-- there are but few forms peculiar to the Alps, many
interesting animals have found in the high mountains at
least a temporary refuge from man. The European bison, the
urus, the elk and the wild swine have disappeared since Roman
times. But the lynx (Lynx vulgaris) perhaps lingers in remote
parts, and the brown bear (Hrsus arctos) still survives
in the dense forests of the Lower Engadine. The fox (Canis
vulpes), the stonemarten (Martes foina) and the stoat
or ermine (Putorius ermiiiea) range in summer above the
tree-limit. The Ungulata are represented by the chamois
(Rupicapra tragus) and the bouquetin or steinbock (Capra
ibex). The former -- the sole representative, in western
Europe, of the antelopes -- is found elsewhere only in
the Pyrenees, Carpathians, Caucasus and the mountains of
eastern Turkey; the latter survives only in the eastern
Graian Alps. Of the Rodentia the most interesting and
conspicuous is the marmot (Arctomys marmota), which
lives in colonies close to the snow-line. The snow-mouse
(Arvicola nivalis) is confined to the alpine and snow
regions, and is abundant at these levels throughout the whole
chain of the Alps. The mountain hare (Lepus variabilis
or timidus) replaces the common hare (Lepus europaeus)
in the higher regions; though absent from the intervening
plains it again appears in the north of Europe and in
Scotland. Among the Insectivora, the alpine shrew (Sorex
alpinus) is restricted to the Alps. Of the Cheiroptera
(bats) only Vesperugo maurus is characteristically alpine.
The birds of the Alps are proportionately very numerous. The
lammergeyer (Gypaetus barbatus), once common, is now extremely
rare, even if it has not already become extinct in the Alps;
but the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) still holds its
own. Some of the smaller birds of prey are not uncommon, but
there is none that can be regarded as specially characteristic
either of the Alps as a whole or of the alpine region. As
characteristic birds of the snow-region may be mentioned the
alpine chough (Pyrrhocorax alpinus), which is frequently
seen at the summits even of the loftiest mountains, the
alpine swift (Cypselus melba), the wallcreeper ( Tichodroma
muraria), snow-finch (Montifringilla nivalis) and ptarmigan
(Lagopus mutus); the geographical distribution of this last
being similar to that of the mountain hare. The black redstart
(Rulicilla titys), though common in the lower regions, is
also met with in fair numbers almost up to the snow-line.
The raven (Corpus corax) is fairly common in the alpine
and sub-alpine regions. On the highest pastures we find,
further, the alpine accentor (Accentor collaris) and
the alpine pipit (Anthus spipoletta). The crag-martin
(Cotyle rupestris) haunts lofty cliffs in the alpine
region. On the upper verge of the pine forests, or in
the scrubby vegetation just beyond, the following are not
uncommon -- black woodpecker (Picus martius), ring-ousel
(Turdus torquatus), Bonelli's warbler (Phylloscopus
Bonellii), crested til (Parus cristatus), citril finch
(Citrinella alpina), siskin (Chrysomitris spinus),
crossbill (Loxia curvirostra), nutcracker (Nucifraga
caryocatactes), blackcock (Tetrao tetrix), and the
alpine varieties of the marsh-tit (Parus palustris,
borealis) and tree-creeper (Certhia familiaris, costae).
The remaining classes of Vertebrata are very sparsely represented
in the high Alps; and what few species occur are mostly common
to the plains as well. In fact, among the remaining land
vertebrates, only the black salamander (Salamandra atra)
is exclusively alpine. This interesting animal, though
a member of the Amphibia, is terrestrial and viviparous.
The former connexion between the Arctic and the Alps, which
has left such unmistakable traces in the present alpine
flora, affords, as regards the fauna also, the only possible
explanation of the present geographical distribution of many
alpine forms; but it is chiefly among the Invertebrata that
we find this collateral testimony to the influence of the
glacial period. In this respect we may note that two small
crustaceans, Diaptomus bacillifer and D. denticornis,
swarm in the ice-cold waters of the highest alpine tarns
throughout the entire chain; and the former of these is also
a characteristic inhabitant of pools formed from melting snow
in the extreme north. Among the remaining divisions of
Invertebrata special mention may be made of the air-breathing
Arthropoda -- on the whole the most important and interesting
group. About one-third of the animals belonging thereto that
occur in the higher regions are exclusively alpine (or alpine
and northern); these characteristically alpine forms being
furnished chiefly by the spiders, beetles and butterflies.
Most numerous are the beetles. Those of the highest zone are
remarkable for the great predominance of predaceous species
and of wingless forms. In this last respect they present a
striking analogy with the endemic coleopterous fauna of oceanic
islands. As for the butterflies, not more than one-third of
the species found in the alpine region occur in the neighbouring
lowlands. The relations between alpine butterflies and plants
are especially interesting, as regards not only their bionomic
interdependence but also the analogies of their geographical
distribution. It should be noted that butterflies are the
chief agents in securing the continued existence of such
alpine flowers as depend on insect fertilization, the other
insect fertilizers being mostly wanting at great heights.
The classic of alpine zoology is F. von Tschudi's Das
Tierleben der Alpenwelt (11th ed., 1890). See also
zoological section, by K. W. v. Dalla Torre, of Anleitung
zu wissenschaftlichen Beobachtungen auf Alpenreisen.
For the Vertebrata, see V. Fatio's Faune des vertebres
de la Suisse (3 vols., 1869-1904). Die Tierwelt der
Hochgebirgsseen, by F. Zschokke (1900) is an important
treatise on an interesting department of alpine natural
history. C. Zeller's Alpentiere im Wechsel der Zeit
(1892) gives a reliable account of the gradual disappearance
of some of the larger forms of life from the Alps. For
the inter-relations of alpine insects and flowers, see H.
Muller's Alpenblumen, ihre Befruchtung durch Insekten,
und ihre Anpassung an dieselben (1881). (H. V. K.)
ALPUJARRAS or ALPUXARRAS, THE (Moorish al Busherat,
``the grass-land''), a mountainous district of southern Spain,
in the province of Granada, consisting principally of valleys
which descend at right angles from the crest of the Sierra
Nevada on the north, to the Sierras Almijara, Contraviesa
and Gador, which sever it from the Mediterranean Sea, on the
south. These valleys are among the most beautiful and
fertile in Spain. They contain a rich abundance of fruit
trees, especially vines, oranges, lemons and figs, and in
some parts present scenes of almost Alpine grandeur. The
inhabitants are the descendants of the Moors, who, after the
Spanish conquest of Granada in 1492, vainly sought to preserve
the last relics of their independence in their mountain
fastnesses. Many of the names of places in the Alpujarras
are of Moorish origin. The district contains many villages
of 1000 to 4000 inhabitants, the four largest being Lanjaron,
with its ruined castle and chalybeate baths, Orgiba, Trevelez
and Ugijar; all situated at a considerable elevation.
Trevelez, the highest, stands 5332 ft. above the sea.
`ALQAMA IBN `ABADA, generally known as `ALQAMA AL-FAHL,
an Arabian poet of the tribe Tamim, who flourished in
the second half of the 6th century. Of his life we know
practically nothing except that his chief poem concerns an
incident in the wars between the Lakhmids and the Ghassanids
(see ARABIA, History). Even the date of this is
doubtful, but it is generally referred to the period after
the middle of the 6th century. His poetic description of
ostriches is said to have been famous among the Arabs.
His diwan consists of three qusidas (elegies) and eleven
fragments. Asma` i considered three of the poems genuine.
The poems were edited by A. Swain with Latin translation as
Die Gedichte des Alkama Alfahl (Leipzig, 1867), and are
contained in W. Ahlwardt's The Diwans of the six ancient
Arabic Poets (Lond., 1870); cf. W. Ahlwardt's Bemerkungen
uber die Aechtheit der alten arabischen Gledichte
(Greifswald, 1872), pp. 65-71 and 146-168. (G. W. T.)
ALQUIFOU (etymologically the same word as ``alcohol''), a
lead ore found in Cornwall, used by potters for its green glaze.
ALREDUS, ALURED or ALUREDUS, OF BEVERLEY, was
sacristan of the church of Beverley in the first half of the
12th century. He wrote, apparently about the year 1143, a
chronicle entitled Annales sive Historia de gestis regum
Britanniae, which begins with Brutus and carries the history
of England down to 1129. This work was edited by T. Hearne
(Oxford, 1716), and at one time enjoyed some reputation as an
authority. It is, however, a mere compilation and of no
value. Geoffrey of Monmouth and Simeon of Durham are
Alured's chief sources. Among the Cottonian MSS. there is
a collection of records relating to Beverley, Liberlales
Ecclesiae S. Johannis de Beverlae, which is attributed
to Alured, but on no good authority. (H. W. C. D.)
ALSACE (Ger. Elsass), a former province of France, divided
after the Revolution into the departments of Haut-Rhin and
Bas-Rhin, and incorporated since the war of 1870 with the
German empire (see ALSACE-LORRAINE). It is bounded on the
north by the Rhenish Palatinate, on the east by the Rhine,
on the south by Switzerland and on the west by the Vosges
Mountains; and it comprises an area of 3344 English sq.
m. The district possesses many natural attractions, and
is one of the most fertile in central Europe. There are
several ranges of hills, but no point within the province
attains a great elevation. The only river of importance
is the Ill, which falls into the Rhine after a course of
more than 100 m., and is navigable below Colmar. The hills
are generally richly wooded, chiefly with fir, beech and
oak. The agricultural products are corn, flax, tobacco,
grapes and various other fruits. The country has a great
wealth of minerals, silver having been found, and copper, lead,
iron, coal and rock-salt being wrought with profit. There are
considerable manufactures, chiefly of cotton and linen. The
chief towns are Mulhausen and Colmar in the upper district
and Strassburg in the lower. The province is traversed from
east to west by the railway from Strassburg to Nancy, and the
main line north and south runs between Basel and Strassburg.
History. -- From a very early period Alsace has been a
disputed territory, and has suffered in the contentions of
rival races. Inhabited by the Rauraci and the Sequani, it
formed part of ancient Gaul, and was therefore included in
the Roman empire in the provinces of Germania Superior and
Maxima Sequanorum. The Romans held it nearly five hundred
years, and on the dissolution of their power it passed
under the sway of the Franks. In the Merovingian period
it formed a duchy attached to the kingdom of Austrasia,
and was governed by the descendants of duke Eticho, one
of whom was St Odilia. After the death of Charlemagne,
Alsace, like the rest of the empire, was divided into
countships. But the duchy was re-established after the
death of the German king Henry I., and became hereditary in
the Hohenstaufen family, and then in the house of Austria,
which succeeded in 1273 to the imperial dignity. In the
beginning of the 12th century the country was divided between
the two landgraviates of Upper and Lower Alsace, but to
counteract the power of the nobles the emperors established
in Alsace a great number of free towns. This state of
things continued until 1648, when a large part of Alsace,
comprising the two landgraviates of Upper and Lower Alsace
and the prefecture of the ten free imperial towns, was ceded
to France by the treaty of Westphalia. In the war which
preceded this peace (generally known as the Thirty Years' War)
Alsace had been so terribly devastated by the Swedes and the
French that the German emperor found himself unable to hold
it. The population was greatly reduced in numbers, and
much of the land was left uncultivated. In the war between
France and the Empire, arising out of the attempt of Louis
XIV to seize Holland, that part of Alsace which remained
to Germany was again overrun by the French. Although this
war was terminated in 1678 by the treaty of Nijmwegen, the
French monarch was desirous of incorporating a still larger
amount of Rhine territory; and accordingly in 1680 he laid
claim to a number of territories, belonging to princes
of the Empire, which he alleged had been dismembered from
Alsace. It was ordered that these territories should be at
once restored to that province under the crown of France,
and several independent sovereigns were cited to appear
before two chambers of inquiry, called chambres de reunion,
which Louis had established at Brisach and Metz. The princes
appealed to the emperor and to the diet; but the previous
wars had so exhausted the power of the former that nothing
could be done to resist the aggression. In 1681 the French
troops under Louvois seized Strassburg, aided by the treachery
of the bishop and other great men of the city. A further
war broke out, but by the treaty of Ratisbon (Regensburg) in
1684, Strassburg was secured to France. The war was renewed
in 1688 and continued until 1697, when the peace of Ryswick
confirmed definitively the annexation of Strassburg to
France. Some remaining territories of small extent were
acquired by the French after the revolution of 1789, including
Mulhausen, which had been a republic allied to Switzerland.
Originally Celtic, the population was modified during the Roman
period by the arrival of a Germanic people, the Triboci. In
the 5th century came other German tribes, the Alamanni, and
then the Franks, who drove the Alamanni into the south. Since
that period the population has in the main been Teutonic; and
the French conquests of the 17th century, while modifying this
element, still left it predominant. The people continued
to use a German dialect as their native tongue, though the
educated classes also spoke French. Protestantism was professed
by a large number of the inhabitants; and in many respects
their characteristics identified them rather with the race to
the east than that to the west of the Rhine. In process of
time, however, they considered themselves French, and lost
all desire for reannexation to any of the German states.
Alsace suffered a good deal in the war of 1870-71. The
earlier battles of the campaign were fought there; Strassburg
and other of its fortified towns were besieged and taken; and
its people were compelled to submit to very severe exactions.
The civil and military government of the province, as well
as that of Lorraine, was assumed by the Germans as soon as
they obtained possession of those parts of France, which was
very shortly after the commencement of the war. The Alsatian
railways were reorganized and provided with a staff of German
officials. German stamps were introduced from Berlin;
the occupied towns were garrisoned by the Landwehr; and
requisitions on a large scale were demanded, and paid for in
cheques which, at the close of the war, were to be honoured
by whichever side should stand in the unpleasant position
of the conquered. The people, notwithstanding their German
origin, showed a very strong feeling against the invaders,
and in no part of France was the enemy resisted with greater
stubbornness. It was evident from an early period of the
war, however, that Prussia was resolved to reannex Alsace
to German territory. When the preliminaries of peace came
to be discussed at Versailles in February 1871, the cession
of Alsace, together with what is called German Lorraine,
was one of the earliest conditions laid down by Bismarck
and accepted by Thiers. This sacrifice of territory was
afterwards ratified by the National Assembly at Bordeaux,
though not without a protest from the representatives of
the departments about to be given up; and thus Alsace once
more became German. By the bill for the incorporation
of Alsace and German Lorraine, introduced into the German
parliament in May 1871, it was provided that the sole and
supreme control of the two provinces should be vested in
the German emperor and the federal council until the 1st of
January 1874, when the constitution of the German empire was
established. Bismarck admitted the aversion of the population
to Prussian rule, but said that everything would be done
to conciliate the people. This policy appears really
to have been carried out, and it was not long in bearing
fruit. Many of the inhabitants of the conquered districts,
however, still clung to the old connexion, and on the
30th of September 1872 -- the day by which the people were
required to determine whether they would consider themselves
German subjects and remain, or French subjects and transfer
their domicile to France -- 45,000 elected to be still
French, and sorrowfully took their departure. The German
system of compulsory education of every child above the
age of six was introduced directly after the annexation.
ALSACE-LORRAINE (Ger. Elsass-Lothringen), a German
imperial territory (since 1871), consisting of the former
French province Alsace (then divided into the departments of
Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin), together with its capital Strassburg,
and German Lorraine (which included the department of the
Moselle and portions of the departments of Meurthe and Vosges),
together with the capital and fortress of Metz. The imperial
territory (Reichsland) is bounded S. by Switzerland; E. by
Baden, from which it is separated by the Rhine; N.E. and
N. by the Bavarian Palatinate, the Prussian Rhine Province
and Luxemburg, and W. by France. Its area is 5601 sq.
m. The maximum length from N. to S. is 145 m.; the maximum
breadth E. to W. 105 m., and the minimum breadth, on a line
drawn through Schlettstadt, 24 m. In respect of its physical
features, Alsace-Lorraine falls into three parts -- mountain
land, plain and plateau. The first, practically co-extensive
with the western half of Alsace, consists of the Vosges
range, which running in a northerly direction from the deep
gap or pass of Belfort (trouee de Belfort) forms in its
highest ridges the natural frontier line between Germany and
France. Between this mountain chain and its spurs, which
fall steeply to the E., and the Rhine, stretches a fertile
plain forming the eastern half of Alsace. In the N.W. a high
and undulating plateau, which gently descends in the W. to
the valley of the Moselle, occupies nearly the whole area of
Lorraine. The drainage of the Vosges valleys and of the
Rhine valley is collected and carried into the Rhine about
10 m. below Strassburg by the Ill, which has a course of
more than 100 m. and is navigable below Colmar. With the
exception of a few streams which run to the Rhone, all
the waters of Alsace flow into the Rhine. The climate is
on the whole temperate -- warmest in the lowest districts
(460 ft. above sea-level) of N. Alsace, and coldest on the
summits of the Vosges, where snow lies six months in the
year. The mean annual temperature at Strassburg is 49.8 deg.
F., at Metz 48.2 deg.; the rainfall at Strassburg 26 1/4 in.,
and at Metz 27 1/2 in. The Rhine Valley is in great part
fertile, yielding good crops of potatoes, cereals (including
maize), sugar beet, hops, tobacco, flax, hemp and products
of oleaginous plants. But grapes and fruit are amongst the
most valuable of the crops. The cereals chiefly grown are
wheat, oats, barley and rye. Great quantities of hay are
harvested. This description embraces also the production of
Lorraine, where agriculture is less strenuously carried on,
and the fertility of the soil is less. But Lorraine possesses,
in compensation, greater riches in the earth, in coal and
iron and salt mines. Cows are grazed on the S. Vosges in
summer, and large quantities of cheese (Munster cheese)
are made and exported. Total population (1905) 1,814,626.
The farms in Alsace are mostly small and are beld partly as a
private possession, partly on the communal system; in Lorraine
there are some larger occupations. The manufacture of cottons,
and on a smaller scale of woollens, is special to Alsace, the
chief centres of the industry being Mulhausen, Colmar and
the valleys of the Vosges. The territory has always been
the centre of an active commerce, owing to its situation
on the confines of Germany, France and Switzerland, and
alongside the great highway of the Rhine. The communications
embraced some 1249 m. of railway (1903), of which 1108 m.
belonged to the state, a good system of roads, and several
canals (notably the Rhine-Rhone, the Rhine-Marie and the Saar
Canals), in addition to the rivers. Administratively the
territory is divided into the following three districts,
showing a density of population of about 316 to the sq. m.:--
Population.
Districts. Area in sq. miles. 1885. 1905.
Upper Alsace . . 1354 462,549 512,709
Lower Alsace . . 1845 612,077 686,359
Lorraine . . . 2402 489,729 615,558
On the sex division, 935,305 were in 1905 males, and 879,321
females. The percentage of illegitimacy is about 7. The
rural population embraces 51% of the whole, the urban
population 48%. The largest towns are Strassburg (the capital
of the territory), Mulhausen, Metz, Colmar, all above
20,000 inhabitants each. Classified according to religion
there were, in 1904, 372,078 Protestants, 1,310,391 Roman
Catholics, and 32,379 Jews. Education is provided for at the
university of Strassburg, in 21 classical and pro-classical
schools, in 18 modern schools, and in nearly 4000 elementary
schools. Over 85% of the people speak German as their
mother-tongue, the rest French, or a patois of French. The
annual revenue and expenditure are each somewhat in excess of
L. 3,000,000. Customs and indirect taxes yield more than
three-fifths of the total revenue, and direct taxes less than
one-fourth. The state forests give about one-ninth of the
whole. The higher administration of justice is devolved upon
six provincial courts and a supreme court, sitting at Colmar.
Moreover, there are purely industrial tribunals at Mulhausen,
Thann, Markirch, Strassburg and Metz. The fish-breeding
establishment at Huningen in Upper Alsace should be mentioned.
Constitution. -- The sovereignty over the territory was
by a law (Reichsgesetz) of the 9th of June 1871 vested
in the German emperor, who, until the introduction of the
imperial constitution on the 1st of January 1874, had, with
the assent of the federal council (Bundesrat) and, in a few
cases, that of the imperial diet (Reichstag), the sole
right of initiating legislation. In October of this last
year a committee (Landesausschuss) of the whole territory
was appointed to deliberate on laws proposed to it before
they received the final sanction of the emperor. On the
2nd of May 1877, the Landesausschuss was itself empowered
to initiate legislation within the competence of the
territory, and in 1879 the imperial viceroy (Statthalter),
representing the imperial chancellor, who had until then
been the responsible minister, took up his residence in
Strassburg. He is assisted in the government by 4 ministers
of departments, under the presidency of a secretary of
state, and, when occasion demands the extraordinary
discussion of legislative proposals, by a council of state
(Staatsrat), consisting of the secretary of state, under
secretaries, the president of the supreme court of justice
of the territory and, as a rule, of 12 nominees of the
emperor. The Lanitesaus-schuss, a constitutional body
with parliamentary privileges, consists of 58 members, 34
being appointed out of their number by the various district
councils (Bezirkslage), 4 by the large towns, and 20 by
the rural districts. Alsace-Lorraine is represented in the
Bundesrat by two commissioners, who have, however, but one
voice; and the territory returns 15 members to the Reichstag.
See A. Schmidt, Elsass unid Lothringen (Lerp., 1859); Spach,
Histoire de la basso Alsace et de la ville de Strasbourg
(Stras., 1860); von Mullenheim Rechberg, Die Annexion des
Elsass durch Frankreich und Ruckblick auf die Verwaltung
des Landes, 1648-1697 (Stras., 1897); Du Prel, Die deutsche
Verwaltung in Elsass, 1870-1879 (Stras., 1879); L. Petersen,
Das Deutschtum in Elsass-Lothringen (Munich, 1902). (P. A. A.)
ALSATIA (the old French province of Alsace), long a
``debatable ground'' between France and Germany, and
hence a name applied in the 17th century to the district
of Whitefriars, between the Thames and Fleet Street, in
London, which afforded sanctuary (q.v.) to debtors and
criminals. The privileges were abolished in 1697. The
term is also used generally of any refuge for criminals.
ALSEN (Danish Als), an island in the Baltic, off the
coast of Schleswig, in the Little Belt. It formerly
belonged to Denmark, but, as a result of the Danish war of
1864, was incorporated with Germany. Its area is 105 sq.
m.; the length nearly 20, and the breadth from 3 to 12
m. Pop. (1900) 25,000, most of whom speak Danish. The
island is fertile, richly wooded, and yields grain and
fruit. Sonderburg, the capital, with a good harbour and a
considerable trade, is connected with the mainland by a pontoon
bridge. Other places of note are Norburg and Augustenburg.
On the peninsula Rekenis at the S.W. end of Alsen there is a
lighthouse. Here, in 1848, the Danes directed their main attack
against Field-marshal Wrangel's army. In 1864 the Prussians
under Herwarth von Bittenfeld took Alsen, which was occupied
by 9000 Danish troops under Steinmann, thus bringing the
Danish war to a close. Since 1870 Alsen has been fortified.
'ALSHEKH, MOSES, Jewish rabbi in Safed (Palestine) in the
later part of the 16th century. He was the author of many
homiletical commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. His works
still justly enjoy much popularity, largely because of their
powerful influence as practical exhortations to virtuous life.
ALSIETINUS LACUS (mod. Lago di Martignano), a small lake
in southern Etruria, 15 m. due N.N.W. of Rome, in an extinct
crater. Augustus drew from it the Aqua Alsietina; the water
was hardly fit to drink, and was mainly intended to supply
his naumachia (lake made for a sham naval battle) at Rome,
near S. Francesco a Ripa, on the right bank of the Tiber,
where some traces of the aqueduct were perhaps found in 1720.
The course of the aqueduct, which was mainly subterranean,
is practically unknown: Frontinus tells us that it received
a branch from the lake of Bracciano near Careiae (Galera):
and an inscription relating to it was found in this district
in 1887 (F. Barnabei, Notizie degli Scavi, 1887, 181).
ALSIUM (mod. Palo), an ancient town of Etruria, 29
m. W. by N. of Rome by rail, on the Via Aurelia, by which
it is about 22 m. from Rome. It was one of the oldest
cities of Etruria, but does not appear in history till the
Roman colonization of 247 B.C., and was never of great
importance, except as a resort of wealthy Romans, many of whom
(Pompey, the Antonine emperors) had villas there. About 1 1/2
m. N.E. of Palo is a row of large mounds called I Monteroni,
which belong to tombs of the Etruscan cemetery. Considerable
remains of ancient villas still exist along the low sandy
coast, one of which, about 1 m. E. of Palo, occupies an
area of some 400 by 250 yds. The medieval castle belongs to
the Odescalchi family. Near Palo is the modern sea-bathing
resort Ladispoli, founded by Prince Odescalchi. See G.
Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, i. 219.
ALSOP, VINCENT (c. 1630- 1703), English Nonconformist
divine, was of Northamptonshire origin and was educated at St
John's College, Cambridge. He received deacon's orders from a
bishop, whereupon he settled as assistant-master in the free
school of Oakham, Rutland. He was reclaimed from indifferent
courses and associates here by a very ``painful'' minister,
the Rev. Benjamin King. Subsequently he married Mr King's
daughter, and ``becoming a convert to his principles, received
ordination in the Presbyterian way, not being satisfied with
that which he had from the bishop.'' He was presented to the
living of Wilby in Northamptonshire; but was thence ejected
under the act of Uniformity in 1662. After his ejection he
preached privately at Oakham and Wellingborough, sharing the
common pains and penalties of nonconformists, -- e.g. he was
imprisoned six months for praying with a sick person. A book
against William Shedock, dean of St Paul's, called Antisozzo
(against Socinus), written in the vein of Andrew Marvell's
Rehearsal Transprosed, procured him much celebrity as a
wit. Dr Robert South, no friend to nonconformists, publicly
pronounced that Alsop had the advantage of Sherlock in every
way. Besides fame, Antisozzo procured for its author an
invitation to succeed the venerable Thomas Cawton (the younger)
as independent minister in Westminster. He accepted the
call and drew great multitudes to his chapel. He published
other books which showed a fecundity of wit, a playful
strength of reasoning, and a provoking indomitableness of
raillery. Even with Dr Goodman and Dr Stillingfleet for
antagonists, he more than held his own. His Mischief of
Impositions (1680) in answer to Stillingfleet's Mischief
of Separation, and Melius Inquirenduni (1679) in answer
to Goodman's Compassionate Inquiry, remain historical
landmarks in the history of nonconformity. Later on, from
the entanglements of a son in alleged treasonable practices,
he had to sue for and obtained pardon from King James II.
This seems to have given a somewhat diplomatic character
to his closing years, inasmuch as, while remaining a
nonconformist, he had a good deal to do with proposed political-
ecclesiastical compromises. He died on the 8th of May 1703,
having preserved his ``spirits and smartness'' to the last.
See Wood's A thenae (Bliss) iv. 106; Calamy's Life of Baxter, ii.
487; Wilson's History and Ant. of Dissenting Churches, iv. 63-66.
(A. J. G.)
ALSTED, JOHANN HEINRICH (1588-1638), German Protestant
divine. He was some time professor of philosophy and
theology at Herborn, in Nassau, and afterwards at Weissenburg
in Transylvania, where he remained till his death in
1638. He was a marvellously prolific writer. His
Encyclopaedia (1630), the most considerable of the earlier
works of that class, was long held in high estimation.
ALSTON, CHARLES (1683-1760), Scottish botanist, was born
at Eddlewood, near Hamilton, in 1683, and became lecturer
in materia medica and botany at Edinburgh and also
superintendent of the botanical gardens, of the plants in
which he published a catalogue in 1740. He was a critic of
Linnaeus's system of plant-classification (see BOTANY.) He
died on the 22nd of November 1760 at Edinburgh. His Lectures
on Materia Medica were published posthumously in 1770.
ALSTON, a market-town in the Penrith parliamentary division
of Cumberland, England, 29 m. by road E.S.E. of Carlisle,
on a branch of the North-Eastern railway from Haltwhistle.
Pop. (1901) 3133. It lies in the uppermost part of the
valley of the South Tyne, among the high bleak moors of the
Pennines. Copper and blende are found, and there are limestone
quarries. The mines of argentiferous lead, belonging to
Greenwich Hospital, London, were formerly of great value, and
it was in order that royalties on the Alston lead mines and
on those elsewhere in the county might be jointly collected
that the parish was first included within the borders of
Cumberland, in the 18th century. As many as 119 lead mines
were worked in the parish in 1768, but the supply of metal
has been almost exhausted. Coal is worked chiefly for
lime-burning, and umber is prepared for the manufacture of
colours. Thread and flannels are also made. Whitley Castle, 2
m. N., was a Roman fort, the original name of which is not
known, guarding the road which ran along the South Tyne valley
and over the Pennines. It has no connexionwith Alston itself.
ALSTROMER, JONAS (1685-1761), Swedish industrial re-former,
was born at Alingsas in Vestergotland, on the 7th of January
1685. He left his native village at an early age, and in
1707 became clerk to Alberg, a merchant of Stockholm, whom he
accompanied to London. After carrying on business for three
years, Alberg failed, and Alstrom (as his name was before
his ennoblement) engaged in the business of shipbroker on
his own account, and eventually proved very successful.
After travelling for several years on the continent, he was
seized with the patriotic desire to transplant to his native
country some of the industries he had seen flourishing in
Britain. He accordingly returned to Alingsas, and in
1724 established a woollen factory in the village. After
preliminary difficulties it became a very profitable
business. He next established a sugar refinery at Gothenburg,
introduced improvements in the cultivation of potatoes and
of plants suitable for dyeing, and directed attention to
improved methods in shipbuilding, tanning and the manufacture
of cutlery. But his most successful undertaking was the
importation of sheep from England, Spain and Angora. He
received many marks of distinction, was created (1748) knight
of the order of the North Star, and a few years later received
letters of nobility, with permission to change his name to
Alstromer. He died on the 2nd of June 1761, leaving several
works on practical industrial subjects. A statue was erected
in his honour in the exchange at Stockholm. One of his sons,
Clas (Claude) (1736-1794), was a naturalist of considerable
eminence. During a voyage to Spain he noticed a native
Peruvian plant known in Peru as the lily of the Incas, at
the Swedish counsul's at Cadiz; he sent a few seeds to his
master and friend, Linnaeus, who named the genus in his honour
Alstromeria. He also wrote a work on sheep-breeding.
ALTAI (in Mongolian Altain-ula, the ``Mountains of Gold''),
a term used in Asiatic geography with Various significations.
The Altai region, in West Siberia and Mongolia, is similar
in character to Switzerland, but covers a very much greater
area. It extends from the river Irtysh and the Dzungarian
depression (46 deg. -47 deg. N.) northwards to the Siberian railway
and to the Sayan mountains. The backbone of the region is
the Sailughem or Silyughema mountains, also known as Kolyvan
Altai, which stretch north-eastwards from 49 deg. N. and 86 deg.
E. towards the western extremity of the Sayan mountains in
51 deg. 60' N. and 89 deg. E. Their mean elevation is 5000-5500
ft. The snow-line runs at 6700 ft. on the northern
versant and at 7800 ft. on the southern, and above it the
rugged peaks tower up some 3200 ft. more. Passes across
the range are few and difficult, the chief being the
Ulan-daban at 9275 ft. (9445 ft. according to Kozlov), and
the Chapchan-daban, at 10,555 ft., in the south and north
respectively. On the east and south-east this range is
flanked by the great plateau of Mongolia, the transition
being effected gradually by means of several minor plateaus,
such as Ukok (7800 ft.), Chuya (6000 ft.), Kendykty (8200
ft.), Kak (8270 ft.), Suok (8500 ft.), and Juvlu-kul (7900
ft.). This region, which is not accurately known, is studded
with large lakes, i.e. Ubsa-nor (2370 ft. above sea-level),
Kirghiz-nor, Durga-nor and Kobdo-nor (3840 ft.), and traversed
by various mountain ranges, of which the principal are the
Tannu-ola, running roughly parallel with the Sayan mountains
as far east as the Kosso-gol (100 deg. -101 deg. E. long.), and
the Khan-khu mountains, also stretching west and east.
The range of the Altai proper, known also as the Ek-tagh,
Mongolian Altai, Great Altai and Southern Altai, likewise
extend in two twin parallel chains eastwards as far as
99 deg. , if not farther. The Ek-tagh or Mongolian Altai, which
separates the Kobdo basin on the north from the Irtysh basin
on the south, is a true border-range, in that it rises in
a steep and lofty escarpment from the Dzungarian depression
(1550 to 3000 ft.), but descends on the north by a relatively
short slope to the plateau (4000-5500 ft.) of north-western
Mongolia. East of 94 deg. the range is continued by a double
series of mountain chains, all of which exhibit less sharply
marked orographical features and are at considerably lower
elevations. The southern chain bears the names of Karaadzirga
and Burkhan-ola, and terminates in about 99 deg.; but the northern
range, the principal names of which are Artsi-bogdo and Saikhat,
extends probably most of the way to the great northward bend
of the Hwang-ho or Yellow River round the desert of Ordos.
Whereas the western Ek-tagh Altai rises above the snowline
and is destitute of timber, the eastern double ranges barely
touch the snow-line and are clothed with thick forests up to
an altitude of 6250 ft. The slopes of the constituent chains
of the system are inhabited principally by nomad Kirghiz.
The north-western and northern slopes of the Sailughem
mountains are extremely steep and very difficult of access.
On this side lies the culminating summit of the range, the
double-headed Byelukha (the Mont Blanc of the Altai), whose
summits reach 14,890 and 14,560 ft. respectively,1 and give
origin to several glaciers (30 sq. m. in aggregate area).
Here also are the Kuitun (12,000 ft.) and several other lofty
peaks. Numerous spurs, striking in all directions from the
Sailughem mountains, fill up the space between that range and
the lowlands of Tomsk, but their mutual relations are far from
being well known. Such are the Chuya Alps, having an average
altitude of 9000 ft., with summits from 11,500 to 12,000 ft.,
and at least ten glaciers on their northern slope; the Katun
Alps, which have a mean elevation of about 10,000 ft. and are
mostly snow-clad; the Kholzun range; the Korgon (6300 to 7600
ft.), Talitsk and Selitsk ranges; the Tigeretsk Alps, and so
on. Several secondary plateaus of lower altitude are also
distinguished by geographers. The Katun valley begins as a
wild gorge on the south-west slope of Byelukha; then, after
a big bend, the river (400 m. long) pierces the Katun Alps,
and enters a wider valley, lying at an altitude of from
2000 to 3500 ft., which it follows until it emerges from
the Altai highlands to join the Biya in a most picturesque
region. The Katun and the Biya together form the Ob. The
next valley is that of the Charysh, which has the Korgon and
Tigeretsk Alps on one side and the Talitsk and Bashalatsk
Alps on the other. This, too, is very fertile. The Altai,
seen from this valley, presents the most romantic scenes,
including the small but deep Kolyvan lake (altitude, 1180
ft.), which is surrounded by fantastic granite domes and
towers. Farther west the valleys of the Uba, the Ulba and the
Bukhtarma open south-westwards towards the Irtysh. The lower
part of the first, like the lower valley of the Charysh, is
thickly populated; in the valley of the Ulba is the Riddersk
mine, at the foot of the Ivanovsk peak (6770 ft.), clothed
with beautiful alpine meadows. The valley of the Bukhtarma,
which has a length of 200 m., also has its origin at the
foot of the Byelukha and the Kuitun peaks, and as it falls
some 5000 ft. in less than 200 m., from an alpine plateau
at an elevation of 6200 ft. to the Bukhtarma fortress (1130
ft.), it offers the most striking contrasts of landscape and
vegetation. Its upper parts abound in glaciers, the best
known of which is the Berel, which comes down from the
Byelukha. On the northern side of the range which separates
the upper Bukhtarma from the upper Katun is the Katun
glacier, which after two ice-falls widens out to 700-900
yards. From a grotto in this glacier bursts tumultuously
the Katun river. The middle and lower parts of the Bukhtarma
valley have been colonized since the 18th century by runaway
Russian peasants -- serfs and nonconformists (Raskolniks)
-- who created there a free republic on Chinese territory;
and after this part of the valley was annexed to Russia in
1869, it was rapidly colonized. The high valleys farther
north, on the same western face of the Sailughem range,
are but little known, their only visitors being Kirghiz
shepherds. Those of Bashkaus, Chulyshman, and Chulcha, all
three leading to the beautiful alpine lake of Teletskoye
(length, 48 m.; maximum width, 3 m.; altitude, 1700 ft.;
area, 87 sq. m.; maximum depth, 1020 ft.; mean depth, 660
ft.), are only inhabited by nomad Telenghites or Teleuts.
The shores of the lake -- reminding a visitor somewhat of
the Swiss lake of Lucerne -- rise almost sheer to over 6000
ft. and are too wild to accommodate a numerous population.
From this lake issues the Biya, which joins the Katun at
Biysk, and then meanders through the beautiful prairies of the
north-west of the Altai. Farther north the Altai highlands
are continued in the Kuznetsk district, which has a slightly
different geological aspect, but still belongs to the Altai
system. But the Abakan river, which rises on the western
shoulder of the Sayan mountains, belongs to the system of the
Yenisei. The Kuznetsk Ala-tau range, on the left bank of the
Abakan, runs north-east into the government of Yeniseisk, while
a complexus of imperfectly mapped mountains (Chukchut, Salair,
Abakan) fills up the country northwards towards the Siberian
railway and westwards towards the Ob. The Tom and its numerous
tributaries rise on the northern slopes of the Kuznetsk Ala-tau,
and their fertile valleys are occupied by a dense Russian
population, the centre of which is Kuznetsk, on the Tom.
Geology. -- Geologically the Altai mountains consist of
two distinct elements which differ considerably from each
other in composition and structure. The Russian Altai is
composed mainly of mica and chlorite schists and slates,
together with beds of limestone, and in the higher horizons
Devonian and Carboniferous fossils occur in many places.
There is no axial zone of gneiss, but intrusions of granite
and other plutonic rocks occur, and the famous ore deposits
are found chiefly near the contact of these intrusions with the
schists. The strata are thrown into folds which run in
the direction of the mountain ridges, forming a curve with
the convexity facing the south-east. The Mongolian or Great
Altai, on the other hand, consists mainly of gneiss and
Archaean rocks. The strike of the rocks is independent
of the direction of the chain, and the chain is bounded by
faults. It is, in fact, a horst and not a zone of folding.
Flora.--The flora of the Altai, explored chiefly by Karl
F. von Ledebour (1785-1851), is rich and very beautiful.
Up to a level of 1000 ft. on the northern and 2000 ft. on
the southern slopes, plant life belongs to the European
flora, which extends into Siberia as far as the Yenisei. The
steppe flora penetrates into the mountains, ascending some
1100-1200 ft., and in sheltered valleys even up to 5500 ft.,
when it of course comes into contact with the purely alpine
flora. Tree vegetation, which reaches up as high as 6500 and
8150 ft., the latter limit on the north and west, consists of
magnificent forests of birch, poplar, aspen, and Coniferae,
such as Pinus cerebra, Abies sibirica, Larix sibirica, Picea
obovata, and so on, though the fir is not found above 2500
ft., while the meadows are abundantly clothed with brightly
coloured, typical assortments of herbaceous plants. The alpine
meadows, which have many species in common with the European
Alps, have also a number of their own peculiar Altaian species.
Mineral wealth.--The Altai proper is rich in silver, copper,
lead and zinc ores, while in the Kuznetsk Ala-tau, gold,
iron and coal are the chief mineral resources. The Kuznetsk
Ala-tau mines are only now beginning to be explored, while
the copper, and perhaps also the silver, ores of the Altai
proper were worked by the mysterious prehistoric race of the
Chudes at a time when the use of iron was not yet known.
Russians began to mine in 1727 at Kolyvan, and in 1739 at
Barnaul. Most of the Altai region, covering an area of some
170,000 sq. m. and including the Kuznetsk district, has since
1746 formed a domain of the imperial family under the name
of the Altai Mining District. The ores of the Altai proper
nearly always appear in irregular veins, containing silver,
lead, copper and gold -- sometimes all together, -- and they
are, or were, worked chiefly by Zmeinogorsk (or Zmeiev),
Zyryanovsk, Ust-Kamenogorsk and Riddersk (abandoned in
1861). They offer, however, great difficulties, especially
on account of their continually varying productivity and
temperature of fusion. The beautiful varieties of porphyry
-- green, red, striped -- which are obtained, often in big
monoliths, near Kolyvan, are cut at the imperial stone-cutting
factory into vases and other ornaments, familiar in the art
galleries and palaces of Europe. Aquamarines of mediocre
quality but enormous size (up to 3 in. in diameter) are
found in the Korgon mine. The northern, or Salair, mining
region is rich in silver ores, and the mine of this name
used formerly to yield up to 93,300 oz. of silver in the
year. But the chief wealth of the northern Altai is in the
Kuznetsk coal-basin, also containing iron-ores, which fills
up a valley between the Kuznetsk Ala-tau and the Salair
range for a length of about 270 m., with a width of about 65
m. The coal is considered equal to the best coal of
England and south Russia. The country is also covered
with thick diluvial and alluvial deposits containing
gold. However, all the mining is now on the decline.
Population.--The Russian population has rapidly increased
since the fertile valleys belonging to the imperial
family have been thrown open to settlement, and it has
been estimated that in 1908 the population of the region
(Biysk, Barnaul and Kuznetsk districts) reached about
800,000. Their chief occupations are agriculture (about
3,500,000 acres under culture), cattle-breeding, bee-keeping,
mining, gathering of cedar-nuts and hunting. All this
produce is exported partly to Tomsk and partly to Kobdo in
Mongolia. The natives may represent a population of about
45,000. They are Altaians in the west and Telenghites or
Teleuts in the east, with a few Kalmucks and Tatars. Although
all are called Kalmucks by the Russians, they speak a Turkish
language. Both the Telenghites and the Altaians are Shamanists
in religion, but many of the former are already quite
Russified. The virgin forests of the Kuznetsk Ala-tau -- the
Chern, or Black Forest of the Russians -- are peopled by Tatars,
who live in very small settlements, sometimes of the Russian
type, but mostly in wooden yurts or huts of the Mongolian
fashion. They can hardly keep any cattle, and lead the
precarious life of forest-dwellers, living upon various wild
roots when there is no grain in the spring. Hunting and
fishing are resorted to, and the skins and furs are tanned.
Towns.--The capital of the Altai region is Barnaul,
the centre of the mining administration and an animated
commercial town; Biysk is the commercial centre; Kuznetsk,
Ust-Kamenogorsk, and the mining towns of Kolyvan, Zmeinogorsk,
Riddersk and Salairsk are the next largest places.
AUTHORITIES. -- P. Semenov and G. N. Potanin, in supplementary
vol. of Russian ed. of Ritter's Asien (1877); Ledebour,
Reise durch das Altaigebirge (1829-1830); P. Chikhatchev,
Voyage scientifique dans l'Altai oriental (1845);
Gebler, Ubersicht des katunischen Gebirges (1837); G.
von Helmersen, Reise nach dem Altai (St Petersburg, 1848);
T. W. Atkinson, Oriental and Western Siberia (1838); and
Cotta, Der Altai (1871), are still worth consulting. Of
modern works see Adrianov, ``Journey to the Altai,'' in
Zaeiski Russ. Geogr. Soc. xi.; Yadrintsev, ``Journey
in West Siberia,'' in Zapiski West Sib. Geogr. Soc.
ii.; Golubev, Altai (1890, Russian); Schmurlo, ``Passes
in S. Altai'' (Sailughem), in Izvestia Russ. Geogr. Soc.
(1898), xxxiv. 5; V. Saposhnikov, various articles in same
periodical (1897), xxxiii. and (1899) xxxv., and, by the
same, Katun i yeya Istoka (Tomsk, 1901); S. Turner,
Siberia (1905); Deniker, on Kozlov's explorations, in La
Geographie (1901, pp. 41, &c.); and P. Ignatov, in Izvestia
Russ. Geog. Soc. (1902, No. 2). (P. A. K.; J. T. BE.)
1 Mr S. Turner estimates the culminating peak of Mt. Byelukha at
14,800 ft., but to Willer's Peak, a little to the N. W. of Byelukha,
he assigns an altitude of 17,800 ft. (p. 205 of Siberia.)
ALTAMURA, a town of Apulia, Italy, in the province of
Bari, 28 m. S.S.W. of the town of that name, and 56 m.
by rail via Gioia del Colle. Pop. (1901) 22,729. It
possesses a fine Romanesque cathedral begun in 1232 and
restored in 1330 and 1531, the portal being especially
remarkable. It is one of the four Palatine churches of
Apulia. The surrounding territory is fertile. The medieval
walls, erected by the emperor Frederick II., rest upon
the walls of an ancient city of unknown name. These early
walls are of rough blocks of stone without mortar. Ancient
tombs with fragments of vases have also been found, and
there are cases which have been used as primitive tombs or
dwellings, and a group of some fifty tumuli near Altamura.
ALTAR (Lat. altare, from altus, high; some ancient
etymological guesses are recorded by St Isidore of Seville in
Etymologiae xv. 4), strictly a base or pedestal used for
supplication and sacrifice to gods or to deified heroes.
The necessity for such sacrificial furniture has been felt in
most religions, and consequently we find its use widespread
among races and nations which have no mutual connexion.
Mesopotamia. -- Altars are found from the earliest
times in the remains of Babylonian cities; the oldest
are square erections of sun-dried bricks. In Assyrian
mounds limestone and alabaster are the chief material.
They are of varying form; an altar shown in a relief at
Khorsabad is ornamented with stepped battlements, which
are the equivalent of the familiar ``altarhorns'' in Hebrew
ritual. An altar also from Khorsabad (now in the British
Museum) has a circular table and a solid base triangular on
plan, with pilasters ornamented with animals' paws at the
angles. A third variety, of which an 8th century B.C. example
from Nimrod exists in the British Museum, is a rectangular
block ornamented at the ends by cylindrical rolls. These
altars are in height from 2 to 3 ft. According to Herodotus
(i. 183) the great altars of Babylonia were made of gold.
Egypt. -- In Egypt altars took the form of a truncated
cone or of a cubical block of polished granite or of
basalt, with one or more basin-like depressions in the upper
surface for receiving fluid libations. These had channels
whereby fluids poured into the receptacles could be drained
off. The surface was plain, inscribed with dedicatory
or other legends, or adorned with symbolical carving.
Palestine. -- Recent excavations, especially at Gezer,
have shown that the earliest altars, or rather sacrifice
hearths, in Palestine were circular spaces marked out by
small stones set on end. At Gezer a pre-Semitic place of
worship was found in which three such hearths stood together,
and drained into a cave which may reasonably be supposed to
have been regarded as the residence of the divinity. These
circular hearths persisted into the Canaanite period, but
were ultimately superseded by the Semitic developments. To
the primitive nomadic Semite the presence of the divinity
was indicated by springs, shady trees, remarkable rocks and
other landmarks; and from this earliest conception grew the
theory that a numen might be induced to take up an abode in
an artificial heap of stones, or a pillar set upright for the
purpose. The blood of the victim was poured over the stone as
an offering to the divinity dwelling within it; and from this
conception of the stone arose the further and final view, that
the stone was a table on which the victim was to be burned.
Very few specimens of early Palestinian altars remain. The
megalithic structures common in the Hauran and Moab may be
entirely sepulchral. At Gezer no definite altar was discovered
in the great High Place; though it is possible that a bank of
intensely hard compact earth, in which were embedded a large
number of human skulls, took its place. A very remarkable
altar, at present unique, was found at Taanach by the Austrian
excavators. It is pyramidal in shape, and the surface
is ornamented with human-headed animals in relief. This,
like the earliest Babylonian altars, is of baked earth.
The Old Testament conception of the altar varies with the
stage of religious development. In the pre-Deuteronomic
period altars are erected in any place where there had appeared
to be a manifestation of deity, or under any circumstance
in which the aid of deity was invoked; not by heretical
individuals, but by the acknowledged religious leaders, such
as Noah at Ararat, Abraham at Shechem, Bethel &c., Isaac
at Beersheba, Jacob at Bethel, Moses at Rephidim, Joshua at
Ebal, Gideon at Ophrah, Samuel at Raman, Elijah at Carmel,
and others. These primitive altars were of the simplest
possible description -- in fact they were required to be so
by the regulation affecting them, preserved in Exodus xx.
24, which prescribes that in every place where Yahweh
records his name an altar of earth or of unhewn stone, without
steps or other extraneous ornamentation, shall be erected.
The priestly regulations affecting altars are of a very elaborate
nature, and are framed with a single eye to the essential
theory of later Hebrew worship -- the centralization of all
worship at one shrine. These recognize two altars, which by
the authors of this portion of the Pentateuch are placed from
the first in the tabernacle in the wilderness -- a theory
which is inconsistent with the other evidences of the nature
of the earlier Hebrew worship, to which we have just alluded.
The first of these altars is that for burnt-offering. This
altar was in the centre of the court of the tabernacle, of
acacia wood, 3 cubits high and 5 square. It was covered
with copper, was provided with ``horns'' at the corners (like
those of Assyria), hollow in the middle, and with rings on
the sides into which the staves for its transportation could
be run (Ex. xxvii. 1-8). The altar of the Solomonic temple
is on similar lines, but much larger. It is now generally
recognized that the description of the tabernacle altar is
intended to provide a precedent for this vast structure,
which would otherwise be inconsistent with the traditional
view of the simple Hebrew altars. In the second temple a
new altar was built after the fashion of the former (1 Macc.
iv. 47) of ``whole stones from the mountain.'' In Herod's
temple the altar was again built after the same model. It is
described by Josephus (v. 5. 6) as 15 cubits high and 50 cubits
square, with angle horns, and with an ``insensible acclivity''
leading up to it (a device to evade the pre-Deutero- nomic
regulation about steps). It was made without any use of iron,
and no iron tool was ever allowed to touch it. The blood
and refuse were discharged through a drain into the
brook Kedron; this drain probably still remains, in
the Bir el-Arwah, under the ``Dome of the Rock''
in the mosque which covers the site of the temple.
The second altar was the altar of incense, which was in the
holy place of the tabernacle. It was of similar construction
to the altar of burnt-offering, but smaller, being 2 cubits
high and 1 cubit square (Ex. xxx. 1-5). It was overlaid with
gold. Solomon's altar of incense (1 K. vi. 20) is referred
to in a problematical passage from which it would appear to
have been of cedar. But the authenticity of the passages
describing the altar of incense in the tabernacle, and the
historicity of the corresponding altar in Solomon's temple,
are matters of keen dispute among critics. The incense altar
in the second temple was removed by Antiochus Epiphanes (1
Macc. i. 21) and restored by Judas Maccabaeus (1 Macc. iv.
49). That in the temple of Herod is referred to in Luke i. 11.
The ritual uses of these altars are sufficiently explained
by their names. On the first was a fire continually
burning, in which the burnt-offerings were consumed. On
the second an offering of incense was made twice a day.
In the pre-Deuteronomic passage, Exodus xxi. 14, the use of the
altar as an asylum is postulated, though denied to the wilful
murderer. This is a survival of the ancient belief that the
deity resided in the pillar or stone-heap, and that the fugitive
was placing himself under the protection of the local numen
by seeking sanctuary. From 1 Kings i. 50 it would appear
that the suppliant caught hold of the altar-horns (compare
1 Kings ii. 28), as though special protective virtue resided
in this important though obscure part of the structure.
Greece and Rome. -- According to the difference in the
service for which they were employed, altars fell into two
classes. Those of the first class were pedestals, so
small and low that the suppliant could kneel upon them;
these stood inside the temples, in front of the sacred
image. The second class consisted of larger tables destined
for burnt sacrifice; these were placed in the open air,
and, if connected with a temple, in front of the entrance.
Possibly altars of the former class were in historical times
substitutes for, and rendered the same service as, the bases
of the sacred images within the temples in earlier ages. In
this case the altar of Apollo at Delphi, upon which on the
Greek vases Neoptolemus is frequently represented as taking
refuge from Orestes, might be regarded as the pedestal of
an invisible image of the god, and as fulfilling the same
function as did the base of the actual image of Athene in Troy,
towards which Cassandra fled from Ajax. The second class of
altars, called bomoi by the Greeks and altaria by the
Romans, appears to have originated in temporary constructions
such as heaps of earth, turf or stone, made for kindling a
sacrificial fire as occasion required. But sacrifices to earth
divinities were made on the earth itself, and those to the
infernal deities in sunk hollows (Odyss. x. 25; Festus s.
v. Altaria). The note of Eustathius (Odyss. xii. 252)
perhaps indicates some customs reminiscent of a primitive
antiquity in which the sacrifice was made without an altar at
all. He says apobomia tina iera on ouk epi bomou
o kathagis mos all' epi edafous -- ``some holy
places away from altars, whose offering is made not on
an altar but on the floor.'' Pausanias (vi. 20. 7) speaks of
an altar at Olympia made of unbaked bricks. In some primitive
holy shrines the bones and ashes of the victims sacrificed
were allowed to accumulate, and upon this new fires were
kindled. Altars so raised were, like most religious survivals,
considered as endowed with particular sanctity; the most
remarkable recorded instances of such are the altars of Hera
at Samos, and of Pan at Olympia (Paus. v. 14. 6; v. 15.
5), of Heracles at Thebes (Paus. ix. 11. 7), and of Zeus
at Olympia (Paus. v. 13. 5). The last-mentioned stood on a
platform (prothusis) measuring 125 ft. in circumference,
and led up to by steps, the altar itself being 22 ft. high.
Women were excluded from the platform. Where hecatombs were
sacrificed, the prothusis necessarily assumed colossal
proportions, as in the case of the altar at Parion, where it
measured on each side 600 ft. The altar of Apollo at Delos
(o keratinos bomos) was made of the horns of goats
believed to have been slain by Diana; while at Miletus was
an altar composed of the blood of victims sacrificed (Paus.
v. 13. 6). The altar at Phorae in Achaea was of unhewn
stones (Paus. vii. 22. 3). The altar used at the festival
in honour of Daedalus on Mt. Cithaeron was of wood, and was
consumed along with the sacrifice (Paus. ix. 3. 4). Others
of bronze are mentioned. But these were exceptional, the
usual material of an altar was marble, and its form, both
among the Greeks and Romans, was either square or round;
polygonal altars, of which examples still exist, being
exceptions. When sculptured decorations were added they
frequently took the form of imitations of the actual festoons
with which it was usual to ornament altars, or of symbols,
such as crania and horns of oxen, referring to the victims
sacrificed. As a rule, the altars which existed apart
from temples bore the name of the person by whom they were
dedicated and the names of the deities in whose service they
were, or, if not the name, some obvious representation of the
deity. Such, for example, is the purpose of the figures of
the Muses on an altar dedicated to them, now to be seen in
the British Museum. An altar was retained for the service of
one particular god, except where through local tradition two
or more deities had become intimately associated, as in the
case of the altar at Olympia to Artemis and Alpheus jointly,
or that of Poseidon and Erechtheus in the Erechtheum at
Athens. The most remarkable instance of multiple dedication
was, however, at Oropus, where the altar was divided into five
parts, one dedicated to Heracles, Zeus and Paean Apollo, a
second to heroes and their wives, a third to Hestia, Hermes,
Amphiaraus and the children of Amphilochus, a fourth to Aphrodite
Panacea, Jason, Health, and Healing Athene, and the fifth to
the Nymphs, Pan, and the rivers Archelous and Cephissus (Paus.
i. 34. 2). Such deities were styled sbmbomoi, each having
a separate part of the altar (Paus. i. 34. 2). Other terms
are agonioi, or omobomioi. Deities of an inferior
order, who were conceived as working together -- e.g. the
wind gods -- had an altar in common. In the same way, the
``unknown gods'' were regarded as a unit, and had in Athens
and at Olympia one altar for all (Paus. i. 1. 4; v. 14. 5;
cf. Acts of Apostles, xvii. 18). An altar to all the gods is
mentioned by Aeschylus (Suppl. 222). Among the exceptional
classes of altars are also to be mentioned those on which
fire could not be kindled (bomoi apuroi), and those
which were kept free from blood (bomoi anaiaaktoi), of
which in both respects the altar of Zeus Hypatos at Athens
was an example. The lstia was a round altar; the
eschara, one employed apparently for sacrifice to inferior
deities or heroes (but lschara Toibou, Aesch. Pers.
205). In Rome an altar erected in front of a statue of a
god was always required to be lower than the statue itself
(Vitruvius iv. 9). Altars were always places of refuge,
and even criminals and slaves were there safe, violence
offered to them being insults to the gods whose suppliants
the refugees were for the time being. They were also taken
hold of by the Greeks when making their most solemn oaths.
Ancient America. -- As a single specimen of an altar, wholly
unrelated to any of the foregoing, we may cite the ancient
Mexican example described by W. Bullock (Six Months in Mexico,
London, 1824, p. 335). This was cylindrical, 25 ft. in
circumference, with sculpture representing the conquests of the
national warriors in fifteen different groups round the side.
Portable altars and tables of offerings were used in
pre-Christian as well as in Christian ritual. One such was
discovered in the Gezer excavations, dating about 200 B.C.
It was a slab of polished limestone about 6 in. square with
five cups in its upper surface. Another from the same place
was a small cubical block of limestone bearing a dedication to
Heracles. They have also been found in Assyria. Pocket
altars are still used in some forms of worship in India. See
the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1852, p. 71.
1 Bullock also says (p. 354) that the altar in the
church of the indian village of S. Miguel de los Ranchos
which he visited was ``of the same nature as those
in use before the introduction of Christianity.''
ALTARS IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
I. The Early Church. -- The altar is spoken of by the
early Greek and Latin ecclesiastical writers under a variety
of names: -- trapefa, the principal name in the Greek
fathers and the liturgies; thusiasterion (rarer; used in
the Septuagint for Hebrew altars); ilasterion; bomos
(usually avoided, as it is a word with heathen associations);
mensa Domini; ara (avoided like bomos, and for the
same reason); and, most regularly, altare. After the 4th
century other names or expressions come into use, such as
mensa tremenda, series corporis et sanguinis Christi.
The earliest Christians had no altars, and were taunted by
the pagans for this. It is admitted by Origen in his reply
to Celsus (p. 389), who has charged the Christians with being
a secret society ``because they forbid to build temples, to
raise altars.'' ``The altars,'' says Origen, ``are the heart
of every Christian.'' The same appears from a passage in
Lactantius, De Origine Erroris, ii. 2. We gather from these
passages that down to about A.D. 250, or perhaps a little
later, the communion was administered on a movable wooden
table. In the Catacombs, the arcosolia or bench-like tombs
are said (though the statement is doubtful) to have been
used to serve this purpose. The earliest church altars were
certainly made of wood; and it would appear from a passage
in William of Malmesbury (De Gest. Pontif. Angl. iii.
14) that English altars were of wood down to the middle
of the 11th century, at least in the diocese of Worcester.
The cessation of persecution, and consequent gradual
elaboration of church furniture and ritual, led to the
employment of more costly materials for the altar as for
the other fittings of ecclesiastical buildings. Already
in the 4th century we find reference to stone altars in the
writings of Gregory ot Nyssa. In 517 the council of Epaone in
Burgundy forbade any but stone pillars to be consecrated with
chrism; but of course the decrees of this provincial council
would not necessarily be received throughout the church.
Pope Felix I. (A.D. 269-274) decreed that ``mass should be
celebrated above the tombs of martyrs'' -- an observance probably
suggested by the passage in Revelation vi. 9, ``I saw under
the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of
God.'' This practice developed into the medieval rule that no
altar can be consecrated unless it contain a relic or relics.
The form of the altar was originally table-shaped, consisting
of a plane surface supported by columns. There were usually
four, but examples with one, two and five columns are also
recorded. But the development of the relic-custom led
to the adoption of another form, the square box shape
of an ``altar- tomb.'' Transitional examples, combining
the box with the earlier table shape, are found dating
about 450. Mention is made occasionally of silver and
gold altaus in the 5th to the 8th centuries. This means
no doubt that gold and silver were copiously used in its
decoration. Such an altar still remains in Sant' Ambrogio
at Milan, dating from the 9th century (see fig. 1).
II. The Medieval Church. -- It will be convenient now to
pass to the fully-developed altar of the Western Church
with its accessories, though the rudiments of most of the
additional details are traceable in the earlier period.
In the Roman Catholic Church, which preserves in this respect
the tradition that had become established during the middle
ages, the component parts of a fixed altar in the liturgical
sense are the table (mensa), or super-altar, consisting of
a stone slab; the support (stipes), consisting either of a
solid mass or of four or more columns; the sepulchrum, or
altar-cavity, a small chamber for the reception of the relics of
martyrs. The support, in the technical sense, must be of stone
solidly joined to the table; but, if this support consist of
columns, the intervals may be filled with other materials,
e.g. brick or cement. The altar- slab or ``table'' alone
is consecrated, and in sign of this are cut in its upper
surface five Greek crosses, one in the centre and one in each
corner. These crosses must have been anointed by the bishop
with chrism in the ritual of consecration before the altar
can be used. Crosses appear on the portable altar buried
with St Cuthbert (A.D. 687), but the history of the origin
and development of this practice is not fully worked out.
According to the Caeromoniale (i. 12. 13) a canopy (balda
chinum) should be suspended over the altar; this should be
square, and of sufficient size to cover the altar and the
predella on which the officiating priest stands. This
baldachin, called liturgically the ciborium, is sometimes
hung from the roof by chains in such a way that it can be
lowered or raised; sometimes it is fixed to the wall or reredos;
sometimes it is a solid structure of wood covered with metal
or of marble supported on four columns. The latter form
is, however, usual only in large churches, more especially
of the basilica type, e.g. St Peter's at Rome or the
Roman Catholic cathedral at Westminster. The origin of the
ciborium is not certain, but it is represented in a mosaic
at Thessalonica of a date not later than A.D. 500. Even at
the present day, in spite of a decree of the Congregation of
Rites (27th of May 1697) ordering it to be placed over all
altars, it is -- even at Rome itself -- usually only found
over the high altar and the altar of the Blessed Sacrament.
Multiplication of altars is another medieval characteristic.
This also is probably a result of the edict of Pope Felix
already mentioned. In a vault where more than one martyr was
buried an altar might be erected for each. It is in the 6th
century that we begin to find traces of the multiplication of
altars. In the church of St Gall, Switzerland, in the
9th century there were seventeen. In the modern Latin
Church almost every large church contains several altars
-- dedicated to certain saints, in private side chapels,
established for masses for the repose of the founder's
soul, &c. Archbishop Wuifred in 816 ordered that beside
every altar there should be an inscription recording its
dedication. This regulation fell into abeyance after the 12th
century, and such inscriptions are very rare. One remains
mutilated at Deerhurst (Archaeologia, vol. 1. p. 69).
Where there is in a cathedral or church more than one altar,
the principal one is called a ``high altar.'' Where there is a
second high altar, it is generally at the end of the choir or
chancel. In monastic churches (e.g. formerly at St Albans) it
sometimes stands at the end of the nave close to the choir screen.
Beside the altar was a drain (piscina) for pouring
away the water in which the communion vessels were
rinsed. This seems originally to have been under
the altar, as it is still in the Eastern Church.
That the primitive communion table was covered with a
communion-cloth is highly probable, and is mentioned by Optatus
(c. A.D. 370), bishop of Alilevis. This had developed
by the 14th or 15th century into a cerecloth, or waxed cloth,
on the table itself; and three linen coverings one above
the other, two of about the size of the table and one rather
wider than the altar, and long enough to hang down at each
end. Five crosses are worked upon it, four in the corners
and one in the middle, and there is an embroidered edging.1
In front was often a hanging panel of embroidered cloth
(the frontal; but frontals of wood, ornamented with carving
or enamel, &c., are also to be found). These embroidered
frontals are changeable, so that the principal colour in
the pattern can accord with the liturgical colour of the
day. Speaking broadly, red is the colour for feasts of
martyrs, white for virgins, violet for penitential seasons,
&c.; no less than sixty-three different uses differing
in details have been enumerated. A similar panel of
needlework (the dossal) is suspended behind the altar.
Portable altars have been used on occasion since the time of
Bede. They are small slabs of hard stone, just large enough
for the chalice and paten. They are consecrated and marked
with the five incised crosses in the same way as the fixed
altar, but they may be placed upon a support of any suitable
material, whether wood or stone. They are used on a journey in
a heretical or heathen country, or in private chapels. In the
inventory of the field apparel of Henry, earl of Northumberland,
A.D. 1513, is included ``A coffer wyth ij liddes to serue
for an Awter and ned be'' (Archaeologia, xxvi. 403).
On the altar are placed a cross and candlesticks -- six
in number, and seven when a bishop celebrates in his
cathedral; and over it is suspended or fixed a tabernacle
or receptacle for the reservation of the Sacrament.
III. Post-Reformation Altars. -- At the Reformation the
altars in churches were looked upon as symbols of the
unreformed doctrine, especially where the struggle lay
between the Catholics and the Calvinists, who on this
point were much more radical revolutionaries than the
Lutherans. In England the name ``altar''2 was retained in
the Communion Office in English, printed in 1549, and in the
complete English Prayer-book of the following year, known
to students as the First Book of Edward VI. But orders were
given soon after that the altars should be destroyed, and
replaced by movable wooden tables; while from the revised
Prayer book of 1552 the word ``altar'' was carefully expunged,
``God's board'' or ``the table'' being substituted. The short
reign of Mary produced a temporary reaction, but the work
of reformation was resumed on the accession of Elizabeth.
The name ``altar'' has been all along retained in the
Coronation Office of the kings of England, where it occurs
frequently. It was also recognized in the canons of 1640,
but with the reservation that ``it was an altar in the sense
in which the primitive church called it an altar and in no
other.'' In the same canons the rule for the position of the
communion tables, which has been since regularly followed
throughout the Church of England, was formulated. In the
primitive church the altars seem to have been so placed
that, like those of the Hebrews, they could be surrounded
on all sides by the worshippers. The chair of the bishop
or celebrant was on their east side, and the assistant
clergy were ranged on each side of him. But in the middle
ages the altars were placed against the east wall of the
churches, or else against a reredos erected at the east
side of the altar, so as to prevent all access to the table
from that side; the celebrant was thus brought round to the
west side and caused to stand between the people and the
altar. On the north and south sides there were often
curtains. When tables were substituted for altars in the
English churches, these were not merely movable, but at the
administration of the Lord's Supper were actually moved into
the body of the church, and placed table-wise -- that is,
with the long sides turned to the north and south, and the
narrow ends to the east and west, -- the officiating clergyman
standing at the north side. In the time of Archbishop Laud,
however, the present practice of the Church of England was
introduced. The communion table, though still of wood
and movable, is, as a matter of fact, never moved; it
is placed altar-wise -- that is, with its longer axis
running north and south, and close against the east wall.
Often there is a reredos behind it; it is also fenced in
by rails to preserve it from profanation of various kinds.
In 1841 the ancient church of the Holy Sepulchre at
Cambridge was robbed of most of its interest by a calamitous
``restoration'' carried out under the superintendence and
partly at the charge of the Camden Society. On this occasion
a stone altar, consisting of a flat slab resting upon three
other upright slabs, was presented to the parish, and was
set up in the church at the east wall of the chancel.
This was brought to the notice of the Court of Arches in
1845, and Sir H. Jenner Fust (Faulkner v. Lichfield and
Stearn) ordered it to be removed, on the ground that a
stone structure so weighty that it could not be carried
about, and seeming to be a mass of solid masonry, was not a
communion-table in the sense recognized by the Church of England.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. -- For altars in the ancient East see M.
Jastrow, Religion of Assyria anid Babylonia; Perrot and
Chipiez, Art in Chaldea (i. 143, 255); Sir i. Gardiner
Wilkinson, A Second Series of the Monners and Customs of
the Ancient Egyptians, ii. 387; Benzinger's and Nowack's
works on Hebraische Archaologie. For classical altars,
much information can be obtained from the notes in J. G.
Frazer's Pausaniae. See also Schomann, Griechische
Alterthumer, vol. ii.; the volume on ``Gottesdienstliche
Altcrthumer'' in Hermann's Lehrbuch der griechischen
Antiquitaten. On domestic altars and worship see
Petersen, Hausgottesdienst der Griechen (Cassel, 1851).
On plural dedications consult Maurer, De aribus graecorum
pluribus deis in commune positis (Darmstadt, 1885). For
Christian altars, reference is best made to the articles on
the subject in the dictionaries of Christian and liturgical
antiquities of Migne, Martigny, Smith and Cheetham, and
Pugin, where practically all the available information is
collected. See also Ciampinus, Vetera Monumenta (Rome,
1747), where numerous illustrations of altars are to be found;
Martune, De antiquis Ecclesiae ritibus, iii. vi. (Rouen,
1700); Voigt, Thyslasteriologia sive de altaribus veterum
Christianorum (Hamburg, 1709); and the liturgical works of
Bona. Many articles on various sections of the subject have
appeared in the journals of archaeoloeical societies; we may
mention Nesbitt on the churches of Rome earlier than 1150
(Archaeologia, xl. p. 210), Didron, ``L'Autel chretien''
(Annales archeologiques, iv. p. 238), and a paper by
Texier on enamelled altars in the same volume. (R. A. S. M.)
1 In the Eastern Church four small pieces of cloth marked
with the names of the Evangelists are placed on the four
corners of the altar, and covered with three cloths,
the uppermost (the corporal) being of smaller size.
2 Except in one place where the term used is ``God's Board.''
ALTDORF, the capital of the Swiss canton of Uri. It is
built at a height of 1516 ft. above sea-level, a little
above the right bank of the Reuss, not far above the point
where this river is joined on the right by the Schachen
torrent. In 1900 the population was 3117, all Romanists and
German-speaking. Altdorf is 34 m. from Lucerne by the
St Gotthard railway and 22 m. from Goeschenen. Its port
on the Lake of Lucerne, Fluelon, is 2 m. distant. There
is a stately parish church, while above the little town
is the oldest Capuchin convent in Switzerland (1581).
Altdorf is best known as the place where, according to the
legend, William Tell shot the apple from his son's head.
This act by tradition happened on the market-place, where
in 1895, at the foot of an old tower (with rude frescoes
commemorating the feat), there was set up a fine bronze
statue (by Richard Kissling of Zurich) of Tell and his
son. In 1899 a theatre was opened close to the town for
the sole purpose of performing Schiller's play of Wilhelm
Tell. The same year a new carriage-road was opened from
Altdorf through the Schachen valley and over the Klausen
Pass (6404 ft.) to the village of Linththal (30 m.) and so to
Glarus. One and a half mile from Altdorf by the Klausen road
is the village of Burglen, where by tradition Tell was born;
while he is also said to have lost his life, while saving
that of a child, in the Schachen torrent that flows past the
village. On the left bank of the Reuss, immediately opposite
Altdorf, is Attinghausen, where the ruined castle (which
belonged to one of the real founders of the Swiss Confederation)
now houses the cantonal museum of antiquities. (W. A. B. C.)
ALTDORFER, ALBRECHT (N 1480-1538), German painter and
engraver, was born at Regensburg (Ratisbon), where in 1505 he
was enrolled a burgher, and described as ``twenty-five years
old.'' Soon afterwards he is known to have been prosperous,
and as city architect he erected fortifications and a public
slaughter-house. Altdorfer has been called the ``Giorgione
of the North.,' His paintings are remarkable for minute and
careful finish, and for close study of nature. The most
important of them are to be found in the Pinakothek at Munich.
A representation of the battle of Arbela (1529), included in
that collection, is usually considered his chief work. His
engravings on wood and copper are very numerous, and rank next
to those of Albrecht Durer. The most important collection is
at the Bedin museum. Albrecht's brother, Erhard Altdorfer, was
also a painter and engraver, and a pupil of Lucas Cranach.
ALTEN, SIR CHARLES [Karl] (1764-1840), Hanoverian and
British soldier, son of Baron Alten, a member of an old
Hanoverian family, entered the service of the elector as a
page at the age of twelve. In 1781 he received a commission
in the Hanoverian guards, and as a captain took part in the
campaigns of 1793- 1795 in the Low Countries, distinguishing
himself particularly on the Lys in command of light
infantry. In 1803 the Hanoverian army was disbanded, and
Alten took service with the King's German Legion in British
pay. In command of the light infantry of this famous
corps he took part with Lord Cathcart in the Hanoverian
expedition of 1805 and in the siege of Copenhagen in 1807,
and was with Moore in Sweden and Spain, as well as in the
disastrous Walcheren expedition. He was soon employed
once more in the Peninsula, and at Albuera commanded a
brigade. In April 1813 Wellington placed him at the head
of the famous ``Light Division'' (43rd, 52nd, 95th, and
Cacadores), in which post he worthily continued the records
of Moore and Robert Craufurd at Nivelle, Nive, Orthez and
Toulouse. His officers presented him with a sword of
honour as a token of their esteem. In 1815 Alten commanded
Wellington's 3rd division and was severely wounded at
Waterloo. His conduct won for him the rank of Count von
Alten. When the King's German Legion ceased to exist, Alten
was given the command of the Hanoverians in France, and in 1818
he returned to Hanover, where he became subsequently minister
of war and foreign affairs, and rose to be field-marshal,
being retained on the British Army list at the same time
as Major-General Sir Charles Alten, G. C. B. He died in
1840. A memorial to Alten has been erected at Hanover.
See Glentleman's Magazine, 1840; N. L. Beamish, Hist.
of the King's German Legion, 2 vols. (1832-1837).
ALTENA, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia,
on the river Lenne, 38 m. S.S.E. from Dortmund. Pop. (1900)
12,769. It consists of a single street, winding up a deep
valley for about 3 m. There are three churches, a museum,
high grade and popular schools. Its hardware industries are
important, and embrace iron rolling, the manufacture of fine
wire, needles, springs and silver ornaments. On the neighbouring
Schlossberg is the ancestral castle of the counts of La Marok,
ancestors, on the female side, of the Prussian royal house.
ALTENBURG, a town of Germany, capital of the duchy of
Saxe-Altenburg, situated near the river Pleisse, 23 m. S.
of Leipzig, and at the junction of the Saxon state railways
Leipzig- Hof and Altenburg-Zeitz. Pop. (1905) 38,811. The
town from its hilly position is irregularly built, but many
of its streets are wide, and contain a number of large and
beautiful buildings. Its ancient castle is picturesquely
situated on a lofty porphyry rock, and is memorable as the
place from which, in 1455, Kunz von Kaufungen carried off
the young princes Albert and Ernest, the founders of the
present royal and ducal families of Saxony. Its beautiful
picture gallery, containing portraits of several of the
famous princes of the house of Wettin, was almost totally
destroyed by fire in January 1905. Altenburg is the seat
of the higher courts of the Saxon duchies, and possesses a
cathedral and several churches, schools, a library, a gallery
of pictures and a school of art, an infirmary and various
learned societies. There is also a museum, with natural
history, archaeological, and art collections, and among other
buildings may be mentioned St Bartholomew's church (1089), the
town hall (1562-1564), a lunatic asylum, teachers' seminary
and an agricultural academy. There is considerable traffic
in grain and cattle brought from the surrounding districts;
and twice a year there are large horse fairs. Cigars, woollen
goods, gloves, hats and porcelain are among the chief
manufactures. There are lignite mines in the vicinity.
ALTENSTEIN, a castle upon a rocky mountain in Saxe-
Meiningen, on the south-western slope of the Thuringerwald,
not far from Eisenach. It is the summer residence of the
dukes of Meiningen, and is surrounded by a noble park, which
contains, among other objects of interest, a remarkable
underground cavern, 500 ft. long, through which flows a large
and rapid stream. Boniface, the apostle of the Germans,
lived and preached at Altenstein in 724; and near by is the
place where, in 1521, Luther was seized, by the order of
the elector Frederick the Wise, to be carried off to the
Wartburg. An old beech called ``Luther's tree,'' which
tradition connected with the reformer, was blown down in
1841, and a small monument now stands in its place.
ALTERNATION (from Lat. aiternare, to do by turns), strictly,
the process of ``alternating''' i.e. of two things following
one another regularly by turns, as night alternates with day.
A somewhat different sense is attached to some usages of the
derivatives. Thus, in American political representative bodies
and in the case of company directors, a substitute is sometimes
called an ``alternate.'' An ``alternative'' IS that which
is offered as a choice of two things, the acceptance of the
one implying the rejection of the other. It is incorrect
to speak of more than two alternatives, though Mr Gladstone
wrote in 1857 of a fourth (Oxf. Essays, 26). When there
is only one course open there is said to be no alternative.
ALTHAEA, in classical legend, daughter of Thestius, king of Aetolia,
wife of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and mother of Meleager (q.v..)
ALTING, JOHANN HEINRICH (1583--1644), German divine, was
born at Emden, where his father, Menso Alting ( 1541-1612), was
minister. Johann studied with great success at the universities
of Groningen and Herborn. In 1608 he was appointed tutor of
Frederick, afterwards elector-palatine, at Heidelberg, and
in 1612 accompanied him to England. Returning in 1613 to
Heidelberg, after the marriage of the elector with Princess
Elizabeth of England, he was appointed professor of dogmatics,
and in 1616 director of the theological department in the
Collegium Sapientiae. In 1618, along with Abraham
Scultetus, he represented the university in the synod of
Dort. When Count Tilly took the city of Heidelberg (1622)
and handed it over to plunder, Alting found great difficulty
in escaping the fury of the soldiers. He first retired to
Schorndorf; but, offended by the ``semi-Pelagianism'' of the
Lutherans with whom he was brought in contact, he removed to
Holland, where the unfortunate elector and ``Winter King''
Frederick, in exile after his brief reign in Bohemia, made
him tutor to his eldest son. In 1627 Alting was appointed
to the chair of theology at Groningen, where he continued
to lecture, with increasing reputation, until his death in
1644. Though an orthodox Calvinist, Alting laid little
stress on the sterner side of his creed and, when at Dort
he opposed the Remonstrants, he did so mainly on the
ground that they were ``innovators.'' Among his works are:
--Notae in Decadem Problematum Jacobi Behm (Heidelberg,
1618); Scripta Pheologica Meidelbergensia (Amst.,
1662); Exegesis Augustanae Confessionis (Amst., 1647).
ALTINUM (mod. Altino), an ancient town of Venetia,
12 m. S.E. of Tarvisium (Treviso), on the edge of the
lagoons. It was probably only a small fishing village until
it became the point of junction of the Via Postumia and the
Via Popillia (see AQUILEIA). At the end of the republic
it was a municipium. Augustus and his successors brought
it into further importance as a point on the route between
Italy and the north-eastern portions of the empire. After
the foundation of the naval station at Ravenna, it became the
practice to take ship from there to Altinum, instead of following
the Via Popillia round the coast, and thence to continue
the journey by land. A new road, the Via Claudia Augusta,
was constructed by the emperor Claudius from Altinum to the
Danube, a distance of 350 m., apparently by way of the Lake of
Constance. The place thus became of considerable strategic
and commercial importance, and the comparatively mild climate
(considering its northerly situation) led to the erection of
villas which Martial (Epigr. iv. 25) compares with those of
Baiae. It was destroyed by Attila in A.D. 452, and its
inhabitants took refuge in the islands of the lagoons,
forming settlements from which Venice eventually sprang.
ALTITUDE (Lat. altitudo, from altus, high), height or
eminence, and particularly the height above the ground or above
sea-level. In geometry, the altitude of a triangle is the
length of the perpendicular from the vertex to the base. In
astronomy, the altitude of a heavenly body is the apparent
angular elevation of the body above the plane of the horizon
(see ASTRONOMY: Spherical). Apparent altitude is the
value which is directly observed; true altitude is deduced
by correcting for astronomical refraction and dip of the
horizon; geocentric altitude by correcting for parallax.
ALTMUHL, a river of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria.
It is an important left bank tributary of the Danube,
rising in the Franconian plateau (Frankische Terrasse),
and after a tortuous course of 116 m., at times flowing
through meadows and again in weird romantic gorges, joins
the Danube at Kelheim. From its mouth it is navigable
up to Dietfurt (18 m.), whence the Ludwigscanal (100 m.
long) proceeds to Bamberg on the Regnitz, thus establishing
communication between the Danube and the Rhine.
ALTO (Ital. for ``high',), a musical term applied
to the highest adult male voice or counter-tenor,
and to the lower boy's or woman's (contralto) Voice.
ALTON, a market-town in the Fareham parliamentary division
of Hampshire, England, 46 1/2 m. S.W. of London by the London
& South-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 5479.
It has a pleasant undulating site near the headwaters of the
river Wey. Of the church of St Lawrence part, including the
tower, is Norman; the building was the scene of a fierce
conflict between the royalist and parliamentary troops in
1643. There is a museum of natural history; the collection is
reminiscent of the famous naturalist Gilbert White, of Selborne
in this vicinity. Large markets and fairs are held for corn,
hops, cattle and sheep; and the town contains some highly
reputed ale breweries, besides paper mills and iron foundries.
ALTON, a city of Madison county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the W.
part of the state, on the Mississippi river, about 10 m. above
the mouth of the Missouri, and about 25 m. N. of St Louis,
Missouri. Pop. (1890) 10,294; (1900) 14,210, of whom 1638
were foreign-born; (1910) 17,528. Alton is served by the
Chicago & Alton, the Chicago, Peoria & St Louis, the Cleveland,
Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Illinois Terminal
railways. The river is here spanned by a bridge. The
residential portion of the city lies on the river bluffs,
some of which rise to a height of 250 ft. above the water
level, and the business streets are on the bottom lands of the
river. Alton has a public library and a public park. Upper
Alton (pop. 2918 in 1910), about 1 1/2 m. N.E. of Alton, is
the seat of the Western Military Academy (founded in 1879 as
Wyman Institute; chartered in 1892), and of Shurtleff College
(Baptist, founded in 1827 at Rock Spring, removed to Upper
Alton in 1831, and chartered in 1833), which has a college
of liberal arts, a divinity school, an academy and a school
of music; and the village of Godfrey, 5 1/2 m. N. of Alton,
is the seat of the Monticello Ladies' Seminary, founded by
Benjamin Godfrey, opened in 1838, and chartered in 1841. Among
the manufactures of Alton are iron and glass ware, miners'
tools, shovels, coal-mine cars, flour, and agricultural
implements; and there are a large oil refinery and a large lead
smelter. The value of the city's factory products increased
from $4,250,389 in 1900 to $8,696,814 in 1905, or 104.6%.
The first settlement on the site of Alton was made in 1807,
when a trading post was established by the French. The
town was laid out in 1817, was first incorporated in 1821,
and in 1827 was made the seat of a state penitentiary,
which was later removed to Joliet, the last prisoners being
transferred in 1860. Alton was first chartered as a city in
1837. In 1836 the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy (1802-1837), a
native of Albion, Maine, removed the Observer, a religious
(Presbyterian) periodical of which he was the editor,
from St Louis to Alton. He had attracted considerable
attention in St Louis by his criticisms of slavery, but
though he believed in emancipation, he was not a radical
abolitionist. After coming to Alton his anti-slavery views
soon became more radical, and in a few months he was an avowed
abolitionist. His views were shared by his brother, Owen
Lovejoy (1811-1864), a Congregational minister, who also at
that time lived in Alton, and who from 1857 until his death
was an able anti-slavery member of Congress. Most of the
people of southern Illinois were in sympathy with slavery,
and consequently the Lovejoys became very unpopular. The
press of the Observer was three time destroyed, and on
the 7th of November 1837 E. P. Loveioy was killed while
attempting to defend against a mob a fourth press which he
had recently obtained and which was stored in a warehouse in
Alton. His death caused intense excitement throughout the
country, and he was everywhere regarded by abolitionists
as a martyr to their cause. In 1897 a monument, a granite
column surmounted by a bronze statue of Victory, was erected
in his honour by the citizens of Alton and by the state.
See Henry Tanner, The Martyrdom of Lovejoy (Chicago,
1881), and ``The Alton Tragedy'' in S. J. May's Some
Recollections of Our Anti-Slavery Conflict (Boston, 1869).
ALTONA, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of
Schleswig-Holstein, on the right bank of the Elbe immediately
west of Hamburg. Though administratively distinct, the
two cities so closely adjoin as virtually to form one
whole. Lying higher than Hamburg, Altona enjoys a purer
and healthier atmosphere. It has spacious squares and
streets, among the latter the Palmaille, a stately avenue
ending on a terrace about 100 ft. above the Elbe, whence
a fine view is obtained of the river and the lowlands
beyond. Of the six Evangelical churches, the Hauptkirche
(parish church), with a lofty steeple, is noteworthy.
The main thoroughfares are embellished by several striking
monuments, notably the memorials of the wars of 1864 and
1870, bronze statues of the emperor William I. and Bismarck
and the column of Victory (Siegessaule). The museum (1901)
is an imposing building in the German Renaissance style and
contains, in addition to a valuable library, ethnographical
and natural history collections. Its site is that formerly
occupied by the terminus of the Schleswig-Holstein railways,
but a handsome central station lying somewhat farther to
the N., connected with Hamburg by an elevated railway, now
accommodates all the traffic and provides through communication
with the main Prussian railway systems. There are also fine
municipal and judicial buildings, a theatre (under the same
management as the Stadttheater in Hamburg), a gymnasium,
technical schools, a school of navigation and a hospital.
In respect of its local industries Altona has manufactures
of tobacco and cigars, of machinery, woollens, cottons and
chemicals. There are also extensive breweries, tanneries
and soap and oil works. Altona carries on an extensive
maritime trade with Great Britain, France and America, but
it has by no means succeeded in depriving Hamburg of its
commercial superiority -- indeed, so dependent is it upon its
rival that most of its business is transacted on the Hamburg
exchange, while the magnificent warehouses on the Altona river
bank are to a large extent occupied by the goods of Hamburg
merchants. Since 1888, when Altona joined the imperial
Zollverein, approximately half a million sterling has been
spent upon harbour improvement works. The exports and imports
resemble those of Hamburg. In the ten years 1871-1880,
the port was entered on an average annually by 737 vessels
of 67,735 tons, in 1881-1890 by 608 vessels of 154,713
tons, and in 1891-1898 by 839 vessels of 253,384 tons.
In 1890 the populous suburbs of Ottensen to the W., where the
poet Gottlieb Klopstock lies buried, Bahrenfeld, Othmarschen
and Ovelgonne were incorporated. Without these suburbs the
growth of the town may be seen from the following figures: --
(1864, when it ceased to he Danish) 53,039; (1880) 91,049;
(1885) 104,717; (1890) together with the four suburbs,
143,249; (1895) 148,944; (1900) 161,508; (1905) 168,301.
Altona is the headquarters of the IX. German army corps.
The name Altona is said to be derived from allzu-nah (``all
too near''), the Hamburgers' designation for an inn which
in the middle of the 16th century lay too close to their
territory. For a long time this was the only house in the
locality. When in 1640 Altona passed to Denmark it was
a small fishing village. Its rise to its present position
is mainly due to the fostering care of the Danish kings
who conferred certain customs privileges and exemptions
upon it with a view to making it a formidable rival to
Hamburg. In 1713 it was burnt by the Swedes, but rapidly
recovered from this disaster, and despite the trials of
the Napoleonic wars, gradually increased in prosperity.
In 1853, owing to the withdrawal by Denmark of its customs
privileges, its trade waned. In 1864 Altona was occupied in
the name of the German Confederation, passed to Prussia after
the war of 1866, and 1888 together with Hamburg joined the
Zollverein, while retaining certain free trade rights over the
Freihafengebiet which it shares with Hamburg and Wandsbek.
See Wichmann, Geschichte Altonas (2 vols., Alt., 1896); Ehrenberg
& Stahl, Altonas topographische Entwickelung (Alt., 1894).
ALTOONA, a city of Blair county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.,
about 117 m. E. by N. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890) 30,337;
(1900) 38,973, of whom 3301 were foreign-born, 1518 being
German; (1010) 52,127. It lies in the upper end of Logan
Valley at the base or the Alleghany mountains, about 1180
ft. above sea-level, and Commands views of some of the most
picturesque mountain scenery in the state. A short distance
to the W. is the famous Horseshoe Bend of the Pennsylvania
railway. Altoona is served by the Pennsylvania railway,
and is one of the leading railway cities in the United
States. Its freight yard is 7 m. long, and has 221 m. of
tracks. Large numbers of eastbound coal trains from the
mountains and westbound ``empties'' returning to the mines
stop here; and the cars of these trains are classified
here and new trains made up. Locomotives and cars are sent
to Altoona to be repaired from all over the Pennsylvania
railway system E. of Pittsburg, and cars and locomotives
are built here; and in the south Altoona foundries car
wheels and general castings for locomotives and cars are
made. The several departments of railway work are used to
give training in a sort of railway university. Graduates of
technical schools are received as special apprentices and
are directed in a course of four years through the erecting
shops, vice shop, blacksmith shop, boiler shop, roundhouse,
test department, machine shop, air-brake shop, iron foundry,
car shop, work of firing on the road, office work in the
motive power accounting department, and drawing room; the most
competent may be admitted through the grades of inspector, in
the office of the master mechanic or of the road foreman of
engines, assistant master mechanic, assistant engineer of
motive power, master mechanic and superintendent of motive
power. The Pennsylvania railway, co-operating with the
public school authorities, established at Altoona, in 1907, a
railway high school, the first institution of the kind in the
country. It has a well-equipped drawing room, carpenter shop,
forging room, foundry, science laboratories and machinery
department, in which expert instruction is given. In 1905
the city's factory products were valued at $14,349,963, and
in this year the railway shops gave employment to 83.7% of
all wage-earners employed in manufacturing establishments.
The manufacture of silk is the only other important industry
in the city. The site of the city (formerly farming
land) was purchased in 1849 by the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company and was laid out as a town. It was incorporated
as a borough in 1854 and was chartered as a city in 1868.
ALTO-RELIEVO (Ital. for ``high relief''), the term applied
to sculpture that projects from the plane to which it is
attached to the extent of more than one-half the outline of
the principal figures, which may be nearly or in parts entirely
detached from the background. It is thus distinguished from
basso-relievo (q.v.), in which there is a greater or
less approximation in effect to the pictorial method, the
figures being made to appear as projecting more than half
their outline without actually doing so. At the same time
it is not only the actual degree of relief which is implied
by these two terms, but a resultant difference also of design
and treatment necessitated by the contingent differences
of light and shadow. (See RELIEF and SCULPTURE.)
ALTOTTING, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria,
On the Morren, not far from its junction with the Inn,
and on the Mulildorf-Burghausen railway. Pop. (1900)
4344. It has long been a place of pilgrimage to which
Roman Catholics, especially from Austria, Bavaria and Swabia
resort in large numbers, on account of a celebrated image
of the Virgin Mary in the Holy Chapel, which also contains
the hearts of some Bavarian princes in silver caskets. In
the church of St Peter and St Paul is the tomb of Tilly.
ALTRANSTADT, a village of Germany, in Prussian Saxony near
Merseburg (q.v.), with (1900) 813 inhabitants. Altranstadt
is famous in history for two treaties concluded here: (1)
the peace which Augustus II., king of Poland and elector of
Saxony, was forced to ratify, on the 24th of September 1706,
with Charles XII. of Sweden, whereby the former renounced
the throne of Poland in favour of Stanislaus Leszczynski
-- a treaty which Augustus declared null and void after
Charles XII.'s defeat at Poltava (8th of July 1709); (2)
the treaty of the 31st of August 1707, by which the emperor
Joseph I. guaranteed to Charles XII. religious tolerance
and liberty of conscience for the Silesian protestants.
ALTRINCHAM, or ALTRINOHAM (and so pronounced), a market-town,
in the Altrincham padiamentary division of Cheshire England, 8
m. S.W. by S. of Manchester, on the London & North-Western,
Manchester, South Junction & Altrincham and Cheshire Lines
railways. Pop. of urban district (1901) 16,831. Many
residences in the locality are occupied by those whose
business lies in Manchester, who are attracted by the healthy
climate and the vicinity of Bowdon Downs and Dunham Massey
Woods. Market gardening is carried on, large quantities
of fruit and flowers being grown for sale in Manchester.
Cabinet-making is also practised; and there are sawmills, iron
foundries, and manufactures of cotton, yarn and worsted.
Altrincham (Aldringham) was originally included in the barony
of Dunham Massey, one of the eight baronies founded by Hugh,
earl of Chester, after the Conquest. An undated charter
from Hamo de Massey, lord of the barony, in the reign of
Edward I., constituted Altrincham a free borough, with a
gild merchant, the customs of Macclesfield, the right to
elect reeves and bailiffs for the common council and other
privileges. In 1290 the same Hamo obtained a grant of
a Tuesday market and a three days' fair at the feast of
the Assumption of the Virgin; but in 1319, by a charter
from Edward II., the date of the fair was changed to the
feast of St James the Apostle. A mayor of Altrincham is
mentioned by name in 1452, but the office probably existed
long before this date; it has now for centuries been a
purely nominal appointment, the chief duty consisting in
the opening of the annual fairs. The trade in worsted
and woollen yarns, which formerly furnished employment
to a large section of the population, has now completely
declined, partly owing to the introduction of Irish worsted.
See Victoria County History, Cheshire; Alfred Ingham,
History of Altrincham and Bowdon (Altrincham, 1879).
ALTRUISM (Fr. autrui, from Lat. alter, the other of
two), a philosophical term used in ethics for that theory of
conduct which regards the good of others as the end of moral
action. It was invented by Auguste Comte and adopted
by the English positivists as a convenient antithesis to
egoism. According to Comte the only practical method of
social regeneration is gradually to inculcate the true
social feeling which subordinates itself to the welfare of
others. The application to sociological problems of the
physical theory of organic evolution further developed the
altruistic theory. According to Herbert Spencer, the life
of the individual in the perfect society is identical with
that of the state: in other words, the first object of him
who would live well must be to take his part in promoting
the well-being of his fellows individually and collectively.
Pure egoism and pure altruism are alike impracticable. For
on the one hand unless the egoist's happiness is compatible
to some extent with that of his fellows, their opposition
will almost inevitably vitiate his perfect enjoyment; on the
other hand, the altruist whose primary object is the good of
others, must derive his own highest happiness -- i.e. must
realize himself most completely -- in the fulfilment of this
object. In fact, the altruistic idea, in itself and apart from a
further definition of the good, is rather a method than an end.
The self-love theory of Hobbes, with its subtle perversions
of the motives of ordinary humanity, led to a reaction
which culminated in the utilitarianism of Bentham and the two
Mills; but their theory, though superior to the extravagant
egoism of Hobbes, had this main defect, according to Herbert
Spencer, that it conceived the world as an aggregate of
units, and was so far individualistic. Sir Leslie Stephen
in his Science of Ethics insisted that the unit is the
social organism, and therefore that the aim of moralists
is not the ``greatest happiness of the greatest number,''
but rather the ``health of the organism.'' The socialistic
tendencies of subsequent thinkers have emphasized the ethical
importance of altruistic action, but it must be remembered
always that it is ultimately only a form of action, that
it may be commended in all types of ethical theory, and
that it is a practical guide only when it is applied in
accordance with a definite theory of ``the good.'' Finally,
he who devotes himself on principle to furthering the
good of others as his highest moral obligation is from the
highest point of view realizing, not sacrificing, himself.
See works of Comte, Spencer, Stephen, and text-books of
ethics (cf. bibliography at end of article ETHICS).
ALTWASSER, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of
Silesia, 43 m. by rail S.W. from Breslau, and 3 m. N. from
Waldenburg. It has factories for glass, porcelain, machinery,
cotton-spinning, iron-foundries and coal-mines. Pop. (1900) 12,144.
ALTYN-TAGH, or ASTYN-TAOH, one of the chief constituent
ranges of the Kuen-lun (q.v.) in Central Asia, separating
Tibet from east Turkestan and the Desert of Gobi.
ALUM, in chemistry, a term given to the crystallized double
sulphates of the typical formula M2SO4.M2111.(SO4)324H2O,
Where M is the sign of an alkali metal (potassium, sodium,
rubidium, caesium), silver or ammonium, and M111 denotes
one of the trivalent metals, aluminium, chromium or ferric
iron. These salts are employed in dyeing and various
other industrial processes. They are soluble in water,
have an astringent, acid, and sweetish taste, react acid
to litmus, and crystallize in regular octahedra. When
heated they liquefy; and if the heating be continued, the
water of crystallization is driven off, the salt froths
and swells, and at last an amorphous powder remains.
Potash alum is the common alum of commerce, although both
soda alum and ammonium alum are manufactured. The presence
of sulphuric acid in potash alum was known to the alchemists.
J. H. Pott and A. S. Marggraf demonstrated that alumina was
another constituent. Pott in his Lithogeognosia showed
that the precipitate obtained when an alkali is poured into
a solution of alum is quite different from lime and chalk,
with which it had been confounded by G. E. Stahl. Marggraf
showed that alumina is one of the constituents of alum, but
that this earth possesses peculiar properties, and is one of
the ingredients in common clay (Experiences faites sur la
terre de l'alun, Marggraf's Opusc. ii. 111) . He also
showed that crystals of alum cannot be obtained by dissolving
alumina in sulphuric acid and evaporating the solutions, but
when a solution of potash or ammonia is dropped into this
liquid, it immediately deposits perfect crystals of alum (Sur
la regeneration de l'alun, Marggraf's Opusc. ii. 86).
T. O. Bergman also observed that the addition of potash or ammonia
made the solution of alumina in sulphuric acid crystallize, but
that the same effect was not produced by the addition of soda
or of lime (De confectione aluminus, Bergman's Opusc. i.
225), and that potassium sulphate is frequently found in alum.
After M. H. Klaproth had discovered the presence of potassium
in leucite and lepidolite, it occurred to L. N. Vauquelin
that it was probably an ingredient likewise in many other
minerals. Knowing that alum cannot be obtained in crystals
without the addition of potash, he began to suspect that
this alkali constituted an essential ingredient in the salt,
and in 1797 he published a dissertation demonstrating that
alum is a double salt, composed of sulphuric acid, alumina
and potash (Annales de chimie, xxii. 258). Soon after,
J. A. Chaptal published the analysis of four different kinds
of alum, namely, Roman alum, Levant alum, British alum and
alum manufactured by himself. This analysis led to the same
result as that of Vauquelin (Ann. de chim xxii. 280).
The word alumen, which we translate alum, occurs in
Pliny's Natural History. In the 15th chapter of his 35th
book he gives a detailed description of it. By comparing
this with the account of stupteria given by Dioscorides
in the 123rd chapter of his 5th book, it is obvious that
the two are identical. Pliny informs us that alumen was
found naturally in the earth. He calls it salsugoterrae.
Different substances were distinguished by the name of
''alumen''; but they were all characterized by a certain
degree of astringency, and were all employed in dyeing and
medicine, the light-coloured alumen being useful in brilliant
dyes, the dark-coloured only in dyeing black or very dark
colours. One species was a liquid, which was apt to be
adulterated; but when pure it had the property of blackening
when added to pomegranate juice. This property seems
to characterize a solution of iron sulphate in water; a
solution of ordinary (potash) alum would possess no such
property. Pliny says that there is another kind of alum which
the Greeks call schistos. It forms in white threads upon
the surface of certain stones. From the name schistos, and
the mode of formation, there can be little doubt that this
species was the salt which forms spontaneously on certain
slaty minerals, as alum slate and bituminous shale, and
which consists chiefly of sulphates of iron and aluminium.
Possibly in certain places the iron sulphate may have been
nearly wanting, and then the salt would be white, and would
answer, as Pliny says it did, for dyeing bright colours.
Several other species of alumen are described by Pliny, but
we are unable to make out to what minerals he alludes.
The alumen of the ancients, then, was not the same with the
alum of the moderns. It was most commonly an iron sulphate,
sometimes probably an aluminium sulphate, and usually a
mixture of the two. But the ancients were unacquainted with
our alum. They were acquainted with a crystallized iron
sulphate, and distinguished it by the names of misy, sory,
chalcanthum (Pliny xxxiv. 12). As alum and green vitriol
were applied to a variety of substances in common, and as
both are distinguished by a sweetish and astringent taste,
writers, even after the discovery of alum, do not seem
to have discriminated the two salts accurately from each
other. In the writings of the alchemists we find the words
misy, sory, chalcanthum applied to alum as well as to iron
sulphate; and the name atramentum sutorium, which ought
to belong, one would suppose, exclusively to green vitriol,
applied indifferently to both. Various minerals are employed
in the manufacture of alum, the most important being alunite
(q.v.) or alum-stone, alum schist, bauxite and cryolite.
In order to obtain alum from alunite, it is calcined and
then exposed to the action of air for a considerable
time. During this exposure it is kept continually moistened
with water, so that it ultimately falls to a very fine
powder. This powder is then lixiviated with hot water, the
liquor decanted, and the alum allowed to crystallize. The
alum schists employed in the manufacture of alum are mixtures
of iron pyrites, aluminium silicate and various bituminous
substances, and are found in upper Bavaria, Bohemia, Belgium
and Scotland. These are either roasted or exposed to the
weathering action of the air. In the roasting process,
sulphuric acid is formed and acts on the clay to form aluminium
sulphate, a similar condition of affairs being produced during
weathering. The mass is now systematically extracted with
water, and a solution of aluminium sulphate of specific
gravity 1.16 is prepared. This solution is allowed to stand
for some time (in order that any calcium sulphate and basic
ferric sulphate may separate), and is then evaporated until
ferrous sulphate crystallizes on cooling; it is then drawn
off and evaporated until it attains a specific gravity of
1.40. It is now allowed to stand for some time, decanted from
any sediment, and finally mixed with the calculated quantity
of potassium sulphate (or if ammonium alum is required, with
ammonium sulphate), well agitated, and the alum is thrown
down as a finely-divided precipitate of alum meal. If much
iron should be present in the shale then it is preferable
to use potassium chloride in place of potassium sulphate.
In the preparation of alum from clays or from bauxite, the
material is gently calcined, then mixed with sulphuric acid
and heated gradually to boiling; it is allowed to stand for
some time, the clear solution drawn off and mixed with acid
potassium sulphate and allowed to crystallize. When cryolite
is used for the preparation of alum, it is mixed with calcium
carbonate and heated. By this means, sodium aluminate is
formed; it is then extracted with water and precipitated
either by sodium bicarbonate or by passing a current of
carbon dioxide through the solution. The precipitate is then
dissolved in sulphuric acid, the requisite amount of potassium
sulphate added and the solution allowed to crystallize.
Potash alum, K2SO4.Al2(SO4)3.24H2O, crystallizes in regular
octahedra and is very soluble in water. The solution redens
litmus and is an astringent. When heated to nearly a red
heat it gives a porous friable mass which is known as ``burnt
alum.'' It fuses at 92 deg. C. in its own water of crystallization.
``Neutral alum'' is obtained by the addition of as much sodium
carbonate to a solution of alum as will begin to cause the
separation of alumina; it is much used in mordanting. Alum
finds application as a mordant, in the preparation of lakes for
sizing hand-made paper and in the clarifying of turbid liquids.
Sodium alum, Na2SO4.Al2(SO4)3.24H2O, occurs in nature
as the mineral mendozite. It is very soluble in water, and
is extremely difficult to purify. In the preparation of
this salt, it is preferable to mix the component solutions
in the cold, and to evaporate them at a temperature
not exceeding 60 deg. C. 100 parts of water dissolve 110
parts of sodium alum at 0 deg. C. (W. A. Tilden, Jour.
Chem. Soc., 1884, 45, p. 409), and 51 parts at 16 deg.
C. (E. Auge, Comptes rendus, 1890, 110, p. 1139).
Chrome alum, K2SO4.Cr2(SO 4/0)3.24H2O, appears chiefly
as a by-product in the manufacture of alizarin, and
as a product of the reaction in bichromate batteries.
The solubility of the various alums in water varies greatly,
sodium alum being readily soluble in water, whilst caesium
and rubidium alums are only sparingly soluble. The
various solubilities are shown in the following table: --