salmon.
Both sexes are fond of ear-rings, which are said to have been
made of grape-vine in former times, but are now purchased from
the Japanese, as also are bead necklaces, which the women prize
highly. Their food is meat, whenever they can procure
it--the flesh of the bear, the fox, the wolf, the badger, the
ox or the horse--fish, fowl, millet, vegetables, herbs and
roots. They never eat raw fish or flesh, but always either
boil or roast it. Their habitations are reed-thatched huts,
the largest 20 ft. square, without partitions and having a
fireplace in the centre. There is no chimney, but only a
hole at the angle of the roof; there is one window on the
eastern side and there are two doors. Public buildings do
not exist, whether in the shape of inn, meeting-place or
temple. The furniture of their dwellings is exceedingly
scanty. They have no chairs, stools or tables, but sit on
the floor, which is covered with two layers of mats, one of
rush, the other of flag; and for beds they spread planks,
hanging mats around them on poles, and employing skins for
coverlets. The men use chop-sticks and moustache-lifters
when eating; the women have wooden spoons. Uncleanliness is
characteristic of the Ainu, and all their intercourse with the
Japanese has not improved them in that respect. The Rev. John
Batchelor, in his Notes on the Ainu, says that he lived in
one Ainu habitation for six weeks on one occasion, and for
two months on another, and that he never once saw personal
ablutions performed, or cooking or eating utensils washed.
Not having been at any period acquainted with the art of
writing, they have no literature and are profoundly ignorant.
But at schools established for them by the Japanese in recent
times, they have shown that their intellectual capacity is not
deficient. No distinct conception of a universe enters
into their cosmology. They picture to themselves many
floating worlds, yet they deduce the idea of rotundity from
the course of the sun, and they imagine that the ``Ainu
world'' rests on the back of a fish whose movements cause
earthquakes. It is scarcely possible to doubt that this fancy
is derived from the Japanese, who used to hold an identical
theory. The Ainu believe in a supreme Creator, but also in a
sun-god, a moon-god, a water-god and a mountain-god, deities
whose river is the Milky Way, whose voices are heard in
the thunder and whose glory is reflected in the lightning.
Their chief object of actual worship appears to be the bear.
Miss Isabella Bird (Mrs Bishop) writes: ``The peculiarity
which distinguishes their rude mythology is the worship
of the bear, the Yezo bear being one of the finest of his
species. But it is impossible to understand the feelings
by which this cult is prompted, for although they worship
the animal after their fashion and set up its head in their
villages, yet they trap it, kill it, eat it and sell its
skin. There is no doubt that this wild beast inspires more
of the feeling which prompts worship than the inanimate
forces of nature, and the Ainos may be distinguished as
bear-worshippers, and their greatest religious festival or
saturnalia as the Festival of the Bear.... Some of their rude
chants are in praise of the bear, and their highest eulogy on
a man is to compare him to a bear.'' They have no priests by
profession. The village chief performs whatever religious
ceremonies are necessary; ceremonies confined to making libations
of wine, uttering short prayers and offering willow sticks
with wooden shavings attached to them, much as the Japanese
set up the well-known gohei (sacred offerings) at certain
spots. The Ainu gives thanks to the gods before eating, and
prays to the deity of fire in time of sickness. He thinks
that his spirit is immortal, and that it will be rewarded
hereafter in heaven or punished in hell, both of which places
are beneath the earth, hell being the land of volcanoes;
but he has no theory as to a resurrection of the body or
metempsychosis. He preserves a tradition about a flood
which seems to be the counterpart of the Biblical deluge, and
about an earthquake which lasted a hundred days, produced the
three volcanoes of Yezo and created the island by bridging
the waters that had previously separated it into two parts.
The Ainu are now governed by Japanese laws and judged by
Japanese tribunals, but in former times their affairs were
administered by hereditary chiefs, three in each village,
and for administrative purposes the country was divided into
three districts, Saru, Usu and Ishikari, which were under the
ultimate control of Saru, though the relations between their
respective inhabitants were not close and intermarriages were
avoided. The functions of judge were not entrusted to these
chiefs; an indefinite number of a community's members sat
in judgment upon its criminals. Capital punishment did not
exist, nor was imprisonment resorted to, beating being
considered a sufficient and final penalty, except in the
case of murder, when the nose and ears of the assassin were
cut off or the tendons of his feet severed. Little as the
Japanese and the Ainu have in common, intermarriages are
not infrequent, and at Sambutsu especially, on the eastern
coast, many children of such marriages may be seen.
Doenitz, Hilgendorf and Dr B. Scheube, arguing from a minute
investigation of the physical traits of the Ainu, have concluded
that they are Mongolians; according to Professor A. H. Keane
the Ainu ``are quite distinct from the surrounding Mongolic
peoples, and present several remarkable physical characters
which seem to point to a remote connexion with the Caucasic
races. Such are a very full beard, shaggy or wavy black or
dark-brown hair, sometimes covering the back and chest; a
somewhat fair or even white complexion, large nose, straight
eyes and regular features, often quite handsome and of European
type. They seem to be a last remnant of the Neolithic
peoples, who ranged in prehistoric times across the northern
hemisphere from the British Isles to Manchuria and Japan.
They are bear-worshippers, and have other customs in common
with the Manchurian aborigines, but the language is entirely
different, and they have traditions of a time when they were
the dominant people in the surrounding lands.'' It should be
noted finally that the Ainu are altogether free from ferocity or
exclusiveness, and that they treat strangers with gentle kindness.
See Rev. John Batchelor, The Ainu and their Folk-lore
(London, 1901); Romyn Hitchcock, The Ainos of Japan
(Washington, 1892); H. von Siebold, Uber die Aino
(Berlin, 1881); Isabella Bird (Mrs Bishop), Korea and her
Neighbours (1898); Basil Hall Chamberlain, Language,
Mythology and Geographical Nomenclature of Japan viewed in
the Light of Aino Studies and Aino Fairy-tales (1895).
AIR, or ASBEN, a country of West Africa, lying between
15 deg. and 19 deg. N. and 6 deg. and 10 deg. E. It is within the
Sahara, of which it forms one of the most fertile regions.
The northern portion of the country is mountainous, some
of the peaks rising to a height of 5000 ft. Richly wooded
hollows and extensive plains are interspersed between the
hills. The mimosa, the dum palm and the date are abundant.
Some of the plains afford good pasturage for camels, asses,
goats and cattle; others are desert tablelands. In the less
frequented districts wild animals abound, notably the lion
and the gazelle. The country generally is of sandstone or
granite formation, with occasional trachyte and basaltic
ranges. There are no permanent rivers; but during the rainy
season, from August to October, heavy floods convert the
water-courses in the hollows of the mountains into broad and
rapid streams. Numerous wells supply the wants of the people
and their cattle. To the south of this variegated region
lies a desert plateau, 2000 ft. above sea-level, destitute of
water, and tenanted only by the wild ox, the ostrich and the
giraffe. Still farther south is the fairly fertile district of
Damerghu, of which Zinder is the chief town. Little of the
soil is under cultivation except in the neighbourhood of the
villages. Millet, dates, indigo and senna are the principal
productions. The great bulk of the food supplies is brought from
Damerghu, and the materials for clothing are also imported. A
great caravan annually passes through Air, consisting of several
thousand camels, carrying salt from Bilma to the Hausa states.
Air was called Asben by the native tribes until they were
conquered by the Berbers. The present inhabitants are for
the most part of a mixed race, combining the finer traits
of the berbers with negro characteristics. The sultan of
Air is to a great extent dependent on the chiefs of the
Tuareg tribes inhabiting a vast tract of the Sahara to the
north-west. A large part of his revenue is derived from
tribute exacted from the salt caravans. Since 1890 Air has
been included in the French sphere of influence in West Africa.
Agades, the capital of the country, which has a circuit of 3 1/2
m., is built on the edge of a plateau 2500 ft. high, and is
supposed to have been founded by the Berbers to serve as a
secure magazine for their extensive trade with the Songhoi
empire. The language of the people is a dialect of Songhoi.
In former times Agades was a place of great traffic, and had
a population of about 50,000. Since the beginning of the 16th
century the prosperity of the town has, however, gradually
declined. F. Foureau, who visited Agades in 1899, stated that
more than half the total area was deserted and ruinous. The
houses, which are built of clay, are low and flat-roofed;
and the only buildings of importance are the chief mosque,
which is surmounted by a tower 95 ft. high, and the sultan's
residence, a massive two-storied structure pierced with small
windows. The chief trade is grain. The great salt caravans
pass through it, as well as pilgrims on their way to Mecca.
AIR (from an Indo-European root meaning ``breathe,'' ``blow''),
the atmosphere that surrounds the earth; aer, the lower thick
air, being distinguished from aither, With the development
of analytical and especially of pneumatic chemistry, the air
was recognized not to be one homogeneous substance, as was
long supposed, and different ``airs,'' or gases, came to be
distinguished. Thus oxygen gas, at the end of the 18th
century, was known as dephlogisticated air, nitrogen or
azote as phlogisticated air, hydrogen as inflammable air,
carbonic acid gas as fixed air. The name is now ordinarily
restricted to what is more accurately called atmospheric
air--the air we breathe--the invisible elastic fluid which
surrounds the earth (see ATMOSPHERE.) Probably the sense
of atmosphere or environment led (though this is disputed
by etymologists) to the further use of the word ``air'' to
mean ``manner'' or ``appearance''; and so to its employment
(cf. Lat. modus) in music for ``melody.'' (See ARIA.)
AIRAY, HENRY (1560?-1616), English Puritan divine, was
born at Kentmere, Westmorland, but no record remains of the
date of either birth or baptism. He was the son of William
Airay, the favourite servant of Bernard Gilpin, ``the apostle
of the North,'' whose bounty showed itself in sending Henry
and his brother Evan (or Ewan) to his own endowed school,
where they were educated ``in grammatical learning,'' and
were in attendance at Oxford when Gilpin died. From Wood's
Athenae we glean the details of Airay's college attendance.
``He was sent to St Edmund's hall in 1579, aged nineteen or
thereabouts. Soon after he was translated to Queen's
College, where he became pauper puer serviens; that is, a
poor serving child that waits on the fellows in the common
hall at meals, and in their chambers, and does other servile
work about the college.'' His transference to Queen's is
perhaps explained by its having been Gilpin's college, and
by his Westmorland origin giving him a claim on Eaglesfield's
foundation. He graduated B.A. on the 19th of June 1583,
M.A. on the 15th of June 1586, B.D. in 1504 and D.D. on
the 17th of June 1600--all in Queen's College. ``About the
time he was master'' (1586) ``he entered holy orders, and
became a frequent and zealous preacher in the university.''
His Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians (1618,
reprinted 1864) is a specimen of his preaching before his
college, and of his fiery denunciation of popery and his
fearless enunciation of that Calvinism which Oxford in common
with all England then prized. In 1598 he was chosen provost
of his college, and in 1606 was vice-chancellor of the
university. In the discharge of his vice-chancellor's duties
he came into conflict with Laud, who even thus early was
manifesting his antagonism to the prevailing Puritanism.
He was also rector of Otmore (or Otmoor), near Oxford, a living
which involved him in a trying but successful litigation,
whereof later incumbents reaped the benefit. He died on
the 6th of October 1610. His character as a man, preacher,
divine, and as an important ruler in the university, will be
found portrayed in the Epistle by John Potter, prefixed to
the Commentary. He must have been a fine specimen of the
more cultured Puritans --possessed of a robust common-sense
in admirable contrast with some of his contemporaries.
AIRD, THOMAS (1802-1876), Scottish poet, was born at Bowden,
Roxburghshire, on the 28th of August 1802. He was educated at
Edinburgh University, where he made the acquaintance of Carlyle
and James Hogg, and he decided to devote himself to literary
work. He published Martzoufie, a Tragedy, with other Poems
(1826), a volume of essays, and a long narrative poem in
several cantos, The Captive of Fez (1830). For a year he
edited the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, and for twenty-eight
years the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Herald. In 1848 he
published a collected edition of his poems, which met with much
favour. Carlyle said that he found in them ``a healthy breath
as of mountain breezes.'' Among Aird's other friends were De
Quincey, Lockhart, Stanley (afterwards dean of Westminster) and
Motherwell. He died at Dumfries on the 25th of April 1876.
AIRDRIE, a municipal and police burgh of Lanarkshire,
Scotland. Pop. (1901) 22,228. It is situated 11 m. E. of
Glasgow by the North British railway, and also communicates with
Glasgow by the Monkland Canal (which passes within 1 m. of the
town), as well as by the Caledonian railway via Coatbridge and
Whiffiet. The canal was constructed between 1761 and 1790,
and connects with the Forth and Clyde Canal near Maryhill.
Airdrie was a market town in 1695, but owes its prosperity to
the great coal and iron beds in its vicinity. Other industries
include iron and brass foundries, engineering, manufactures
of woollens and calicoes, silk-weaving, paper-making, oil and
fireclay. The public buildings comprise the town hall, county
buildings, mechanics' institute, academy, two fever hospitals
and free library, the burgh having been the first town in
Scotland to adopt the Free Library Act. Airdrie unites with
Falkirk. Hamilton, Lanark and Linlithgow in sending one member to
parliament. The parish of New Monkland, in which Airdrie
lies, was formed (with Old Monkland)in 1640 out of the ancient
barony of Monkland, so named from the fact that it was part
of the lands granted by Malcolm IV. to the monks of Newbattle.
AIRE, a town of south-western France, in the department
of Landes, on the left bank of the Adour, 22 m. S.E. of
Mont-de-Marsan on the Southern railway between Morcenx and
Tarbes. Pop. (1906) 2283. It is the seat of a bishopric, and
has a cathedral of the 12th century and an episcopal palace of
the 11th, 17th and 18th centuries. Both have undergone frequent
restoration. They are surpassed in interest by the church
of St Quitterie in Mas d'Aire, the suburb south-west of the
town. The latter is a brick building of the 13th and 14th
centuries, with a choir in the Romanesque style, and a fine
western portal which has been much disfigured. The crypt
contains several Gallo-Roman tombs and the sarcophagus (5th
century) of St Quitterie. Aire has two ecclesiastical seminaries.
Aire (Atura, Vicus Julii) was the residence of the kings of
the Visigoths, One of whom, Alaric II. (q.v.), there drew
up his famous code. The bishopric dates from the 5th century.
AIRE, a town of northern France, on the river Lys, in the
department of Pas-de-Calais, 12 m. S.S.E. of St Omer by
rail. Pop. (1906) 4258. The town lies in a low and
marshy situation at the junction of three canals. The
chief buildings are the church of St Pierre (15th and 16th
centuries), which has an imposing tower and rich interior
decoration; a hotel de ville of the 18th century; and the
Bailliage (16th century), a small building in the Renaissance
style. Aire has flour-mills, leather and oil works, and
nail manufactories, and trade in agricultural produce.
In the middle ages Aire belonged to the counts of Flanders,
from whom in 1188 it received a charter, which is still
extant. It was given to France by the peace of Utrecht 1713.
AIR-ENGINE, the name given to heat-engines which use air for
their working substance, that is to say for the substance which
is caused alternately to expand and contract by application
and removal of heat, this process enabling a portion of the
applied heat to be transformed into mechanical work. Just
as the working substance which alternately takes in and gives
out heat in the steam-engine is water (converted during a
part of the action into steam), so in the air-engine it is
air. The practical drawbacks to employing air as the working
substance of a heat-engine are so great that its use has been very
limited. Such attempts as have been made to design air-engines
on a large scale have been practical failures, and are now
interesting only as.steps in the historical development of
applied thermodynamics. In the form of motors for producing
very small amounts of power air-engines have been found
convenient, and within a restricted field they are still met
with. But even in this field the competition of the
oil-engine and the gas-engine is too formidable to leave to
the air-engine more than a very narrow chance of employment.
One of the chief practical objections to air-engines is the
great bulk of the working substance in relation to the amount
of heat that is utilized in the working of the engine. To
some extent this objection may be reduced by using the air
in a state of compression, and therefore of greater density,
throughout its operation. Even then, however, the amount of
operative heat is very small in comparison with that which
passes through the steam-engine, per cubic foot swept through
by the piston, for the change of state which water undergoes
in its transformation into steam involves the taking in of
much more heat than can be communicated to air in changing its
temperature within such a range as is practicable. Another
and not less serious objection is the practical difficulty
of getting heat into the working air through the walls of the
containing vessel. The air receives heat from an external
furnace just as water does in the boiler of a steam-engine,
by contact with a heated metallic surface, but it takes up
heat from such a surface with much less readiness than does
water. The waste of heat in the chimney gases is accordingly
greater; and further, the metallic shell is liable to be
quickly burned away as a result of its contact at a high
temperature with free oxygen. The temperature of the shell
is much higher than that of a steam boiler, for in order to
secure that the working air will take up a fair amount of
heat, the upper limit to which its temperature is raised
greatly exceeds that of even high-pressure steam. This
objection to the air-engine arises from the fact that the
heat comes to it from external combustion; it disappears
when internal combustion is resorted to; that is to say,
when the heat is generated within the envelope containing
the working air, by the combustion there of gaseous or other
fuel. Gas-engines and oil-engines and other types of engine
employing internal combustion may be regarded as closely
related to the air-engine. They differ from it, however, in
the fact that their working substance is not air, but a mixture
of gases--a necessary consequence of internal combustion. It
is to internal combustion that they owe their success, for it
enables them to get all the heat of combustion into the working
substance, to use a relatively very high temperature at the
top of the range, and at the same time to escape entirely
the drawbacks that arise in the air-engine proper through the
need of conveying heat to the air through a metallic shell.
A form of air-engine which was invented in 1816 by the
Rev. R. Stirling is of special interest as embodying the
earliest application of what is known as the ``regenerative''
principle, the principle namely that heat may be deposited
by a substance at one stage of its action and taken up again
at another stage with but little loss, and with a great
resulting change in the substance's temperature at each of the
two stages in the operation. The principle has since found
wide application in metallurgical and other operations. In
any heat-engine it is essential that the working substance
should be at a high temperature while it is taking in heat,
and at a relatively low temperature when it is rejecting
heat. The highest thermodynamic efficiency will be reached
when the working substance is at the top of its temperature
range while any heat is being received and at the bottom while
any heat is being rejected--as is the case in the cycle of
operations of the theoretically imagined engine of Carnot.
(See THERMODYNAMICS and STEAM-ENGINE.) In Carnot's cycle
the substance takes in heat at its highest temperature, then
passes by adiabatic expansion from the top to the bottom of
its temperature range, then rejects heat at the bottom of the
range, and is finally brought back by adiabatic compression
to the highest temperature at which it again takes in heat,
and so on. An air-engine working on this cycle would be
intolerably bulky and mechanically inefficient. Stirling
substituted for the two stages of adiabatic expansion and
compression the passage of the air to and fro through a
``regenerator,'' in which the air was alternately cooled
by storing its heat in the material of the regenerator and
reheated by picking the stored heat up again on the return
journey. The essential parts of one form of Stirling's engine
are shown in fig. 1. There A is the externally fired heating
vessel, the lower part of which contains hot air which is
taking in heat from the furnace beneath. A pipe from the
top of A leads to the working cylinder (B). At the top of
A is a cooler (C) consisting of pipes through which cold
water is made to circulate. In A there is a displacer (D)
which is connected (by parts not shown) with the piston in
such a manner that it moves down when the piston has moved
up. The air-pressure is practically the same above and
below D, for these spaces are in free communication with
one another through the regenerator (E), which is an annular
space stacked loosely with wire-gauze. When D moves down,
the hot air is driven up through the regenerator to the upper
part of the containing vessel. It deposits its heat in the
wire-gauze, becoming lowered in temperature and consequently
reduced in pressure. The piston (B) descends, and the air,
now in contact with the cooling pipes (C), gives up heat to
them. Then the displacer (D) is raised. The air passes down
through its regenerator, picking up the heat deposited there,
and thereby having its temperature restored and its pressure
raised. It then takes in heat from the furnace, expanding in
volume and forcing the piston (B) to rise, which completes the
cycle. The engine was double-acting, another heating vessel
like A being connected with the upper end of the working cylinder
at F. The stages at which heat is taken from the furnace and
rejected to the cooler (C) are approximately isothermal at the
upper and lower limits of temperature respectively, and the cycle
accordingly is approximately ``perfect'' in the thermodynamic
sense. The theoretical indicator diagram is made up of two
isothermal lines for the taking in and rejection of heat, and
two lines of constant volume for the two passages through the
regenerator. This engine was the subject of two patents
(by R. and S. Stirling) in 1827 and 1840. A double-acting
Stirling engine of 50 horse-power, using air which was
maintained by a pump at a fairly high pressure throughout the
operations, was used for some years in the Dundee Foundry,
where it is oredited with having consumed only 1.7 lb. of coal
per hour per indicated horse-power. The coal consumption per
brake-horse-power was no doubt much greater. It was finally
abandoned on account of the failure of the heating vessels.
The type survives in some small domestic motors, an example of
which, manufactured under the patent of H. Robinson, is shown
in fig. 2. In this there is no compressing pump, and the main
pressure of the working air is simply that of the atmosphere.
The whole range of pressure is so slight that no packing is
required. Here A is the vessel in which the air is heated
and within which the displacer works. It is heated by a small
cokefire or by a gas flame in C. It communicates through a
passage (D) with the working cylinder (B) . The displacer (E)
which takes its motion through a rod (I) from a rocking lever
(F) connected by a short link to the crank-pin, is itself the
regenerator, its construction being such that the air passes
up and down through it as in one of the original Stirling
forms. The cooler is a water vessel (G) through which water
circulates from a tank (H). Ylessrs. Hayward and Tyler's
``Rider'' engine may be mentioned as another small hot-air
motor which follows nearly the Stirling cycle of operations.
An attempt to develop a powerful air-engine was made in
America about 1833 by John Ericsson, who applied it to marine
propulsion in the ship ``Caloric,'' but without permanent
success. Like Stirling, Ericsson used a regenerator, but with
this difference that the pressure instead of the volume of the air
remained constant while it passed in each direction through the
regenerator. Cold air was compressed by a. pump into a receiver,
where it was kept cool during compression and from which it
passed through a regenerator into the working cylinder. In
so passing it took up heat and expanded. It was then allowed
to expand further, taking in heat from a furnace under the
cylinder and falling in pressure. This expansion was continued
till the pressure of the working air fell nearly to that of the
atmosphere. It was then discharged through the regenerator,
depositing heat for the next charge of air in turn to take
up. The indicator diagram approximated to a form made up
of two isothermal lines and two lines of constant pressure.
In the transmission of power by compressed air (see POWER
TRANSMISSION) the air-driven motors are for the most part
machines resembling steam-engines in the general features of
their pistons, cylinders, valves and so forth. Such machines
are not properly described as air-engines since their function
is not the conversion of heat into work. Incidentally,
however, they do in some cases partially discharge that
function, namely, when what is called a ``preheater'' is used
to warm up the compressed air before it enters in the motor
cylinder. The object of this device is not, primarily, to
produce work from heat, but to escape the inconveniences
that would otherwise arise through extreme cooling of the
air during its expansion. Without preheating the expanding
air becomes so cold as to be liable to deposit snow from
the moisture held in suspension, and thereby to clog the
valves. With preheating this is avoided, and the amount
of work done by a given quantity of air is increased by the
conversion into work of a part of the supplementary energy
which the preheater supplies in the form of heat. (J. A. E.)
AIREY, RICHARD AIREY, BARON (1803-1881), British general,
was the son of Lieutenant-General Sir George Airey (1761-1833)
and was born in 1803. He entered the army in 1821, became
captain in 1825, and served on the staff of Sir Frederick
Adam in the Ionian Islands (1827-1830) and on that of Lord
Aylmer in North America (1830-1832). In 1838 Airey, then a
lieutenant-colonel, went to the Horse Guards, where in 1852
he became military secretary to the commander-in-chief, Lord
Hardinge. In 1854 he was given a brigade command in the
army sent out to the East; from which, however, he was
immediately transferred to the onerous and difficult post
of quartermaster-general to Lord Raglan, in which capacity
he served through the campaign in the Crimea. He was made
a major-general in December 1854, and it was universally
recognized in the army that he was the best soldier on Lord
Raglan's staff. He was made a K.C.B., and was reported upon
most favourably by his superiors, Lord Raglan and Sir J.
Simpson. Airey was a quartermaster-general in the older
sense of the word, i.e. a chief of the general staff, but a
different view of the duties of the office was then becoming
recognized. Public opinion held him and his department
responsible for the failures and mismanagement of the
commissariat. Airey demanded an inquiry on his return to
England and cleared himself completely, but he never recovered
from the effects of the unjust persecution of which he
had been made the victim, though the popular view was not
shared by his military superiors. He gave up his post at
the front to become quartermaster-general to the forces at
home. In 1862 he was promoted lieutenant-general, and
from 1865 to 1870 he was governor of Gibraltar, receiving
the G.C.B. in 1867. In 1870 he became adjutant-general
at headquarters, and in 1871 attained the full rank of
general. In 1876, on his retirement, he was created a
peer, and in 1879-1880 he presided over the celebrated Airey
commission on army reform. He died at the house of Lord
Wolseley, at Leatherhead, on the 14th of September 1881.
AIR-GUN, a gun in which the force employed to propel the
bullet is the elasticity of compressed atmospheric air.
It has attached to it, or constructed in it, a reservoir of
compressed air, a portion of which, liberated into the space
behind the bullet when the trigger is pulled, propels the
bullet from the barrel by its expansion. The common forms of
air-gun, which are merely toys, are charged by compressing a
spiral spring, one end of which forms a piston working in a
cylinder; when released by a pull on the trigger, this spring
expands, and the air forced out in front of it propels the
bullet. Air-guns of this kind are sometimes made to
resemble walking-sticks and are then known as air-canes.
AIRY, SIR GEORGE BIDDELL (1801-1892), British Astronomer
Royal, was born at Alnwick on the 27th of July 1801.
He came of a long line of Airys who traced their descent
back to a family of the same name residing at Eentmere, in
Westmorland, in the 14th century; but the branch to which
he belonged, having suffered in the Civil wars, removed to
Lincolnshire, where for several generations they lived as
farmers. George Airy was educated first at elementary
schools in Hereford, and afterwards at Colchester Grammar
School. In 1819 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a
sizar. Here he had a brilliant career, and seems to have
been almost immediately recognized as the leading man of his
year. In 1822 he was elected scholar of Trinity, and in the
following year he graduated as senior wrangler and obtained
first Smith's prize. On the 1st of October 1824 he was
elected fellow of Trinity, and in December 1826 was appointed
Lucasian professor of mathematics in succession to Thomas
Turton. This chair he held for little more than a year, being
elected in February 1828 Plumian professor of astronomy and
director of the new Cambridge observatory. Some idea of his
activity as a writer on mathematical and physical subjects
during these early years may be gathered from the fact that
previous to this appointment he had contributed no less than
three important memoirs to the Philisophical Transactions of
the Royal Society, and eight to the Cambridge Philosophical
Society. At the Cambridge observatory Airy soon gave evidence
of his remarkable power of organization. The only telescope
erected in the establishment when he took it in charge was
the transit instrument, and to this he vigorously devoted
himself. By the adoption of a regular system of work,
and a careful plan of reduction, he was able to keep his
observations reduced practically up to date, and published
them annually with a degree of punctuality which astonished his
contemporaries. Before long a mural circle was installed,
and regular observations were instituted with it in 1833.
In the same year the duke of Northumberland presented the
Cambridge observatory with a fine object-glass of 12 in.
aperture, which was mounted according to Airy's designs
and under his superintendence, although the erection was
not completed until after his removal to Greenwich in
1835. Airy's writings during this time are divided between
mathematical physics and astronomy. The former are for the
most part concerned with questions relating to the theory of
light, arising out of his professorial lectures, among which
may be specially mentioned his paper ``On the Diffraction of
an Object-Glass with Circular Aperture.'' In 1831 the Copley
medal of the Royal Society was awarded to him for these
researches. Of his astronomical writings during this period
the most important are his investigation of the mass of
Jupiter, his report to the British Association on the progress
of astronomy during the 19th century, and his memoir On an
Inequality of Long Period in the Motions of the Earth and Venus.
One of the sections of his able and instructive report
was devoted to ``A Comparison of the Progress of Astronomy
in England with that in other Countries,'' very much
to the disadvantage of England. This reproach was
subsequently to a great extent removed by his own labours.
Airy's discovery of a new inequality in the motions of
Venus and the earth is in some respects his most remarkable
achievement. In correcting the elements of Delambre's solar
tables he had been led to suspect an inequality overlooked by
their constructor. The cause of this he did not long seek in
vain. Eight times the mean motion of Venus is so nearly equal
to thirteen times that of the earth that the difference amounts
to only the 1/240th of the earth's mean motion, and from the
fact that the term depending on this difference, although very
small in itself, receives in the integration of the differential
equations a multiplier of about 2,200,000, Airy was led to
infer the existence of a sensible inequality extending over
240 years (Phil. Trans. cxxii. 67). The investigation that
brought about this result was probably the most laborious
that had been made up to Airy's time in planetary theory, and
represented the first specific improvement in the solar tables
effected in England since the establishment of the theory of
gravitation. In recognition of this work the medal of
the Royal Astronomical Society was awarded to him in 1833.
In June 1835 Airy was appointed Astronomer Royal in succession
to John Pond, and thus commenced that long career of wisely
directed and vigorously sustained industry at the national
observatory which, even more perhaps than his investigations
in abstract science or theoretical astronomy, constitutes
his chief title to fame. The condition of the observatory
at the time of his appointment was such that Lord Auckland,
the first lord of the Admiralty, considered that ``it ought
to be cleared out,'' while Airy admitted that ``it was in
a queer state.'' With his usual energy he set to work at
once to reorganize the whole management. He remodelled the
volumes of observations, put the library on a proper footing,
mounted the new (Sheepshanks) equatorial and organized a new
magnetic observatory. In 1847 an altazimuth was erected,
designed by Airy to enable observations of the moon to be
made not only on the meridian, but whenever she might be
visible. In 1848 Airy invented the reflex zenith tube to
replace the zenith sector previously employed. At the end
of 1850 the great transit circle of 8 in. aperture and 11 ft.
6 in. focal length was erected, and is still the principal
instrument of its class at the observatory. The mounting in
1859 of an equatorial of 13 in. aperture evoked the comment
in his journal for that year, ``There is not now a single
person employed or instrument used in the observatory which
was there in Mr Pond's time''; and the transformation was
completed by the inauguration of spectroscopic work in 1868
and of the photographic registration of sun-spots in 1873.
The formidable undertaking of reducing the accumulated planetary
observations made at Greenwich from 1750 to 1830 was already
in progress under Airy's supervision when he became Astronomer
Royal. Shortly afterwards he undertook the further laborious
task of reducing the enormous mass of observations of the moon
made at Greenwich during the same period under the direction,
successively, of J. Bradley, N. Bliss, N. Maskelyne and John
Pond, to defray the expense of which a large sum of money was
allotted by the Treasury. As the result, no less than 8000
lunar observations were rescued from oblivion, and were, in
1846, placed at the disposal of astronomers in such a form
that they could be used directly for comparison with the
theory and for the improvement of the tables of the moon's
motion. For this work Airy received in 1848 a testimonial
from the Royal Astronomical Society, and it at once led to
the discovery by P. A. Hansen of two new inequalities in the
moon's motion. After completing these reductions, Airy made
inquiries, before engaging in any theoretical investigation
in connexion with them, whether any other mathematician was
pursuing the subject, and learning that Hansen had taken
it in hand under the patronage of the king of Denmark, but
that, owing to the death of the king and the consequent lack
of funds, there was danger of his being compelled to abandon
it, he applied to the admiralty on Hansen's behalf for the
necessary sum. His request was immediately granted, and
thus it came about that Hansen's famous Tables de la Lune
were dedicated to La Haute Amiraute de sa Majeste la
Reine de la Grande Bretagne et d'Irlande. One of the most
remarkable of Airy's researches was his determination of the
mean density of the earth. In 1826 the idea occurred to him
of attacking this problem by means of pendulum experiments at
the top and bottom of a deep mine. His first attempt, made
in the same year at the Dolcoath mine in Cornwall, failed in
consequence of an accident to one of the pendulums; a second
attempt in 1828 was defeated by a flooding of the mine,
and many years elapsed before another opportunity presented
itself. The experiments eventually took place at the Harton
pit near South Shields in 1854. Their immediate result was
to show that gravity at the bottom of the mine exceeded that
at the top by 1/19286th of its amount, the depth being 1256
ft. From this he was led to the final value of 6.566 for
the mean density of the earth as compared with that of water
(Phil. Trans. cxlvi. 342). This value, although considerably
in excess of that previously found by different methods, was
held by Airy, from the care and completeness with which the
observations were carried out and discussed, to be ``entitled
to compete with the others on, at least, equal terms.''
In 1872 Airy conceived the idea of treating the lunar theory
in a new way, and at the age of seventy-one he embarked on
the prodigious toil which this scheme entailed. A general
description of his method will be found in the Monthly
Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xxxiv. No.
3. It consisted essentially in the adoption of Delauny's final
numerical expressions for longitude, latitude and parallax,
with a symbolic term attached to each number, the value of
which was to be determined by substitution in the equations of
motion. In this mode of treating the question the order of the
terms is numerical, and though the amount of labour is such as
might well have deterred a younger man, yet the details were
easy, and a great part of it might be entrusted to a mere
computer. The work was published in 1886, when its author was
eighty-five years of age. For some little time previously he
had been harassed by a suspicion that certain errors had crept
into the computations, and accordingly he addressed himself
to the task of revision. But his powers were no longer what
they had been, and he was never able to examine sufficiently
into the matter. In 1890 he tells us how a grievous error
had been committed in one of the first steps, and pathetically
adds, ``My spirit in the work was broken, and I have never
heartily proceeded with it since.'' In 1881 Sir George Airy
resigned the office of Astronomer Royal and resided at the
White House, Greenwich, not far from the Royal Observatory,
until his death, which took place on the 2nd of January 1892.
A complete list of Airy's printed papers, numbering no less
than 518, will be found in his Autobiography, edited in
1890 by his son, Wilfrid Airy, B. A., M. Inst. C.E. Amongst
the most important of his works not already mentioned may be
named the following:--Mathematical Tracts (1826) on the Lunar
Theory, Figure of the Earth, Precession and Nutation, and
Calculus of Variations, to which, in the second edition
of 1828, were added tracts on the Planetary Theory and
the Undulatory Theory of Light; Experiments on Iron-built
Ships. instituted for the purpose of discovering a correction
for the deviation of the compass produced by the Iron of
the Ships (1839); On the Theoretical Explanation of an
apparent new Polarity in Light (1840); Tides And Waves
(1842). He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in
1836, its president in 1871, and received both the Cooley
and Royal medals. He was five times president of the
Royal Astronomical Society, was correspondent of the French
Academy and belonged to many other foreign and American
societies. He was D.C.L. of Oxford and LL.D. of Cambridge and
Edinburgh. In 1872 he was made K.C.B. In the same year
he was nominated a Grand Cross in the Imperial Order of the
Rose of Brazil; he also held the Prussian Order ``Pour le
Merite,'' and belonged to the Legion of Honour of France
and to the Order of the North Star of Sweden and Norway.
See also Proc. Roy. Society, li. 1 (E. J. Routh); Month. Notices
Roy. Astr. Society, lii. 212; Observatory, xv. 74 (E. Dunkin);
Nature, 31st of Oct. 1878 (A. Winnecke), 7th of Jan. 1892; The
Times, 5th of Jan. 1892; R. Grant's Hist. of Phys. Astronomy;
R. P. Graves's life of Sir W. Rowan Hamilton. (A. A. R.*)
AISLABIR, JOHN (1670-1742), English politician, was born at
Goodramgate, York, on the 7th of December 1670. He was the
fourth son of George Aislabie, principal registrar of the
archiepiscopal court of York. In 1695 he was elected member
of parliament for Ripon. In 1712 he was appointed one of the
commissioners for executing the office of lord high admiral,
and in 1714 became treasurer of the navy, being sworn in two
years later as a member of the privy council. In March 1718
he became chancellor of the exchequer. The proposal of the
South Sea Company to pay off the national debt was strenuously
supported by Aislabie, and finally accepted in an amended form
by the House of Commons. After the collapse of that company a
secret committee of inquiry was appointed by the Commons, and
Aislabie, who had in the meantime resigned the seals of his
office, was declared guilty of having encouraged and promoted
the South Sea scheme with a view to his own exorbitant profit,
and was expelled the House. Though committed to the Tower he
was soon released, and was allowed to retain the property he
possessed before 1718, including his country estate, to which
he retired to pass the rest of his days. He died in 1742.
AISLE (from Lat. ALA, a wing), a term which in its primary
sense means the wing of a house, but is generally applied in
architecture to the lateral divisions of a church or large
building. The earliest example is that found in the basilica
of Trajan, which had double aisles on either side of the
central area; the same number existed in the original church
of St Peter's at Rome, in the basilica at Bethlehem, and
according to Eusebius in the church of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem. The aisles are divided from the nave or central area
by colonnades or arcades, and may flank also the transept or
choir, being distinguished as nave-aisles, transept-aisles or
choir-aisles. If the choir is semi-circular, and the
aisles, carried round, give access to a series of chapels,
the whole arrangement is known as the chevet. As a rule
in Great Britain there is only one aisle on each side of
the nave, the only exceptions being Chichester and Elgin
cathedrals, where there are two. Many European cathedrals
have two aisles on each side, as those of Paris, Bourges,
Amiens, Troyes, St Sernin, Toulouse, Cologne, Milan, Seville,
Toledo; and in those of Paris, Chartres, Amiens and Bourges,
Seville and Toledo, double aisles flank the choir on each
side. The cathedral at Antwerp has three aisles on each
side. In some of the churches in Germany the aisles are of
the same height as the nave. These churches are known as
HALLENKIRCHEN, the principal examples being St Stephen's,
Vienna, the Weissekirche at Soest. St Martin's, Landshut,
Munich cathedral, and the Marienkirche at Danzig. (R. P. S.)
AISNE, a frontier department in the north-east of France,
formed in 1790 from portions of the old provinces of
Ile-de-France and Picardy. Area 2866 sq. m. Pop. (1906)
534,495. It is bounded N. by the department of Nord and
the kingdom of Belgium, E. by the department of Ardennes,
S.E. by that of Marne, S. by that of Seine-et-Marne, and W.
by those of Oise and Somme. The surface of the department
consists of undulating and well-wooded plains, intersected
by numerous valleys, and diversified in the north-east by
hilly ground which forms a part of the mountain system of the
Ardennes. Its general slope is from north-east, where the
culminating point (930 ft.) is found, to south-west, though
altitudes exceeding 750 ft. are also found in the south.
The chief rivers are the Somme, the Escaut and the Sambre,
which have their sources in the north of the department; the
Oise, traversing the north-west, with its tributaries the
Serre and the Aisne, the latter of which joins it beyond the
limits of the department; and the Marne and the Ourcq in the
south. The climate is in general cold and humid, especially
in the north-east. Agriculture is highly developed;
cereals, principally wheat and oats, and beetroot are the
chief crops; potatoes, flax, hemp, rape and hops are also
grown. Pasturage is good, particularly in the north-east,
where dairy-farming flourishes. Wine of medium quality is
grown on the banks of the Marne and the Aisne. Bee-farming
is of some importance. Large tracts of the department are
under wood; the chief forests are those of Nouvion and St
Michel in the north, Coucy and St Gobain in the centre, and
Villers-Cotterets in the south. The osiers grown in the
vicinity of St Quentin supply an active basket-making industry.
Though destitute of metals Aisne furnishes abundance of
freestone, gypsum and clay. There are numerous tile and
brick works in the department. Its most important industrial
establishments are the mirror manufactory of St Gobain and the
chemical works at Chauny, and the workshops and foundries of
Guise, the property of an association of workpeople organized
on socialistic lines and producing iron goods of various
kinds. The manufacture of sugar is very important; brewing,
distilling, flour-milling, iron-founding, the weaving and
spinning of cotton, wool and silk, and the manufacture of iron
goods, especially agricultural implements, are actively carried
on. Aisne imports coal, iron, cotton and other raw material
and machinery; it exports cereals, live-stock and agricultural
products generally, and manufactured goods. The department
is served chiefly by the lines of the Northern railway; in
addition, the main line of the Eastern railway to Strassburg
traverses the extreme south. The Oise, Aisne and Marne are
navigable, and canals furnish 170 m. of waterway. Aisne is
divided into five arrondissements--St Quentin and Vervins in the
north, Laon in the centre, and Soissons and Chateau-Thierry
in the south-and contains 37 cantons and 841 communes.
It forms part of the educational division (academie)
of Douai and of the region of the second army corps, its
military centre being at Amiens, where also is its court of
appeal. Laon is the capital, and Soissons the seat of a
bishopric of the province of Reims. Other important places
are Chateau-Thierry, St Quentin and Coucy-le-Chateau. La
Forte-Milon has remains of an imposing chateau of the 14th
and 15th centuries with interesting fortifications. The
ruined church at Longpont (13th century) is the relic of an
important Cistercian abbey; Urcel and Mont-Notre-Dame have
fine churches, the first entirely in the Romanesque style,
the second dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, to which
period the church at Braisne also belongs. At Premontre
the buildings of the abbey, which was the cradle of the
Premonstratensian order, are occupied by a lunatic asylum.
AISSE [a corruption of HAIDEE], MADEMOISELLE (c.
1694-1733), French letter-writer, was the daughter of a
Circassian chief, and was born about 1694. Her father's palace
was pillaged by the Turks, and as a child of four years old
she was sold to the comte de Ferriol, the French ambassador at
Constantinople. She was brought up in Paris by Ferriol's
sister-in-law with her own sons, MM. d'Argental and Pont de
Veyle. Her great beauty and romantic history made her the
fashion, and she attracted the notice of the regent, Philip,
duke of Orleans, whose offers she had the strength of mind to
refuse. She formed a deep and lasting attachment to the
Chevalier d'Aydie, by whom she had a daughter. She died in
Paris on the 13th of March 1733. Her letters to her friend
Madame Calandrini contain much interesting information with
regard to contemporary celebrities, especially on Mme. du
Deffand and Mme. de Tencin, but they are above all of interest
in the picture they afford of the writer's own tenderness and
fidelity. Her Lettres were edited by Voltaire (1787),
by J. Ravenel, with a notice by Sainte-Beuve (1846)
and by Eugene Asse (1873). Mlle. Aisse has been the
subject of three plays: by A. de Lavergne and P. Woucher
(1854), by Louis Bouilhet (1872) and by Dejoux (1898).
See also Courteault, Une Idylle au XVIIIe siecle, Mlle.
Aisse et le Chevalier d'Aydie (Macon, 1900); and notices
prefixed to the editions of 1846 and 1873. There is an
interesting essay by E. Gosse in his French Profiles (1905).
AITON, WILLIAM (1731-1793), Scottish botanist, was born
near Hamilton in 1731. Having been regularly trained to the
profession of a gardener, he travelled to London in 1754,
and became assistant to Philip Miller, then superintendent
of the Physic Garden at Chelsea. In 1759 he was appointed
director of the newly established botanical garden at Kew,
where he remained until his death on the 2nd of February
1793. He effected many improvements at the gardens, and in 1789
he published Hortus Kewensis, a catalogue of the plants there
cultivated. A second and enlarged edition of the Hortus was
brought out in 1810-1813 by his eldest son, WILLIAM TOWNSEND
AITON (1766-1849), who succeeded him at Kew and was commissioned
by George IV. to lay out the gardens at the Pavilion, Brighton.
AITZEMA, LIEUWE (LEO) VAN (1600-1669), Dutch historian
and statesman, was born at Doccum, in Friesland, on the 19th
of November 1600. In 1617 he published a volume of Latin
poems under the title of Poemata Juvenilia, of which a
copy is preserved in the British Museum. He made a special
study of politics and political science and was for thirty
years resident for the towns of the Hanseatic League at the
Hague, where he died on the 23rd of February 1669. His most
important work was the Saken van Staet in Oorlogh in ende
omtrent de Vereenigte Nederlanden (14 Vols. 4to, 1655-1671),
embracing the period from 1621 to 1668. It contains a large
number of state documents, and is an invaluable authority
on one of the most eventful periods of Dutch history.
Four continuations of the history, by the poet and
historian Lambert van den Bos, were published successively
at Amsterdam in 1683, 1688, 1698 and 1699. The Derde
Vervolg Zinde het vierde Stuck van het vervolgh op
de historie, &c., brings the history down to 1697.
AIVALI (Gr. Kydonia), a prosperous town on the W.
coast of Asia Minor, opposite the island of Mitylene. Pop.
21,000. It stands near the site of the Aeolian Heraclea, on
rising ground at the end of a bay which is separated from the
Gulf of Adramyttium, and protected from the prevailing winds
by the Moschonisi Islands (Hecatonnesoi.) In 1821 it was
burned to the ground during a fight between the Turks and the
Greeks, and a large number of its Greek population killed or
enslaved. It is one of the most thriving towns in the
Levant, with a purely Greek population distinguished for its
commercial, industrial and maritime enterprise. The exports
are olive oil, grain and wood, and a fleet of fishing-boats
supplies Constantinople and Smyrna with fish; the exports
in 1902 were valued at L. 987,070, and the imports at
AIWAN, the reception-hall or throne-room of a Parthian or Sassanian palace.
AIX, a city of south-eastern France, capital of an arrondissement
in the department of Bouches-du-Rhone, 18 m. N. of Marseilles
by rail. Pop. (1906) 19,433. It is situated in a plain
overlooking the Arc, about a mile from the right bank of the
river. The Cours Mirabeau, a wide thoroughfare, planted
with double rows of plane-trees, bordered by fine houses
and decorated by three fountains, divides the town into two
portions. The new town extends to the south, the old town
with its wide but irregular streets and its old mansions
dating from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries lies to the
north. Aix is an important educational centre, being the
seat of the faculties of law and letters of the university of
Aix-Marseille, and the north and east quarter of the town,
where the schools and university buildings are situated, is
comparable to the Latin Quarter of Paris. The cathedral of St
Sauveur, which dates from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries,
is situated in this portion of Aix. It is preceded by a rich
portal in the Gothic style with elaborately carved doors, and
is flanked on the north by an uncompleted tower. The interior
contains tapestry of the 16th century and other works of
art. The archbishop's palace and a Romanesque cloister adjoin
the cathedral on its south side. The church of St Jean de
Malto, dating from the 13th century, contains some valuable
pictures. The hotel de ville, a building in the classical style
of the middle of the 17th century, looks on to a picturesque
square. It contains some fine wood-work and a large library
which includes many valuable MSS. At its side rises a handsome
clock-tower erected in 1505. Aix possesses many beautiful
fountains, one of which in the Cours Mirabeau is surmounted
by a statue of Rene, count of Provence, who held a brilliant
court at Aix in the 15th century. Aix has thermal springs,
remarkable for their heat and containing lime and carbonic
acid. The bathing establishment was built in 1705 near the
site of the ancient baths of Sextius, of which vestiges still
remain. The town, which is the seat of an archbishop and
court of appeal, and the centre of an academie (educational
circumscription), numbers among its public institutions
a Court of assizes, tribunals of first instance and of
commerce, and a chamber of arts and manufactures. It also has
training-colleges, a lycee, a school of art and technics,
museums of antiquities, natural history and painting,
and several learned societies. The industries include
flour-milling, the manufacture of confectionery, iron-ware
and hats, and the distillation of olive-oil. Trade is in
olive-oil, almonds and stone from the neighbouring quarries.
Aix (Aquae Sextiae) was founded in 123 B.C. by the
Roman consul Sextius Calvinus, who gave his name to its
springs. In 102 B.C. its neighbourhood was the scene of
the defeat inflicted on the Cimbri and Teutones by Marius.
In the 4th century it became the metropolis of Narbonensis
Secunda. It was occupied by the Visigoths in 477, in the
succeeding century was repeatedly plundered by the Franks
and Lombards, and was occupied by the Saracens in 731. Aix,
which during the middle ages was the capital of the county
of Provence, did not reach its zenith until after the 12th
century, when, under the houses of Aragon and Anjou, it became
an artistic centre and seat of learning. With the rest of
Provence, it passed to the crown of France in 1487, and in
1501 Louis XII. established there the parlement of Provence
which existed till 1789. In the 17th and 18th centuries
the town was the seat of the intendance of Provence.
AIX-LA-CHAPELLE (Ger. Aachen, Dutch Aken), a city and
spa of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, situated in a
pleasant valley, 44 m. W. of Cologne and contiguous to the
Belgian and Dutch frontiers, to which its municipal boundaries
extend. Pop. (1885) 95,725; (1905) including Burtscheid,
143,906. Its position, at the centre of direct railway
communications with Cologne and Dusseldorf respectively on
the E. and Liege-Brussels and Maestricht-Antwerp on the W.,
has favoured its rise to one of the most prosperous commerical
towns of Germany. The city consists of the old inner town, the
former ramparts of which have been converted into promenades,
and the newer outer town and suburbs. Of the ancient gates
but two remain, the Ponttor on the N.W. and the Marschiertor
on the S. Its general appearance is that rather of a spacious
modern, than of a medieval city full of historical associations.
Of the cluster of buildings in the centre, which are conspicuous
from afar, the town hall (Rathaus) and the cathedral are
specially noteworthy. The former, standing on the south
side of the market square, is a Gothic structure, erected in
1353-1370 on the ruins of Charlemagne's palace. It contains
the magnificent coronation hall of the emperors (143 ft.
by 61 ft.), in which thirty-five German kings and eleven
queens have banqueted after the coronation ceremony in the
cathedral. The two ancient towers, the Granusturm to the
W. and the Glockenturm to the E., both of which to a large
extent had formed part of the Carolingian palace, were all
but destroyed in the fire by which the Rathaus was seriously
damaged in 1883. Their restoration was completed in
1902. Behind the Rathaus is the Grashaus, in which Richard
of Cornwall, king of the Romans, is said to have held his
court. It was restored in 1889 to accommodate the municipal
archives. The cathedral is of great historic and architectural
interest. Apart from the spire, which was rebuilt in 1884, it
consists of two parts of different styles and date. The older
portion, the capella in palatio, an octagonal building
surmounted by a dome, was designed on the model of San Vitale
at Ravenna by Udo of Metz, was begun under Charlemagne's
auspices in 796 and consecrated by Pope Leo III. in 805.
After being almost entirely wrecked by Norman raiders it was
rebuilt, on the original lines, in 983, by the emperor Otto
III. It is surrounded on the first story by a sixteen-sided
gallery (the Hochmunster) adorned by antique marble and
granite columns, of various sizes, brought by Charlemagne's
orders from Rome, Ravenna and Trier. These were removed by
Napoleon to Paris, but restored to their original positions
after the peace of 1815. The mosaic representing Christ
surrounded by ``the four-and-twenty elders,'' which originally
lined the cupola, had almost entirely perished by the 19th
century, but was re-stored in 1882 from a copy made in the 17th
century. Interesting too are the magnificent west doors,
cast in bronze by native workmen in 804. Underneath the dome,
according to tradition, was the tomb of Charlemagne, which, on
being opened by Otto III. in 1000, disclosed the body of the
emperor, vested in white coronation robes and seated on a marble
chair. This chair, now placed in the gallery referred to,
was used for centuries in the imperial coronation ceremonies.
The site of the tomb is marked by a stone slab, with the
inscription Carlo Magno; and above it hangs the famous bronze
chandelier presented by the emperor Frederick I. (Barbarossa) in
1168. Charlemagne's bones are preserved in an ornate shrine in
the Hungarian Chapel, lying to the north of the octagon. The
casket was opened in 1906, at the instance of the emperor William
II., and the draperies enclosing the body were temporarily
removed to Berlin, with a view to the reproduction of similar
cloth. The Gothic choir, forming the more modern portion
of the cathedral, was added during the latter half of the
14th and the beginning of the 15th century, and contains the
tomb of the emperor Otto III. The cathedral possesses many
relics, the more sacred of which are exhibited only once every
seven years, when they attract large crowds of worshippers.
Of the other thirty-three churches in the city those of St
Foillan (founded in the 12th century, but twice rebuilt,
in the 15th and 17th centuries, and restored in 1883) and
St Paul, with its beautiful stained-glass windows, are
remarkable. In addition to those already mentioned,
Aix-la-Chapelle possesses several fine secular buildings:
the Suermondt museum, containing besides other miscellaneous
exhibits the fine collection of pictures by early German, Dutch
and Flemish masters, presented to the town by Bartholomaus
Suermondt (d. 1887); the public library; the theatre; the
post-office; and the fine new central railway station.
Among the schools may be mentioned the magnificently equipped
Rhenish-Westphalian Polytechnic School (built 1865-1870)
and the school of mining and electricity, founded in 1897.
There are many fine streets and squares and some handsome
public monuments, notably among the last the fountain on
the market square surmounted by a statue of Charlemagne, the
bronze equestrian statue of the emperor William I. facing the
theatre, the Kriegerdenkmal (a memorial to those who fell in
the war of 1870) and the Kongress-Denkmal, a marble hall in
antique style erected in 1844 on the Adalberts-Steinweg to
commemorate the famous congress of 1818 (see below). Of the
squares, the principal is the Friedrich-Wilhelmplatz, on
which lies the Elisenbrunnen with its colonnade and garden,
the chief resort of visitors taking the baths and waters.
The hot sulphur springs of Aix-la-Chapelle were known to the
Romans and have been celebrated for centuries as specific
in the cure of rheumatism, gout and scrofulous disorders.
There are six in all, of which the Kaiserquelle, with a
temperature of 136 deg. F., is the chief. In the neighbouring
Burtscheid (incorporated in 1897 with Aix-la-Chapelle) are
also springs of far higher temperature, and this suburb, which
has also a Kurgarten, is largely frequented during the season.
In respect of trade and industry Aixda-Chapelle occupies a
high place. Its cloth and silk manufactures are important,
and owing to the opening up of extensive coalfields in the
district almost every branch of iron industry is carried
on. It has some large breweries and manufactories of
chemicals, and does a considerable trade in cereals,
leather, timber and wine. It is also an important banking
centre and has several insurance societies of reputation.
The country immediately surrounding Aix-la-Chapelle presents
many attractive features. From the Lousberg and the Salvatorberg
to the north, the latter crowned by a chapel, magnificent views
of the city are obtained; while covering the hills 2 m. west
stretches the Stadtwald, a forest with charming walks and drives.
History.---Aix-la-Chapelle is the Aquisgranum of the Romans,
named after Apollo Granus, who was worshipped in connexion
with hot springs. As early as A.D. 765 King Pippin had a
``palace'' here, in which it is probable that Charlemagne was
born. The greatness of Aix was due to the latter, who between
777 and 786 built a magnificent palace on the site of that of
his father, raised the place to the rank of the second city
of the empire, and made it for a while the centre of Western
culture and learning. From the coronation of Louis the Pious
in 813 until that of Ferdinand I. in 1531 the sacring of the
German kings took place at Aix, and as many as thirty-two
emperors and kings were here crowned. In 851, and again in
882, the place was ravaged by the Northmen in their raids up the
Rhine. It was not, however, till late in the 12th century
(1172-1176) that the city was surrounded with walls by order of
the emperor Frederick I., to whom (in 1166) and to his grandson
Frederick II. (in 1215) it owed its first important civic
rights. These were still further extended in 1250 by the
anti-Caesar William of Holland, who had made himself master of
the place and of the imperial regalia, after a long siege, in
1248. The liberties of the burghers were, however, still
restrained by the presence of a royal advocatus (Vogt) and
bailiff. In 1300 the outer ring of walls was completed,
the earlier circumvallation being marked by the limit of the
Altstadt (old city). In the 14th century Aix, now a free city
of the Holy Roman Empire, played a conspicuous part, especially
in the league which, between 1351 and 1387, kept the peace
between the Meuse and the Rhine. In 1450 an insurrection
led to the admission of the gilds to a share in the municipal
government. In the 16th century Aix began to decline in
importance and prosperity. It lay too near the French frontier
to be safe. and too remote from the centre of Germany to
be convenient, as a capital; and in 1562 the election and
coronation of Maximilian II. took place at Frankfort-on-Main,
a precedent followed till the extinction of the Empire. The
Reformation, too, brought its troubles. In 1580 Protestantism
got the upper hand; the ban of the empire followed and was
executed by Ernest of Bavaria, archbishop-elector of Cologne in
1598. A relapse of the city led to a new ban of the emperor
Matthias in 1613, and in the following year Spinola's Spanish
troops brought back the recalcitrant city to the Catholic
fold. In 1656 a great fire completed the ruin wrought by the
religious wars. By the treaty of Luneville (1801) Aix was
incorporated with France as chief town of the department of the
Roer. By the congress of Vienna it was given to Prussia. The
contrast between the new regime and the ancient tradition of
the city was curiously illustrated in 1818 by a scene described
in Metternich's Memoirs, when, before the opening of the
congress, Francis I., emperor of Austria, regarded by all Germany
as the successor of the Holy Roman emperors, knelt at the tomb
of Charlemagne amid a worshipping crowd, while the Protestant
Frederick William III. of Prussia, the new sovereign of the
place, stood in the midst, ``looking very uncomfortable.''
See Quix, Geschichte der Stadt Aachen (1841): Pick, Aus Aachens
Vergangenheit (Aachen, 1895); Bock, Karls des grossen Pfalzkapelle
(Cologne, 1867); and Beissel, Aachen als Kurort (1889).
AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, CONGRESSES OF. Three congresses have been held at
Aix-la-Chapelle: the first in 1668, the second in 1748, the third in 1818.
1. The treaty of the 2nd of May 1668, which put an end to
the War of Devolution, was the outcome of that of St Germain
signed on the 15th of April by France and the representatives
of the powers of the Triple Alliance. The treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle left to France all the conquests made in
Flanders during the campaign of 1667, with all their ``
appartenances, dependances et annexes.'' a vague provision
of which, after the peace of Nijmwegen (1680), Louis XIV. took
advantage to occupy a number of villages and towns adjudged
to him by his Chambres de reunion as dependencies of the
cities and territories acquired in 1668. On the other hand,
France restored to Spain the cities of Cambrai, Aire and
Saint-Omer, as well as the province of Franche Comte. The
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was placed under the guarantee of
Great Britain, Sweden and Holland, by a convention signed
at the Hague on the 7th of May 1669, to which Spain acceded.
See Jean du Mont, baron de Carlscroon, Corps
universel diplomatique (Amst., 1726-1731).
2. On the 24th of April 1748 a congress assembled at
Aix-la-Chapelle for the purpose of bringing to a conclusion
the struggle known as the War of Austrian Succession. Between
the 30th of April and the 21st of May the preliminaries were
agreed to between Great Britain, France and Holland, and to
these Maria Theresa, queen of Bohemia and Hungary, the kings
of Sardinia and Spain, the duke of Modena, and the republic
of Genoa successively gave their adhesion. The definitive
treaty was signed on the 18th of October, Sardinia alone
refusing to accede, because the treaty of Worms was not
guaranteed. Of the provisions of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
the most important were those stipulating for (1) a general
restitution of conquests, including Cape Breton to France,
Madras to England and the barrier towns to the Dutch; (2) the
assignment to Don Philip of the duchies of Parma, Piacenza and
Guastalla; (3) the restoration of the duke of Modena and the
republic of Genoa to their former positions; (4) the renewal
in favour of Great Britain of the Asiento contract of the 16th
of March 1713, and of the right to send an annual vessel to
the Spanish colonies; (5) the renewal of the article of the
treaty of 1718 recognizing the Protestant succession in the
English throne; (6) the recognition of the emperor Francis and
the confirmation of the pragmatic sanction, i.e. of the right
of Maria Theresa to the Habsburg succession; (7) the guarantee
to Prussia of the duchy of Silesia and the county of Glatz.
Spain having raised objections to the Asiento clauses, the
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was supplemented by that of Madrid
(5th of October 1750), by which Great Britain surrendered
her claims under those clauses in return for a sum of
L. 100,000. II.See A. J. H. de Clercq, Recueil des traites
de la France; F. A. Wenk, Corpus juris gentium recentissimi,
1735-1772, vol. ii. (Leipzig, 1786), p. 337; Comte G. de
Garden, Hist. des traites de paix, 1848-1887, iii p. 373.