Volume III (part 3)

AXIOM (Gr. ἀξίωμα), a general proposition or principle accepted as self-evident, either absolutely or within a particular sphere of thought. Each special science has its own axioms (cf. the Aristotelian ἀρχαί, "first principles") which, however, are sometimes susceptible of proof in another wider science. The Greek word was probably confined by Plato to mathematical axioms, but Aristotle (Anal. Post. i. 2) gave it also the wider significance of the ultimate principles of thought which are behind all special sciences (e.g. the principle of contradiction). These are apprehended solely by the mind, which may, however, be led to them by an inductive process. After Aristotle, the term was used by the Stoics and the school of Ramus for a proposition simply, and Bacon (Nov. Organ. i. 7) used it of any general proposition. The word was reintroduced in modern philosophy probably by René Descartes (or by his followers) who, in the search for a definite self-evident principle as the basis of a new philosophy, naturally turned to the familiar science of mathematics. The axiom of Cartesianism is, therefore, the Cogito ergo sum. Kant still further narrowed the meaning to include only self-evident (intuitive) synthetic propositions, i.e. of space and time. The nature of axiomatic certainty is part of the fundamental problem of logic and metaphysics. Those who deny the possibility of all non-empirical knowledge naturally hold that every axiom is ultimately based on observation. For the Euclidian axioms see Geometry.

AXIS (Lat. for "axle"), a word having the same meaning as axle, and also used with many extensions of this primary meaning. It denotes the imaginary line about which a body or system of bodies rotates, or a line about which a body or action is symmetrically disposed. In geometry, and in geometrical crystallography, the term denotes a line which serves to aid the orientation of a figure. In anatomy, it is, among other uses, applied to the second cervical vertebra, and in botany it means the stem.

AXLE (in Mid. Eng. axel-tre, from O. Norweg. öxull-tre, cognate with the O. Eng. æxe or eaxe, and connected with Sansk. áksha, Gr. ἄξων, and Lat. axis), the pin or spindle on which a wheel turns. In carriages the axle-tree is the bar on which the wheels are mounted, the axles being strictly its thinner rounded prolongations on which they actually turn. The pins which pass through the ends of the axles and keep the wheels from slipping off are known as axle-pins or "linch-pins," "linch" being a corruption, due to confusion with "link," of the Old English word for "axle," lynis, cf. Ger. Lünse.

AX-LES-THERMES, a watering place of south-western France, in the department of Ariège, at the confluence of the Ariège with three tributaries, 26 m. S.S.E. of Foix by rail. Pop. (1906) 1179. Ax (Aquae), situated at a height of 2300 ft., is well known for its warm sulphur springs (77°-172° F.), of which there are about sixty. The waters, which were used by the Romans, are efficacious in the treatment of rheumatism, skin diseases and other maladies.

AXMINSTER, a market-town in the Honiton parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, on the river Axe, 27 m. E. by N. of Exeter by the London & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 2906. The minster, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, illustrates every style of architecture from Norman to Perpendicular. There are in the chancel two freestone effigies, perhaps of the 14th century, besides three sedilia, and a piscina under arches. Axminster was long celebrated for the admirable quality of its carpets, which were woven by hand, like tapestry. Their manufacture was established in 1755. Their name is preserved, but since the seat of this industry was removed to Wilton near Salisbury, the inhabitants of Axminster have found employment in brush factories, corn mills, timber yards and an iron foundry. Cloth, drugget, cotton, leather, gloves and tapes are also made. Coaxdon House, the birthplace in 1602 of Sir Symonds d'Ewes, the Puritan historian, is about 2 m. distant, and was formerly known as St Calyst.

Axminster (Axemystre) derives its name from the river Axe and from the old abbey church or minster said to have been built by King Æthelstan. The situation of Axminster at the intersection of the two great ancient roads, Iknield Street and the Fosse Way, and also the numerous earthworks and hill-fortresses in the neighbourhood indicate a very early settlement. There is a tradition that the battle of Brunanburh was fought in the valley of the Axe, and that the bodies of the Danish princes who perished in action were buried in Axminster church. According to Domesday, Axminster was held by the king. In 1246 Reginald de Mohun, then lord of the manor, founded a Cistercian abbey at Newenham within the parish of Axminster, granting it a Saturday market and a fair on Midsummer day, and the next year made over to the monks from Beaulieu the manor and hundred of Axminster. The abbey was dissolved in 1539. The midsummer fair established by Reginald de Mohun is still held.

See Victoria County History—Devon; James Davidson, British and Roman Remains in the Vicinity of Axminster (London, 1833).

AXOLOTL, the Mexican name given to larvae salamanders of the genus Amblystoma. It required the extraordinary acumen of the great Cuvier at once to recognize, when the first specimens of the Gyrinus edulis or Axolotl of Mexico were brought to him by Humboldt in the beginning of the 19th century, that these Batrachians were not really related to the Perennibranchiates, such as Siren and Proteus, with which he was well acquainted, but represented the larval form of some air-breathing salamander. Little heed was paid to his opinion by most systematists, and when, more than half a century later, the axolotl was found to breed in its branchiferous condition, the question seemed to be settled once for all against him, and the genus Siredon, as it was called by J. Wagler, was unanimously maintained and placed among the permanent gill-breathers.

It seemed impossible to admit that an animal which lives for years without losing its gills, and is able to propagate in that state, could be anything but a perfect form. And yet subsequent discoveries, which followed in rapid succession, have established that Siredon is but the larval form of the salamander Amblystoma, a genus long known from various parts of North America; and Cuvier's conclusions now read much better than they did half a century after they were published. Before reviewing the history of these discoveries, it is desirable to say a few words of the characters of the axolotl (larval form) and of the Amblystoma (perfect or imago form).

The axolotl has been known to the Mexicans from the remotest times, as an article of food regularly brought from neighbouring lakes to the Mexico market, its flesh being agreeable and wholesome. Francisco Hernandez (1514-1578) has alluded to it as Gyrinus edulis or atolocatl, and as lusus aquarum, piscis ludicrus, or axolotl, which latter name has remained in use, in Mexico and elsewhere, to the present day. But for its large size—it grows to a length of eleven inches—it is a nearly exact image of the British newt larvae. It has the same moderately long, plump body, with a low dorsal crest, the continuation of the membrane bordering the strongly compressed tail; a large thick head with small eyes without lids and with a large pendent upper lip; two pairs of well-developed limbs, with free digits; and above all, as the most characteristic feature, three large appendages on each side of the back of the head, fringed with filaments which, in their fullest development, remind one of black ostrich feathers. These are the external gills, through which the animal breathes the oxygen dissolved in the water. The jaws are provided with small teeth in several rows, and there is an elongate patch of further teeth on each side of the front of the palate (inserted on the vomerine and palatine bones). The colour is blackish, or of a dark olive-grey or brownish grey with round black spots or dots.

The genus Amblystoma was established by J. J. Tschudi in 1838 for various salamanders from North America, which had previously been described as Lacerta or Salamandra, and which, so far as general appearance is concerned, differ little from the European salamanders. The body is smooth and shiny, with vertical grooves on the sides, the tail is but feebly compressed, the eye is moderately large and provided with movable lids, and the upper lip is nearly straight. But the dentition of the palate is very different; the small teeth, which are in a single row, as in the jaws, form a long transverse, continuous or interrupted series behind the inner nares or choanae. The animal leaves the water after completing its metamorphosis, the last stage of which is marked by the loss of the gills. One of the largest and most widely distributed species of this genus, which includes about twenty, is the Amblystoma tigrinum, an inhabitant of both the east and west of the United States and of a considerable part of the cooler parts of Mexico. It varies much in colour, but it may be described as usually brown or blackish, with more or less numerous yellow spots, sometimes arranged in transverse bands. It rarely exceeds a length of nine inches. This is the Amblystoma into which the axolotl has been ascertained to transform. It is generally admitted that the axolotls which were kept alive in Europe and were particularly abundant between 1870 and 1880 are all the descendants of a stock bred in Paris and distributed chiefly by dealers, originally, we believe, by the late P. Carbonnier. Close in-breeding without the infusion of new blood is probably the cause of the decrease in their numbers at the present day, specimens being more difficult to procure and fetching much higher prices than they did formerly, at least in England and in France.

The original axolotls, from the vicinity of Mexico City, it is believed, arrived at the Jardin d'Acclimatation, Paris, late in 1863. They were thirty-four in number, among which was an albino, and had been sent to that institution, together with a few other animals, by order of Marshal Forey, who was appointed commander-in-chief of the French expeditionary force to Mexico after the defeat of General Lorencez at Puebla (May 5th, 1862), and returned to France at the end of 1863, after having handed over the command to Marshal (then General) Bazaine. Six specimens (five males and one female) were given by the Société d'Acclimatation to Professor A. Duméril, the administrator of the reptile collection of the Jardin des Plantes, the living specimens of which were at that time housed in a very miserable structure, situated at a short distance from the comparatively sumptuous building which was erected some years later and opened to the public in 1874. Soon after their arrival at the Jardin d'Acclimatation, some of the axolotls spawned, but the eggs, not having been removed from the aquarium, were devoured by its occupants. At the same time, in the Jardin des Plantes, the single female axolotl also spawned, twice in succession, and a large number of young were successfully reared. This, it then seemed, solved the often-discussed question of the perennibranchiate nature of these Batrachians. But a year later, the second generation having reached sexual maturity, new broods were produced, and out of these some individuals lost their gills and dorsal crest, developed movable eyelids, changed their dentition, and assumed yellow spots,—in fact, took on all the characters of Amblystoma tigrinum. However, these transformed salamanders, of which twenty-nine were obtained from 1865 to 1870, did not breed, although their branchiate brethren continued to do so very freely. It was not until 1876 that the axolotl in its Amblystoma state, offspring of several generations of perennibranchiates, was first observed to spawn, and this again took place in the reptile house of the Jardin des Plantes, as reported by Professor E. Blanchard.

The original six specimens received in 1864 at the Jardin des Plantes, which had been carefully kept apart from their progeny, remained in the branchiate condition, and bred eleven times from 1865 to 1868, and, after a period of two years' rest, again in 1870. According to the report of Aug. Duméril, they and their offspring gave birth to 9000 or 10,000 larvae during that period. So numerous were the axolotls that the Paris Museum was able to distribute to other institutions, as well as to dealers and private individuals, over a thousand examples, which found their way to all parts of Europe, and numberless specimens have been kept in England from 1866 to the present day. The first specimens exhibited in the London Zoological Gardens, in August 1864, were probably part of the original stock received from Mexico by the Société d'Acclimatation but do not appear to have bred.

"White" axolotls, albinos of a pale flesh colour, with beautiful red gills, have also been kept in great numbers in England and on the continent. They are said to be all descendants of one albino male specimen received in the Paris Museum menagerie in 1866, which, paired with normal specimens in 1867 and 1868, produced numerous white offspring, which by selection have been fixed as a permanent race, without, according to L. Vaillant, showing any tendency to reversion. We are not aware of any but two of these albinos having ever turned into the perfect Amblystoma form, as happened in Paris in 1870, the albinism being retained.

Thus we see that in our aquariums most of the axolotls remain in the branchiate condition, transformed individuals being on the whole very exceptional. Now it has been stated that in the lakes near Mexico City, where it was first discovered, the axolotl never transforms into an Amblystoma. This the present writer is inclined to doubt, considering that he has received examples of the normal Amblystoma tigrinum from various parts of Mexico, and that Alfred Dugès has described an Amblystoma from mountains near Mexico City; at the same time he feels very suspicious of the various statements to that effect which have appeared in so many works, and rather disposed to make light of the ingenious theories launched by biological speculators who have never set foot in Mexico, especially Weismann's picture of the dismal condition of the salt-incrusted surroundings which were supposed to have hemmed in the axolotl—the brackish Lago de Texcoco, the largest of the lakes near Mexico, being evidently in the philosopher's mind.

Thanks to the enthusiasm of H. Gadow during his visit to Mexico in the summer of 1902, we are now better informed on the conditions under which the axolotl lives near Mexico City. First, he ascertained that there are no axolotls at all in the Lago de Texcoco, thus disposing at once of the Weismannian explanation; secondly, he confirmed A. Dugès's statement that there is a second species of Amblystoma, which is normal in its metamorphosis, near Mexico but at a higher altitude, which may explain Velasco's observation that regularly transforming Amblystomas occur near that city; and thirdly, he made a careful examination of the two lakes, Chalco and Xochimilco, where the axolotls occur in abundance and are procured for the market. The following is an abstract of Gadow's very interesting account. "Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco are a paradise, situated about 10 ft. higher than the Texcoco Lake and separated from it by several hills. High mountains slope down to the southern shores, with a belt of fertile pastures, with shrubs and trees and little streams, here and there with rocks and ravines. In fact, there are thousands of inviting opportunities for newts to leave the lake if they wanted to do so. Lake Xochimilco contains powerful springs, but away from them the water appears dark and muddy, full of suspended fresh and decomposing vegetable matter, teeming with fish, larvae of insects, Daphniae, worms and axolotl. These breed in the beginning of February. The native fishermen know all about them; how the eggs are fastened to the water plants, how soon after the little larvae swarm about in thousands, how fast they grow, until by the month of June they are all grown into big, fat creatures ready for the market; later in the summer the axolotls are said to take to the rushes, in the autumn they become scarce, but none have ever been known to leave the water or to metamorphose, nor are any perfect Amblystomas found in the vicinity of the two lakes."

In Gadow's opinion, the reason why there are only perennibranchiate axolotls in these lakes is obvious. The constant abundance of food, stable amount of water, innumerable hiding-places in the mud, under the banks, amongst the reeds and roots of the floating islands which are scattered all over them,—all these points are inducements or attractions so great that the creatures remain in their paradise and consequently retain all those larval features which are not directly connected with sexual maturity. There is nothing whatever to prevent them from leaving these lakes, but there is also nothing to induce them to do so. The same applies occasionally to European larvae, as in the case observed in the Italian Alps by F. de Filippi. Nevertheless, in the axolotl the latent tendency can still be revived, as we have seen above and as is proved by the experiments of Marie von Chauvin. When once sexually ripe the axolotl are apparently incapable of changing, but their ancestral course of evolution is still latent in them, and will, if favoured by circumstances, reappear in following generations.

Bibliography.—G. Cuvier, Mém. Instit. Nation. (1807), p. 149, and in A. Humboldt and A. Bompland, Observ. zool. i. (1811), p. 93; L. Calori, Mem. Acc. Bologna, iii. (1851), p. 269; A. Duméril, Comptes rendus, lx. (1865), p. 765, and N. Arch. Mus. ii. (1866), p. 265; E. Blanchard, Comptes rendus, lxxxii. (1876), p. 716; A. Weismann, Z. wiss. Zool. xxv. (Suppl. 1875), p. 297; M. von Chauvin, Z. wiss. Zool. xxvii. (1876), p. 522; F. de Filippi, Arch. p. la zool. i. (1862), p. 206; G. Hahn, Rev. Quest. Sci. Brussels (2), i. (1892), p. 178; H. Gadow, Nature, lxvii. (1903), p. 330.

(G. A. B.)

AXUM, or Aksum, an ancient city in the province of Tigré, Abyssinia (14° 7′ 52″ N., 38° 31′ 10″ E.; altitude, 7226 ft), 12 m. W. by S. of Adowa. Many European travellers have given descriptions of its monuments, though none of them has stayed there more than a few days. The name, written Aksm and Aksum in the Sabaean and Ethiopic inscriptions in the place, is found in classical and early Christian writers in the forms of Auxome, Axumis, Axume, &c., the first mention being in the Periplus Maris Erythraei (c. A.D. 67), where it is said to be the seat of a kingdom, and the emporium for the ivory brought from the west. For the history of this kingdom see Ethiopia. J. T. Bent conjectured that the seat of government was transferred to Axum from Jeha, which he identified with the ancient Ava; and according to a document quoted by Achille Raffray the third Christian monarch transferred it from Axum to Lalibela. This second transference probably took place very much later; in spite of it, the custom of crowning Abyssinian kings at Axum continued, and King John was crowned there as late as 1871 or 1872. A. B. Wylde conjectures that it had become unsuitable for a royal seat by having acquired the status of a sacred city, and thus affording sanctuary to criminals and political offenders within the chief church and a considerable area round it, where there are various houses in which such persons can be lodged and entertained. This same sanctity makes it serve as a depository for goods of all sorts in times of danger, the chief church forming a sort of bank. The present town, containing less than a thousand houses, is supposed to occupy only a small portion of the area covered by the ancient city; it lies in a kloof or valley, but the old town must have been built on the western ridge rather than in the valley, as the traces of well-dressed stones are more numerous there than elsewhere.

Most of the antiquities of Axum still await excavation; those that have been described consist mainly of obelisks, of which about fifty are still standing, while many more are fallen. They form a consecutive series from rude unhewn stones to highly finished obelisks, of which the tallest still erect is 60 ft. in height, with 8 ft. 7 in. extreme front width; others that are fallen may have been taller. The highly finished monoliths are all representations of a many-storeyed castle, with an altar at the base of each. They appear to be connected with Semitic sun-worship, and are assigned by Bent to the same period as the temple at Baalbek, though some antiquarians would place them much earlier; the representation of a castle in a single stone seems to bear some relation to the idea worked out in the monolith churches of Lalibela described by Raffray. The fall of many of the monuments, according to Bent, was caused by the washing away of the foundations by the stream called Mai Shum, and indeed the native tradition states that "Gudert, queen of the Amhara," when she visited Axum, destroyed the chief obelisk in this way by digging a trench from the river to its foundation. Others attribute it to religious fanaticism, or to the result of some barbaric invasion, such as Axum may have repeatedly endured before it was sacked by Mahommed Gran, sultan of Harrar, about 1535.

Literature.—Classical references to Axum are collected by Pietschmann in Pauly's Realencyclopädie (2nd ed.); for the history as derived from the inscriptions see D. H. Müller, Appendix to J. T. Bent's Sacred City of the Ethiopians (London, 1893), and E. Glaser, Die Abessinier in Arabien (Munich, 1895). For the antiquities, Bruce's Travels (1790); Salt, in the Travels of Viscount Valentia (London, 1809), iii. 87-97 and 178-200; J. T. Bent, l.c.; and A. B. Wylde, Modern Abyssinia (London, 1901). For geology, Schimper, in the Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde (Berlin, 1869).

(D. S. M.*)

AY, AYE. The word "aye," meaning always (and pronounced as in "day"; connected with Gr. ἀεί, always, and Lat. aevum, an age), is often spelt "ay," and the New English Dictionary prefers this. "Aye," meaning Yes (and pronounced almost like the word "eye"), though sometimes identified with "yea," is probably the same word etymologically, though differentiated by usage; the form "ay" for this is also common, but inconvenient; at one time it was spelt simply I (e.g. in Michael Drayton's Idea, 57; published in 1593).

AYACUCHO, a city and department of central Peru, formerly known as Guamanga or Huamanga, renamed from the small plain of Ayacucho (Quichua, "corner of death"). This lies near the village of Quinua, in an elevated valley 11,600 ft. above sea-level, where a decisive battle was fought between General Sucré and the Spanish viceroy La Serna in 1824, which resulted in the defeat of the latter and the independence of Peru. The city of Ayacucho, capital of the department of that name and of the province of Guamanga, is situated on an elevated plateau, 8911 ft. above sea-level, between the western and central Cordilleras, and on the main road between Lima and Cuzco, 394 m. from the former by way of Jauja. Pop. (1896) 20,000. It has an agreeable, temperate climate, is regularly built, and has considerable commercial importance. It is the seat of a bishopric and of a superior court of justice. It is distinguished for the number of its churches and conventual establishments, although the latter have been closed. The city was founded by Pizarro in 1539 and was known as Guamanga down to 1825. It has been the scene of many notable events in the history of Peru.

The department of Ayacucho extends across the great plateau of central Peru, between the departments of Huancavelica and Apurimac, with Cuzco on the E. and Ica on the W. Area, 18,185 sq. m.; pop. (1896) 302,469. It is divided into six provinces, and covers a broken, mountainous region, partially barren in its higher elevations but traversed by deep, warm, fertile valleys. It formed a part of the original home of the Incas and once sustained a large population. It produces Indian corn and other cereals and potatoes in the colder regions, and tropical fruits, sweet potatoes and mandioca (Jatropha manihot, L.) in the low tropical valleys. It is also an important mining region, having a large number of silver mines in operation. Its name was changed from Guamanga to Ayacucho by a decree of 1825.

AYAH, a Spanish word (aya) for children's nurse or maid, introduced by the Portuguese into India and adopted by the English to denote their native nurses.

AYALA, DON PEDRO LOPEZ DE (1332-1407), Spanish statesman, historian and poet, was born at Vittoria in 1332. He first came into prominence at the court of Peter the Cruel, whose cause he finally deserted; he greatly distinguished himself in subsequent campaigns, during which he was twice made prisoner, by the Black Prince at Nájera (1367) and by the Portuguese at Aljubarrota (1385). A favourite of Henry II. and John I. of Castile, he was made grand chancellor of the realm by Henry III. in 1398. A brave officer and an able diplomat, Ayala was one of the most cultivated Spaniards of his time, at once historian, translator and poet. Of his many works the most important are his chronicles of the four kings of Castile during whose reigns he lived; they give a generally accurate account of scenes and events, most of which he had witnessed; he also wrote a long satirical and didactic poem, interesting as a picture of his personal experiences and of contemporary morality. The first part of his chronicle, covering only the reign of Peter the Cruel, was printed at Seville in 1495; the first complete edition was printed in 1779-1780 in the collection of Crónicas Españolas, under the auspices of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. Ayala died at Calahorra in 1407.

See Rafael Floranes, "Vida literaria de Pedro Lopez de Ayala," in the Documentos inéditos para la historia de España, vols. xix. and xx.; F. W. Schirrmacher, "Über die Glaubwurdigkeit der Chronik Ayalas," in Geschichte von Spanien (Berlin, 1902), vol. v. pp. 510-532.

AYALA Y HERRERA, ADELARDO LOPEZ DE (1828-1879), Spanish writer and politician, was born at Guadalcanal on the 1st of May 1828, and at a very early age began writing for the theatre of his native town. The titles of these juvenile performances, which were played by amateurs, were Salga por donde saliere, Me voy á Sevilla and La Corona y el Puñal. As travelling companies never visited Guadalcanal, and as ladies took no part in the representations, these three plays were written for men only. Ayala persuaded his sister to appear as the heroine of his comedy, La primera Dama, and the innovation, if it scandalized some of his townsmen, permitted him to develop his talent more freely. In his twentieth year he matriculated at the university of Seville, but his career as a student was undistinguished. In Seville he made acquaintance with Garcia Gutierrez, who is reported to have encouraged his dramatic ambitions and to have given him the benefit of his own experience as a playwright. Early in 1850 Ayala removed his name from the university books, and settled in Madrid with the purpose of becoming a professional dramatist. Though he had no friends and no influence, he speedily found an opening. A four-act play in verse, Un Hombre de Estado, was accepted by the managers of the Teatro Español, was given on the 25th of January 1851, and proved a remarkable success. Henceforward Ayala's position and popularity were secure. Within a twelvemonth he became more widely known by his Castigo y Perdón, and by a more humorous effort, Los dos Guzmanes; and shortly afterwards he was appointed by the Moderado government to a post in the home office, which he lost in 1854 on the accession to power of the Liberal party. In 1854 he produced Rioja, perhaps the most admired and the most admirable of all his works, and from 1854 to 1856 he took an active part in the political campaign carried on in the journal El Padre Cobos. A zarzuela, entitled Guerta a muerte, for which Emilio Arrieta composed the music, belongs to 1855, and to the same collaboration is due El Agente de Matrimonios. At about this date Ayala passed over from the Moderates to the Progressives, and this political manœuvre had its effect upon the fate of his plays. The performances of Los Comuneros were attended by members of the different parties; the utterances of the different characters were taken to represent the author's personal opinions, and every speech which could be brought into connexion with current politics was applauded by one half of the house and derided by the other half. A zarzuela, named El Conde de Castralla, was given amid much uproar on the 20th of February 1856, and, as the piece seemed likely to cause serious disorder in the theatre, it was suppressed by the government after the third performance. Ayala's rupture with the Moderates was now complete, and in 1857, through the interest of O'Donnell, he was elected as Liberal deputy for Badajoz. His political changes are difficult to follow, or to explain, and they have been unsparingly censured. So far as can be judged, Ayala had no strong political views, and drifted with the current of the moment. He took part in the revolution of 1868, wrote the "Manifesto of Cadiz," took office as colonial minister, favoured the candidature of the duc de Montpensier, resigned in 1871, returned to his early Conservative principles, and was a member of Alfonso XII.'s first cabinet. Meanwhile, however divided in opinion as to his political conduct, his countrymen were practically unanimous in admiring his dramatic work; and his reputation, if it gained little by El Nuevo Don Juan, was greatly increased by El Tanto por Ciento and El Tejado de Vidrio. His last play, Consuelo, was given on the 30th of March 1878. Ayala was nominated to the post of president of congress shortly before his death, which occurred unexpectedly on the 30th of January 1879. The best of his lyrical work, excellent for finish and intense sincerity, is his Epístola to Emilio Arrieta, and had he chosen to dedicate himself to lyric poetry, he might possibly have ranked with the best of Spain's modern singers; as it is, he is a very considerable poet who affects the dramatic form. In his later writings he deals with modern society, its vices, ideals and perils; yet in many essentials he is a manifest disciple of Calderon. He has the familiar Calderonian limitations; the substitution of types for characters, of eloquence for vital dialogue. Nor can he equal the sublime lyrism of his model; but he is little inferior in poetic conception, in dignified idealization, and in picturesque imagery. And it may be fairly claimed for him that in El Tejado de Vidrio and El Tanto par Ciento he displays a very exceptional combination of satiric intention with romantic inspiration. By these plays and by Rioja and Consuelo he is entitled to be judged. They will at least ensure for him an honourable place in the history of the modern Spanish theatre.

A complete edition of his dramatic works, edited by his friend and rival Tamayo y Baus, has been published in seven volumes (Madrid, 1881-1885).

(J. F.-K.)

AYE-AYE, a word of uncertain signification (perhaps only an exclamation), but universally accepted as the designation of the most remarkable and aberrant of all the Malagasy lemurs (see Primates). The aye-aye, Chiromys (or Daubentonia) madagascariensis, is an animal with a superficial resemblance to a long-haired and dusky-coloured cat with unusually large eyes. It has a broad rounded head, short face, large naked eyes, large hands, and long thin fingers with pointed claws, of which the third is remarkable for its extreme slenderness. The foot resembles that of the other lemurs in its large opposable great toe with a flat nail; but all the other toes have pointed compressed claws. Tail long and bushy. General colour dark brown, the outer fur being long and rather loose, with a woolly under-coat. Teats two, inguinal in position. The aye-aye was discovered by Pierre Sonnerat in 1780, the specimen brought to Paris by that traveller being the only one known until 1860. Since then many others have been obtained, and one lived for several years in the gardens of the Zoological Society of London. Like so many lemurs, it is completely nocturnal in its habits, living either alone or in pairs, chiefly in the bamboo forests. Observations upon captive specimens have led to the conclusion that it feeds principally on juices, especially of the sugar-cane, which it obtains by tearing open the hard woody circumference of the stalk with its strong incisor teeth; but it is said also to devour certain species of wood-boring caterpillars, which it obtains by first cutting down with its teeth upon their burrows, and then picking them out of their retreat with the claw of its attenuated middle finger. It constructs large ball-like nests of dried leaves, lodged in a fork of the branches of a large tree, and with the opening on one side.

Till recently the aye-aye was regarded as representing a family by itself—the Chiromyidae; but the discovery that it resembles the other lemurs of Madagascar in the structure of the inner ear, and thus differs from all other members of the group, has led to the conclusion that it is best classed as a subfamily (Chiromyinae) of the Lemuridae.

(R. L.*)

AYLESBURY, a market-town in the Aylesbury parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England, 38 m. N.W. by W. of London; served by the Great Central, Metropolitan and Great Western railways (which use a common station) and by a branch of the London & North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 9243. It has connexion by a branch with the Grand Junction canal. It lies on a slight eminence in a fertile tract called the Vale of Aylesbury, which extends northward from the foot of the Chiltern Hills. Its streets are mostly narrow and irregular, but picturesque. The church of St Mary, a large cruciform building, is primarily Early English, but has numerous additions of later dates. The font is transitional Norman, a good example; and a small pre-Norman crypt remains beneath part of the church. There are some Decorated canopied tombs, and the chancel stalls are of the 15th century. The central tower is surmounted by an ornate clock-turret dating from the second half of the 17th century. The county-hall and town-hall, overlooking a broad market-place, are the principal public buildings. The grammar school was founded in 1611. Aylesbury is the assize town for the county, though Buckingham is the county town. There is a large agricultural trade, the locality being especially noted for the rearing of ducks; straw-plaiting and the manufacture of condensed milk are carried on, and there are printing works. The Jacobean mansion of Hartwell in the neighbourhood of Aylesbury was the residence of the French king Louis XVIII. during his exile (1810-1814).

Aylesbury (Æylesburge, Eilesberia, Aillesbir) was famous in Saxon times as the supposed burial-place of St Osith. In A.D. 571 it was one of the towns captured by Cuthwulf, brother of Ceawlin, king of the Saxons. At the time of the Domesday survey the king owned the manor. In 1554, by a charter from Queen Mary, bestowed as a reward for fidelity during the rebellion of the duke of Northumberland, Aylesbury was constituted a free borough corporate, with a common council consisting of a bailiff, 10 aldermen and 12 chief burgesses. The borough returned two members to parliament from this date until the Redistribution Act of 1885, but the other privileges appear to have lapsed in the reign of Elizabeth. Aylesbury evidently had a considerable market from very early times, the tolls being assessed at the time of Edward the Confessor at £25 and at the time of the Domesday survey at £10. In 1239 Henry III. made a grant to John, son of Geoffrey FitzPeter of an annual fair at the feast of St Osith (June 3rd), which was confirmed by Henry VI. in 1440. Queen Mary's charter instituted a Wednesday market and fairs at the feasts of the Annunciation and the Invention of the Holy Cross. In 1579 John Pakington obtained a grant of two annual fairs to be held on the day before Palm Sunday and on the feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross, and a Monday market for the sale of horses and other animals, grain and merchandise.

AYLESFORD, HENEAGE FINCH, 1st Earl of (c. 1640-1719), 2nd son of Heneage Finch, 1st earl of Nottingham, was educated at Westminster school and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated on the 18th of November 1664. In 1673 he became a barrister of the Inner Temple; king's counsel and bencher in 1677; and in 1679, during the chancellorship of his father, was appointed solicitor-general, being returned to parliament for Oxford University, and in 1685 for Guildford. In 1682 he represented the crown in the attack upon the corporation of London, and next year in the prosecution of Lord Russell, when, according to Burnet, "and in several other trials afterwards, he showed more of a vicious eloquence in turning matters with some subtlety against the prisoners than of strict or sincere reasoning." He does not, however, appear to have exceeded the duties of prosecutor for the crown as they were then understood. In 1684, in the trial of Algernon Sidney, he argued that the unpublished treatise of the accused was an overt act, and supported the opinion of Jeffreys that scribere est agere. The same year he was counsel for James in his successful action against Titus Oates for libel, and in 1685 prosecuted Oates for the crown for perjury. Finch, however, though a Tory and a crown lawyer, was a staunch churchman, and on his refusal in 1686 to defend the royal dispensing power he was summarily dismissed by James, He was the leading counsel in June 1688 for the seven bishops, when he "strangely exposed and very boldly ran down" the dispensing power, but his mistaken tactics were nearly the cause of his clients losing their case. He sat again for Oxford University in the convention parliament, which constituency he represented in all the following assemblies except that of 1698, till his elevation to the peerage. He was, however, no supporter of the House of Orange, advocated a regency in James's name, and was one of the few who in the House of Commons opposed the famous vote that James had broken the contract between king and people and left the throne vacant. He held no office during William's reign, and is described by Macky as "always a great opposer" of the administration. In 1689 he joined in voting for the reversal of Lord Russell's attainder, and endeavoured to defend his conduct in the trial, but was refused a hearing by the House. He opposed the Triennial Bill of 1692, but in 1696 spoke against the bill of association and test, which was voted for the king's protection, on the ground that though William was to be obeyed as sovereign he could not be acknowledged "rightful and lawful king." In 1694 he argued against the crown in the bankers' case. In 1703 he was created baron of Guernsey and a privy councillor, and after the accession of George I. on the 19th of October 1714, earl of Aylesford, being reappointed a privy councillor and made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, which office he retained till February 1716. He died on the 22nd of July 1719. According to John Macky (Memoirs, p. 71; published by Roxburghe Club, 1895) he was accounted "one of the greatest orators in England and a good common lawyer; a firm asserter of the prerogative of the crown and jurisdiction of the church; a tall, thin, black man, splenatick." He married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Banks of Aylesford, by whom, besides six daughters, he had three sons, of whom the eldest, Heneage, succeeded him as 2nd earl of Aylesford. The 2nd earl died in 1757, and since this date the earldom has been held by his direct descendants, six of whom in succession have borne the Christian name of Heneage.

Many of his legal arguments are printed in State Trials (see esp. viii. 694, 1087, ix. 625, 880, 996, x. 126, 319, 405, 1199, xii. 183, 353, 365). Wood attributes to him on the faith of common rumour the authorship of An Antidote against Poison ... Remarks upon a Paper printed by Lady (Rachel) Russel (1683), ascribed in State Trials (ix. 710) to Sir Bartholomew Shower; but see the latter's allusion to it on p. 753.

Hist. of His Own Times, i. 556. Swift has appended a note, "an arrant rascal," but Finch's great offence with the dean was probably his advancement by George I. rather than his conduct of state trials as here described.

Ibid. 572, and Speaker Onslow's note.

N. Luttrell's Relation, i. 447.

State Trials, xii. 353.

AYLESFORD, a town in the Medway parliamentary division of Kent, England, 3½ m. N.W. of Maidstone on the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 2678. It stands at the base of a hill on the right bank of the Medway. The ancient church of St. Peter (restored in 1878) is principally Perpendicular, but contains some Norman and Decorated portions. It has interesting brasses of the 15th and 16th centuries and an early embattled tower. At a short distance west, a residence occupying part of the site, are remains of a Carmelite friary, founded here in 1240. It is claimed for this foundation (but not with certainty) that it was the first house of Carmelites established in England, and the first general chapter of the order was held here in 1245. Several remains of antiquity exist in the neighbourhood, among them a cromlech called Kit's Coty House, about a mile north-east from the village. (See Stone Monuments, Plate, fig. 2.) In accordance with tradition this has been thought to mark the burial-place of Catigern, who was slain here in a battle between the Britons and Saxons in A.D. 455; the name has also been derived from Celtic Ked-coit, that is, the tomb in the wood. The name of the larger group of monuments close by, called the Countless Stones, is due to the popular belief, which occurs elsewhere, that they are not to be counted. Large numbers of British coins have been found in the neighbourhood. The supposed tomb of Horsa, who fell in the same battle, is situated at Horsted, about 2 m. to the north.

AYLLON, LUCAS VASQUEZ DE (c. 1475-1526), Spanish adventurer and colonizer in America, was born probably in Toledo, Spain, about 1475. He accompanied Nicolas Ovando to Hispaniola (Santo Domingo) in 1502, and there became a magistrate of La Concepcion and other towns, and a member of the superior court of Hispaniola. He engaged with great profit in various commercial enterprises, became interested in a plan for the extension of the Spanish settlements to the North American mainland, and in 1521 sent Francisco Gordillo on an exploring expedition which touched on the coast of the Florida peninsula and coasted for some distance northward. Gordillo's report of the region was so favourable that Ayllon in 1523 obtained from Charles V. a rather indefinite charter giving him the right to plant colonies. He sent another reconnoitring expedition in 1525, and early in 1526 he himself set out with 500 colonists and about 100 African slaves. He touched at several places along the coast, at one time stopping long enough to replace a wrecked ship with a new one, this being considered the first instance of shipbuilding on the North American continent. Sailing northward to about latitude 33° 40′, he began the construction of a town which he called San Miguel. The exact location of this town is in dispute, some writers holding that it was on the exact spot upon which Jamestown, Va., was later built; more probably, however, as Lowery contends, it was near the mouth of the Pedee river. The employment of negro slaves here was undoubtedly the first instance of the sort in what later became the United States. The spot was unhealthy and fever carried off many of the colonists, including Ayllon himself, who died on the 18th of October 1526. After the death of their leader dissensions broke out among the colonists, some of the slaves rebelled and escaped into the forest, and in December the town was abandoned and the remnant of the colonists embarked for Hispaniola, less than 150 arriving in safety.

See Woodbury Lowery, Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States (2 vols., New York, 1903-1905).

AYLMER, JOHN (1521-1594), English divine, was born in the year 1521 at Aylmer Hall, Tivetshall St Mary, Norfolk. While still a boy, his precocity was noticed by Henry Grey, marquis of Dorset, afterwards duke of Suffolk, who sent him to Cambridge, where he seems to have become a fellow of Queens' College. About 1541 he was made chaplain to the duke, and tutor to his daughter, Lady Jane Grey. His first preferment was to the archdeaconry of Stow, in the diocese of Lincoln, but his opposition in convocation to the doctrine of transubstantiation led to his deprivation and to his flight into Switzerland. While there he wrote a reply to John Knox's famous Blast against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, under the title of An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subjects, &c., and assisted John Foxe in translating the Acts of the Martyrs into Latin. On the accession of Elizabeth he returned to England. In 1559 he resumed the Stow archdeaconry, and in 1562 he obtained that of Lincoln. He was a member of the famous convocation of 1562, which reformed and settled the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England. In 1576 he was consecrated bishop of London, and while in that position made himself notorious by his harsh treatment of all who differed from him on ecclesiastical questions, whether Puritan or Papist. Various efforts were made to remove him to another see. He is frequently assailed in the famous Marprelate Tracts, and is characterized as "Morrell," the bad shepherd, in Spenser's Shepheard's Calendar (July). His reputation as a scholar hardly balances his inadequacy as a bishop in the transition time in which he lived. He died in June 1594. His Life was written by John Strype (1701).

AYMARA (anc. Colla), a tribe of South American Indians, formerly inhabiting the country around Lake Titicaca and the neighbouring valleys of the Andes. They form now the chief ethnical element in Bolivia, but are of very mixed blood. In early days the home of the Aymaras by Lake Titicaca was a "holy land" for the Incas themselves, whose national legends attributed the origin of all Quichua (Inca) civilization to that region. The Aymaras, indeed, seem to have possessed a very considerable culture before their conquest by the Incas in the 13th and 14th centuries, evidence of which remains in the megalithic ruins of Tiahuanaco. When the Spaniards arrived the Aymaras had been long under the Inca domination, and were in a decadent state. They, however, retained certain privileges, such as the use of their own language; and their treatment by their conquerors generally suggested that the latter believed themselves of Aymara blood. Physically, the pure Aymara is short and thick-set, with a great chest development, and with the same reddish complexion, broad face, black eyes and rounded forehead which distinguish the Quichuas. Like the latter, too, the Aymaras are sullen and apathetic in disposition. They number now, including half-breeds, about half a million in Bolivia. Some few are also found in southern Peru.

See Journal Ethnol. Society (1870), "The Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru."

AYMER, or Æthelmar, OF VALENCE (d. 1260), bishop of Winchester, was a half-brother of Henry III. His mother was Isabelle of Angoulême, the second wife of King John, his father was Hugo of Lusignan, the count of La Marche, whom Isabelle married in 1220. The children of this marriage came to England in 1247 in the hope of obtaining court preferment. In 1250 the king, by putting strong pressure upon the electors, succeeded in obtaining the see of Winchester for Aymer. The appointment was in every way unsuitable. Aymer was illiterate, ignorant of the English language, and wholly secular in his mode of life. Upon his head was concentrated the whole of the popular indignation against the foreign favourites; and he seems to have deserved this unenviable distinction. At the parliament of Oxford (1258) he and his brothers repudiated the new constitution prepared by the barons. He was pursued to Winchester, besieged in Wolvesey castle, and finally compelled to surrender and leave the kingdom. He had never been consecrated; accordingly in 1259 the chapter of Winchester proceeded to a new election. Aymer, however, gained the support of the pope; he was on his way back to England when he was overtaken by a fatal illness at Paris.

See W. Stubbs' Constitutional History, vol. ii. (1896); G. W. Prothero's Simon de Montfort (1877); W. H. Blaauw's Barons' War (1871).

AYMESTRY LIMESTONE, an inconstant limestone which occurs locally in the Ludlow series of Silurian rocks, between the Upper and Lower Ludlow shales. It derives its name from Aymestry in Herefordshire, where it may be seen on both sides of the river Lugg. It is well developed in the neighbourhood of Ludlow (it is sometimes called the Ludlow limestone) and occupies a similar position in the Ludlow shales at Woolhope, the Abberley Hills, May Hill and the Malvern Hills. In lithological character it varies greatly; in one place it is a dark grey, somewhat crystalline limestone, elsewhere it passes into a flaggy, earthy or shaly condition, or even into a mere layer of nodules. When well developed it may reach 50 ft. in thickness in beds of from 1 to 5 ft.; in this condition it naturally forms a conspicuous feature in the landscape because it stands out by its superior hardness from the soft shales above and below.

The most common fossil is Pentamerus Knightii, which is extremely abundant in places. Other brachiopods, corals and trilobites are present, and are similar to those found in the Wenlock limestone. (See Silurian.)

AYR, a royal, municipal and police burgh and seaport, and county town of Ayrshire, Scotland, at the mouth of the river Ayr, 41½ m. S.S.W. of Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop. (1891) 24,944; (1901) 29,101. It is situated on a fine bay and its beautiful sands attract thousands of summer visitors. Ayr proper lies on the south bank of the river, which is crossed by three bridges, besides the railway viaduct—the Victoria Bridge (erected in 1898) and the famous "Twa Brigs" of Burns. The Auld Brig is said to date from the reign of Alexander III. (d. 1286). The New Brig was built in 1788, mainly owing to the efforts of Provost Ballantyne. The prophecy which Burns put into the mouth of the venerable structure came true in 1877, when the newer bridge yielded to floods and had to be rebuilt (1879); and the older structure itself was closed for public safety in 1904. The town has extended greatly on the southern side of the stream, where, in the direction of the racecourse, there are now numerous fine villas. The county buildings, designed after the temple of Isis in Rome, accommodate the circuit and provincial courts and various local authorities. The handsome town buildings, surmounted by a fine spire 226 ft. high, contain assembly and reading rooms. Of the schools the most notable is the Academy (rebuilt in 1880), which in 1764 superseded the grammar school of the burgh, which existed in the 13th century. The Gothic Wallace Tower in High Street stands on the site of an old building of the same name taken down in 1835, from which were transferred the clock and bells of the Dungeon steeple. A niche in front is filled by a statue of the Scottish hero by James Thorn (1802-1850), a self-taught sculptor. There are statues of Burns, the 13th earl of Eglinton, General Smith Neill and Sir William Wallace. The Carnegie free library was established in 1893. The charitable institutions include the county hospital, district asylum, a deaf and dumb home, the Kyle combination poor-house, St John's refuge and industrial schools for boys and girls. The Ayr Advertiser first appeared on 5th of August 1803, and was the earliest newspaper published in Ayrshire. In the suburbs is a racecourse where the Western Meeting is held in September of every year. The principal manufactures include leather, carpets, woollen goods, flannels, blankets, lace, boots and shoes; and fisheries and shipbuilding are also carried on. There are several foundries, engineering establishments and saw mills. Large quantities of timber are imported from Canada and Norway; coal, iron, manufactured goods and agricultural produce are the chief exports. The harbour, with wet and slip dock, occupies both sides of the river from the New Bridge to the sea, and is protected on the south by a pier projecting some distance into the sea, and on the north by a breakwater with a commodious dry dock. There are esplanades to the south and north of the harbour. The town is governed by a provost and council, and unites with Irvine, Inveraray, Campbeltown and Oban in returning one member to parliament.

In 1873 the municipal boundary was extended northwards beyond the river so as to include Newton-upon-Ayr and Wallace Town, formerly separate. Newton is a burgh or barony of very ancient creation, the charter of which is traditionally said to have been granted by Robert Bruce in favour of forty-eight of the inhabitants who had distinguished themselves at Bannockburn. The suburb is now almost wholly occupied with manufactures, the chief of which are chemicals, boots and shoes, carpets and lace. It is on the Glasgow & South-Western railway, and has a harbour and dock from which coal and goods are the main exports. About 3 m. north of Ayr is Prestwick, a popular watering-place and the headquarters of one of the most flourishing golf clubs in Scotland. The outstanding attraction of Ayr, however, is the pleasant suburb of Alloway, 2½ m. to the south, with which there is frequent communication by electric cars. The "auld clay biggin" in which Robert Burns was born on the 25th of January 1759, has been completely repaired and is now the property of the Ayr Burns's Monument trustees. In the kitchen is the box bed in which the poet was born, and many of the articles of furniture belonged to his family. Adjoining the cottage is a museum of Burnsiana. The "auld haunted kirk," though roofless, is otherwise in a fair state of preservation, despite relic-hunters who have removed all the woodwork. In the churchyard is the grave of William Burness, the poet's father. Not far distant, on a conspicuous position close by the banks of the Doon, stands the Grecian monument to Burns, in the grounds of which is the grotto containing Thorn's figures of Tam o' Shanter and Souter Johnnie.

Nothing is known of the history of Ayr till the close of the 12th century, when it was made a royal residence, and soon afterwards a royal burgh, by William the Lion. During the wars of Scottish independence the possession of Ayr and its castle was an object of importance to both the contending parties, and the town was the scene of many of Wallace's exploits. In 1315 the Scottish parliament met in the church of St John to confirm the succession of Edward Bruce to the throne. Early in the 16th century it was a place of considerable influence and trade. The liberality of William the Lion had bestowed upon the corporation an extensive grant of lands; while in addition to the well-endowed church of St John, it had two monasteries, each possessed of a fair revenue. When Scotland was overrun by Cromwell, Ayr was selected as the site of one of the forts which he built to command the country. This fortification, termed the citadel, enclosed an area of ten or twelve acres, and included within its limits the church of St John, which was converted into a storehouse, the Protector partly indemnifying the inhabitants by contributing £150 towards the erection of a new place of worship, now known as the Old Church. A portion of the tower of St John's church remains, but has been completely modernized. The site of the fort is now nearly covered with houses, the barracks being in Fort Green.

AYRER, JAKOB (?-1605), German dramatist, of whose life little is known. He seems to have come to Nuremberg as a boy and worked his way up to the position of imperial notary. He died at Nuremberg on the 26th of March 1605. Besides a rhymed Chronik der Stadt Bamberg (edited by J. Heller, Bamberg, 1838), and an unpublished translation of the Psalms, Ayrer has left a large number of dramas which were printed at Nuremberg under the title Opus Theatricum in 1618. This collection contains thirty tragedies and comedies and thirty-six Fastnachtsspiele (Shrovetide plays) and Singspiele. As a dramatist, Ayrer is virtually the successor of Hans Sachs (q.v.), but he came under the influence of the so-called Englische Komödianten, that is, troupes of English actors, who, at the close of the 16th century and during the 17th, repeatedly visited the continent, bringing with them the repertory of the Elizabethan theatre. From those actors Ayrer learned how to enliven his dramas with sensational incidents and spectacular effects, and from them he borrowed the character of the clown. His plays, however, are in spite of his foreign models, hardly more dramatic, in the true sense of the word, than those of Hans Sachs, and they are inferior to the latter in poetic qualities. The plots of two of his comedies, Von der schönen Phoenicia and Von der schönen Sidea, were evidently drawn from the same sources as those of Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing and Tempest.

Ayrers Dramen, edited by A. von Keller, have been published by the Stuttgart Lit. Verein (1864-1865). See also L. Tieck, Deutsches Theater (1817); A. Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany (1885), which contains a translation of the two plays mentioned above; J. Tittmann, Schauspiele des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts (1888).

AYRSHIRE, a south-western county of Scotland, bounded N. by Renfrewshire, E. by Lanarkshire and Dumfriesshire, S.E. by Kirkcudbrightshire, S. by Wigtownshire and W. by the Firth of Clyde. It includes off its coast the conspicuous rock of Ailsa Craig, 10 m. W. of Girvan, Lady Island, 3 m. S.W. of Troon, and Horse Island, off Ardrossan. Its area is 724,523 acres or 1142 sq. m., its coast-line being 70 m. long. In former times the shire was divided into the districts of Cunninghame (N. of the Irvine), Kyle (between the Irvine and the Boon), and Carrick (S. of the Doon), and these terms are still occasionally used. Kyle was further divided by the Ayr into King's Kyle on the north and Kyle Stewart. Robert Bruce was earl of Carrick, a title now borne by the prince of Wales. The county is politically divided into North and South Ayrshire, the former comprising Cunninghame and the latter Kyle and Carrick. The surface is generally undulating with a small mountainous tract in the north and a larger one in the south and south-east. The principal hills are Black Craig (2298 ft.), 5 m. south-east of New Cumnock; Enoch (1865 ft.), 5 m. east of Dalmellington; Polmaddie (1750 ft.) 2 m. south-east of Barr; Stake on the confines of Ayrshire and Renfrewshire, and Corsancone (1547 ft.), 3 m. north-east of New Cumnock. None of the rivers is navigable, but their varied and tranquil beauty has made them better known than many more important streams. The six most noted are the Stinchar (c soft), Girvan, Doon, Ayr, Irvine and Garnock. Of these the Ayr is the longest. It rises at Glenbuck, on the border of Lanarkshire, and after a course of some 38 m. falls into the Firth of Clyde at the county town which, with the county, is named from it. The scenery along its banks from Sorn downwards—passing Catrine, Ballochmyle, Barskimming, Sundrum, Auchencruive and Craigie—is remarkably picturesque. The lesser streams are numerous, but Burns's verse has given preeminence to the Afton, the Cessnock and the Lugar. There are many lochs, the largest of which is Loch Doon, 5½ m. long, the source of the river of the same name. From Loch Finlas, about 20 m. south-east of Ayr, the town derives its water-supply. The Nith rises in Ayrshire and a few miles of its early course belong to the county.

Geology.—The greater portion of the hilly region in the south of the county forms part of the Silurian tableland of the south of Scotland. Along its north margin there is a belt of elevated ground consisting mainly of Old Red Sandstone strata, while the tract of fertile low ground is chiefly occupied by younger Palaeozoic rocks. The Silurian belt stretching eastwards from the mouth of Loch Ryan to the Merrick range is composed of grits, greywackes and shales with thin leaves of black shales, containing graptolites of Upper Llandeilo age which are repeated by folding and cover a broad area. Near their northern limit Radiolarian cherts, mudstones and lavas of Arenig age rise from underneath the former along anticlines striking north-east and south-west. In the Ballantrae region there is a remarkable development of volcanic rocks—lavas, tuffs and agglomerates—of Arenig age, their horizon being defined by graptolites occurring in cherty mudstones and black shales interleaved in lavas and agglomerates. These volcanic materials are pierced by serpentine, gabbro and granite. The serpentine forms two belts running inland from near Bennane Head and from Burnfoot, being typically developed on Balhamie Hill near Colmonell. Gabbro appears on the shore north of Lendalfoot, while on the Byne and Grey Hills south of Girvan there are patches of granite and quartz-diorite which seem to pass into more basic varieties. These volcanic and plutonic rocks and Radiolarian cherts are covered unconformably by conglomerates (Bennan Hill near Straiton and Kennedy's Pass) which are associated with limestones of Upper Llandeilo age that have been wrought in the Stinchar valley and at Craighead. South of the river Girvan there is a sequence from Llandeilo—Caradoc to Llandovery—Tarannon strata, excellent sections of which are seen on the shore north of Kennedy's Pass and in Penwhapple Glen near Girvan. Llandovery strata again appear north of the Girvan at Dailly, where they form an inlier surrounded by the Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous formations. Representatives of Wenlock rocks form a narrow belt near the village of Straiton. Some of the Silurian sediments of the Girvan province are highly fossiliferous, but the order of succession is determined by the graptolites. Near Muirkirk and in the Douglas Water there are inliers of Wenlock, Ludlow and Downtonian rocks, coming to the surface along anticlines truncated by faults and surrounded by Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous strata. In the south-east of the county there is a part of the large granite mass that stretches from Loch Doon south to Loch Dee, giving rise to wild scenery and bounded by the high ground near the head of the Girvan Water, boulders of which have been distributed over a wide area during the glacial period. Along the northern margin of the uplands the Lower Old Red Sandstone is usually faulted against the Silurian strata, but on Hadyard Hill south of the Girvan valley they rest on the folded and denuded members of the latter system. The three divisions of this formation are well represented. The lower group of conglomerates and sandstones are well displayed on Hadyard Hill and on the tract near Maybole; the middle volcanic series on the shore south of the Heads of Ayr and from the Stinchar valley along the Old Red belt towards Dalmellington and New Cumnock; while the upper group, comprising conglomerates and sandstones, form a well-marked synclinal ford at Corsancone north-east of New Cumnock. The Upper Old Red Sandstone appears as a fringe round the south-west margin of the Carboniferous rocks of the county, and it rises from beneath them on the shore of the Firth of Clyde south of Wemyss Bay. The Carboniferous strata of the central low ground form a great basin traversed by faults, all the subdivisions of the system being represented save the Millstone Grit. Round the north and north-east margin there is a great development of volcanic rocks—lavas, tuffs and agglomerates—belonging to the Calciferous Sandstone series, and passing upwards into the Carboniferous Limestone. The lower limestones of the latter division are typically represented near Dalry and Beith, where in one instance they reach a thickness of over 100 ft. They are followed by the coal-bearing group (Edge coals of Midlothian) which have been wrought in the Dalry and Patna districts and at Dailly. The position of the Millstone Grit is occupied by lavas and tuffs, extending almost continually as a narrow fringe round the northern margin of the Coal Measures from Saltcoats by Kilmaurs to the Crawfordland Water. The workable coals of the true Coal Measures have a wide distribution from Kilwinning by Kilmarnock to Galston and again in the districts of Coylton, Dalmellington, Lugar and Cumnock. These members are overlaid by a set of upper barren red sandstones, probably the equivalents of the red beds of Uddingston, Dalkeith and Wemyss in Fife, visible in the ravines of Lugar near Ochiltree and of Ayr at Catrine. In various parts of the Ayrshire coalfield the coal-seams are rendered useless by intrusive sheets of dolerite as near Kilmarnock and Dalmellington. In the central part of the field there is an oval-shaped area of red sandstones now grouped with the Trias, extending from near Tarbolton to Mauchline, where they are largely worked for building stone. They are underlaid by a volcanic series which forms a continuous belt between the underlying red sandstones of the Coal Measures and the overlying Trias. In the north part of the county, as near Wemyss Bay, the strata are traversed by dykes of dolerite and basalt trending in a north-west direction and probably of Tertiary age.

Agriculture.—There has been no lack of agricultural enterprise. With a moist climate, and, generally, a rather heavy soil, drainage was necessary for the successful growth of green crops. Up to about 1840, a green crop in the rotation was seldom seen, except on porous river-side land, or on the lighter farms of the lower districts. In the early part of the 19th century lime was a powerful auxiliary in the inland districts, but with repeated applications it gradually became of little avail. Thorough draining gave the next great impetus. Enough had been done to test its efficacy before the announcement of Sir Robert Peel's drainage loan, after which it was rapidly extended throughout the county. Green-crop husbandry, and the liberal use of guano and other manures, made a wonderful change in the county, and immensely increased the amount of produce. Potatoes are now extensively grown, the coast-lands supplying the markets of Scotland and the north of England. Of roots, turnips, carrots and mangolds are widely cultivated, heavy crops being obtained by early sowing and rich manuring. Oats form the bulk of the cereal crop, but wheat and barley are also grown. High farming has developed the land enormously. Dairying has received particular attention. Dunlop cheese was once a well-known product. Part of it was very good; but it was unequal in its general character, and unsaleable in English markets. Dissatisfied with the inferior commercial value of their cheese in comparison with some English varieties, the Ayrshire Agricultural Association brought a Somerset farmer and his wife in 1855 to teach the Cheddar method, and their effort was most successful. Cheddar cheese of first-rate quality is now made in Ayrshire, and the annual cheese show at Kilmarnock is the most important in Scotland. The Ayrshire breed of cows are famous for the quantity and excellence of their milk. Great numbers of cattle, sheep and pigs are raised for the market, and the Ayrshire horse is in high repute.

Other Industries.—Ayrshire is the principal mining county in Scotland and has the second largest coalfield. There is a heavy annual output also of iron ore, pig iron and fire-clay. The chief coal districts are Ayr, Dalmellington, Patna, Maybole, Drongan, Irvine, Coylton, Stevenston, Beith, Kilwinning, Dalry, Kilbirnie, Dreghorn, Kilmarnock, Galston, Hurlford, Muirkirk, Cumnock and New Cumnock. Ironstone occurs chiefly at Patna, Coylton, Dalry, Kilbirnie, Dreghorn and Cumnock, and there are blast furnaces at most of these towns. A valuable whetstone is quarried at Bridge of Stair on the Ayr—the Water-of-Ayr stone. The leading manufactures are important. At Catrine are cotton factories and bleachfields, and at Ayr and Kilmarnock extensive engineering works, and carpet, blanket and woollens, boot and shoe factories. Cotton, woollens, and other fabrics and hosiery are also manufactured at Dalry, Kilbirnie, Kilmaurs, Beith and Stewarton. An extensive trade in chemicals is carried on at Irvine. Near Stevenston works have been erected in the sandhills for the making of dynamite and other explosives. There are large lace curtain factories at Galston, Newmilns and Darvel, and at Beith cabinet-making is a considerable industry. Shipbuilding is conducted at Troon, Ayr, Irvine and Fairlie, which is famous for its yachts. The leading ports are Ardrossan, Ayr, Girvan, Irvine and Troon. Fishing is carried on in the harbours and creeks, which are divided between the fishery districts of Greenock and Ballantrae.

Communications.—The Glasgow & South-Western railway owns most of the lines within the shire, its system serving all the industrial towns, ports and seaside resorts. Its trunk line via Girvan to Stranraer commands the shortest sea passage to Belfast and the north of Ireland, and its main line via Kilmarnock communicates with Dumfries and Carlisle and so with England. The Lanarkshire & Ayrshire branch of the Caledonian railway company also serves a part of the county. For passenger steamer traffic Ardrossan is the principal port, there being services to Arran and Belfast and, during the season, to Douglas in the Isle of Man. Millport, on Great Cumbrae, is reached by steamer from Fairlie.

Population and Administration.—The population of Ayrshire in 1891 was 226,386, and in 1901, 254,468, or 223 to the sq. m. In 1901 the number of persons speaking Gaelic only was 17. The chief towns, with populations in 1901 are: Ardrossan (6077), Auchinleck (2168), Ayr (29,101), Beith (4963), Cumnock (3088), Dalry (5316), Darvel (3070), Galston (4876), Girvan (4024), Hurlford (4601), Irvine (9618), Kilbirnie (4571), Kilmarnock (35,091), Kilwinning (4440), Largs (3246), Maybole (5892), Muirkirk (3892), Newmilns (4467), Saltcoats (8120), Stevenston (6554), Stewarton (2858), Troon (4764). The county returns two members to parliament, who represent North and South Ayrshire respectively. Ayr (the county town) and Irvine are royal burghs and belong to the Ayr group of parliamentary burghs, and Kilmarnock is a parliamentary burgh of the Kilmarnock group. Under the county council special water districts, drainage districts, and lighting and scavenging districts have been formed. The county forms a sheriffdom, and there are resident sheriffs-substitute at Ayr and Kilmarnock, who sit also at Irvine, Beith, Cumnock and Girvan. The shire is under school-board jurisdiction, but there are a considerable number of voluntary schools, besides secondary schools at Ayr, Irvine, Kilmarnock and Beith, while Kilmarnock Dairy School is a part of the West of Scotland Agricultural College established in 1899. In addition to grants earned by the schools, the county and borough councils expend a good deal of money upon secondary and technical education, towards which contributions are also made by the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College and the Kilmarnock Dairy School. The technical classes, subsidized at various local centres, embrace instruction in agriculture, mining, engineering, plumbing, gardening, and various science and art subjects.

History.—Traces of Roman occupation are found in Ayrshire. At the time of Agricola's campaigns the country was held by the Damnonii, and their town of Vandogara has been identified with a site at Loudoun Hill near Darvel, where a serious encounter with the Scots took place. On the withdrawal of the Romans, Ayrshire formed part of the kingdom of Strathclyde and ultimately passed under the sway of the Northumbrian kings. Save for occasional intertribal troubles, as that in which the Scottish king Alpin was slain at Dalmellington in the 9th century, the annals are silent until the battle of Largs in 1263, when the pretensions of Haakon of Norway to the sovereignty of the Isles were crushed by the Scots under Alexander III. A generation later William Wallace conducted a vigorous campaign in the shire. He surprised the English garrison at Ardrossan, and burned the barns of Ayr in which the forces of Edward I were lodged. Robert Bruce is alleged to have been born at Turnberry Castle, some 12 m. S.W. of Ayr. In 1307 he defeated the English at Loudoun Hill. Cromwell paid the county a hurried visit, during which he demolished the castle of Ardrossan and is said to have utilized the stones in rearing a fort at Ayr. Between 1660 and 1688 the sympathies of the county were almost wholly with the Covenanters, who suffered one of their heaviest reverses at Airds Moss—a morass between the Ayr and Lugar,—their leader, Richard Cameron, being killed (20th of July 1680). The county was dragooned and the Highland host ravaged wherever it went. The Hanoverian succession excited no active hostility if it evoked no enthusiasm. Antiquarian remains include cairns in Galston, Sorn and other localities; a road supposed to be a work of the Romans, which extended from Ayr, through Dalrymple and Dalmellington, towards the Solway; camps attributed to the Norwegians or Danes on the hills of Knockgeorgan and Dundonald; and the castles of Loch Doon, Turnberry, Dundonald, Portencross, Ardrossan and Dunure. There are ruins of celebrated abbeys at Kilwinning and Crossraguel, and of Alloway's haunted church, famous from their associations.

See James Paterson, "History of the County of Ayr." Transactions of Ayrshire and Galloway Archaeological Associations, Edinburgh, 1879-1900; John Smith, Prehistoric Man in Ayrshire (London, 1895); William Robertson, History of Ayrshire (Edinburgh, 1894); Archibald Sturrock, "On the Agriculture of Ayrshire," Transactions of Highland and Agricultural Society; D. Landsborough, Contributions to Local History (Kilmarnock, 1878).

AYRTON, WILLIAM EDWARD (1847-1908), English physicist, was born in London on the 14th of September 1847. He was educated at University College, London, and in 1868 went out to Bengal in the service of the Indian Government Telegraph department. In 1873 he was appointed professor of physics and telegraphy at the Imperial College of Engineering, Tokio. On his return to London six years later he became professor of applied physics at the Finsbury College of the City and Guilds of London Technical Institute, and in 1884 he was chosen professor of electrical engineering at the Central Technical College, South Kensington. He published, both alone and jointly with others, a large number of papers on physical, and in particular electrical, subjects, and his name was especially associated, together with that of Professor John Perry, with the invention of a long series of electrical measuring instruments. He died in London on the 8th of November 1908. His wife, Mrs Hertha Ayrton, whom he married in 1885, assisted him in his researches, and became known for her scientific work on the electric arc and other subjects. The Royal Society awarded her one of its Royal medals in 1906.

AYSCOUGH, SAMUEL (1745-1804), English librarian and index-maker, was born at Nottingham in 1745. His father, a printer and stationer, having ruined himself by speculation, Samuel Ayscough left Nottingham for London, where he obtained an engagement in the cataloguing department of the British Museum. In 1782 he published a two-volume catalogue of the then undescribed manuscripts in the museum. About 1785 he was appointed assistant librarian at the museum, and soon afterwards took holy orders. In 1786 he published an index to the first seventy volumes of the Monthly Review, and in 1796 indexed the remaining volumes. Both this index and his catalogue of the undescribed manuscripts in the museum were private ventures. His first official work was a third share in the British Museum catalogue of 1787, and he subsequently catalogued the ancient rolls and charters, 16,000 in all. In 1789 he produced the first two volumes of the index to the Gentleman's Magazine, and in 1790 the first index-concordance to Shakespeare. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and has been called "The Prince of Indexers." He died at the British Museum on the 30th of October 1804.

AYSCUE (erroneously Askew or Ayscough), SIR GEORGE (d. 1671), British admiral, came of an old Lincolnshire family. Beyond the fact that he was knighted by Charles I., nothing is known of his career until in 1646 he received a naval command. Through the latter years of the first civil war, Ayscue seems to have acted as one of the senior officers of the fleet. In 1648, when Sir William Batten went over to Holland with a portion of his squadron, Ayscue's influence kept a large part of the fleet loyal to the Parliament, and in reward for this service he was appointed the following year admiral of the Irish Seas. For his conduct at the relief of Dublin he received the thanks of Parliament, and in 1651 he was employed under Blake in the operations for the reduction of Scilly. He was next sent to the West Indies in charge of a squadron destined for the Conquest of Barbadoes and the other islands still under royalist control. This task successfully accomplished, he returned to take part in the first Dutch War. In this he played a prominent part, but the indecisive battle off Plymouth (August 16th, 1652) cost him his command, though an annuity was assigned him. For some years Sir George Ayscue lived in retirement, but the later years of the Commonwealth he spent in Sweden, Cromwell having despatched him thither as naval adviser. At the Restoration he returned, and became one of the commissioners of the navy, but on the outbreak of the second Dutch War in 1664 he once more hoisted his flag as rear-admiral of the Blue, and took part in the battle of Lowestoft (June 3rd, 1665). In the great Four Days' Battle (June 11th-14th, 1666) he served with Monck as admiral of the White. His flagship, the "Prince Royal," was taken on the third day, and he himself remained a prisoner in Holland till the peace. It seems doubtful whether he ever again flew his flag at sea, and the date of his death is supposed to be 1671. Lely's portrait of Sir George Ayscue is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich.

AYTOUN, or Ayton, SIR ROBERT (1570-1638), Scottish poet, son of Andrew Aytoun of Kinaldie, Fifeshire, was born in 1570. He was educated at the university of St Andrews, where he was incorporated as a student of St Leonard's College in 1584 and graduated M.A. in 1588. He lived for some years in France, and on the accession of James VI. to the English throne he wrote in Paris a Latin panegyric, which brought him into immediate favour at court. He was knighted in 1612. He held various lucrative offices, and was private secretary to the queens of James I. and Charles I. He died in London and was buried in Westminster Abbey on the 28th of February 1638. His reputation with his contemporaries was high, both personally and as a writer, though he had no ambition to be known as the latter.

Aytoun's remains are in Latin and English. In respect of the latter he is one of the earliest Scots to use the southern standard as a literary medium. The Latin poems include the panegyric already referred to, an Epicedium in obitum Thoma Rhodi; Basia, sive Strena ad Jacobum Hayum; Lessus in funere Raphaelis Thorei; Carina Caro; and minor pieces, occasional and epitaphic. His first English poem was Diophantus and Charidora (to which he refers in his Latin panegyric to James). He has left a number of pieces on amatory subjects, including songs and sonnets.

Aytoun's Latin poems are printed in Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (Amsterdam, 1637), i. pp. 40-75. His English poems are preserved in a MS. in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 10,308), which was prepared by his nephew, Sir John Aytoun. Both were collected by Charles Rogers in The Poems of Sir Robert Aytoun (London, privately printed, 1871). This edition is unsatisfactory, though it is better than the first issue by the same editor in 1844. Additional poems are included which cannot be ascribed to Aytoun, and which in some cases have been identified as the work of others. The poem "I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair" may be suspected, and the old version of "Auld Lang Syne" and "Sweet Empress" are certainly not Aytoun's. Some of the English poems are printed in Watson's Collection (1706-1711) and in the Bannatyne Miscellany, i. p. 299 (1827). There is a memoir of Aytoun in Rogers's edition, and another by Grosart in the Dict. of Nat. Biog. Particulars of his public career will be found in the printed Calendars of State Papers and Register of the Privy Council of the period.

AYTOUN, WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE (1813-1865), Scottish poet, humorist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Edinburgh on the 21st of June 1813. He was the only son of Roger Aytoun, a writer to the signet, and the family was of the same stock as Sir Robert Aytoun noticed above. From his mother, a woman of marked originality of character and considerable culture, he derived his distinctive qualities, his early tastes in literature, and his political sympathies, his love for ballad poetry, and his admiration for the Stuarts. At the age of eleven he was sent to the Edinburgh Academy, passing in due time to the university. In 1833 he spent a few months in London for the purpose of studying law; but in September of that year he went to study German at Aschaffenburg, where he remained till April 1834. He then resumed his legal pursuits in his father's chambers, was admitted a writer to the signet in 1835, and five years later was called to the Scottish bar. But, by his own confession, though he "followed the law, he never could overtake it." His first publication—a volume entitled Poland, Homer, and other Poems, in which he gave expression to his eager interest in the state of Poland—had appeared in 1832. While in Germany he made a translation in blank verse of the first part of Faust; but, forestalled by other translations, it was never published. In 1836 he made his earliest contributions to Blackwood's Magazine, in translations from Uhland; and from 1839 till his death he remained on the staff of Blackwood. About 1841 he became acquainted with Mr (afterwards Sir) Theodore Martin, and in association with him wrote a series of light humorous papers on the tastes and follies of the day, in which were interspersed the verses which afterwards became popular as the Ban Gaultier Ballads (1855). The work on which his reputation as a poet chiefly rests is the Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers (1848; 29th ed. 1883). In 1845 he was appointed professor of rhetoric and belles lettres at Edinburgh University. His lectures were very attractive, and the number of students increased correspondingly. His services in support of the Tory party, especially during the Anti-Corn-Law struggle, received official recognition in his appointment (1852) as sheriff of Orkney and Zetland. In 1854 appeared Firmilian, a Spasmodic Tragedy, in which he attacked and parodied the writings of Philip James Bailey, Sydney Dobell and Alexander Smith; and two years later he published his Bothwell, a Poem. Among his other literary works are a Collection of the Ballads of Scotland (1858), a translation of the Poems and Ballads of Goethe, executed in co-operation with his friend Theodore Martin (1858), a small volume on the Life and Times of Richard I. (1840), written for the Family Library, and a novel entitled Norman Sinclair (1861), many of the details in which are taken from incidents in his own experience. In 1860 Aytoun was elected honorary president of the Associated Societies of Edinburgh University. In 1859 he lost his first wife, a daughter of John Wilson (Christopher North), to whom he was married in 1849, and this was a great blow to him. His mother died in November 1861, and his own health began to fail. In December 1863 he married Miss Kinnear. He died at Blackhills, near Elgin, on the 4th of August 1865.

See Memoir of W. E. Aytoun (1867), by Sir Theodore Martin, with an appendix containing some of his prose essays.

AYUB KHAN (1855- ), Afghan prince, son of Shere Ali (formerly amir of Afghanistan), and cousin of the amir Abdur Rahman, was born about 1855. During his father's reign little is recorded of him, but after Shere Ali's expulsion from Kabul by the English, and his death in January 1879, Ayub took possession of Herat, and maintained himself there until June 1881, when he invaded Afghanistan with the view of asserting his claims to the sovereignty, and in particular of gaining possession of Kandahar, still in the occupation of the British. He encountered the British force commanded by General Burrows at Maiwand on the 27th of July, and was able to gain one of the very few pitched battles that have been won by Asiatic leaders over an army under European direction. His triumph, however, was short-lived; while he hesitated to assault Kandahar he was attacked by Sir Frederick (afterwards Lord) Roberts, at the close of the latter's memorable march from Kabul, and utterly discomfited, 20th of September 1880. He made his way back to Herat, where he remained for some time unmolested. In the summer of 1881 he again invaded Afghanistan, and on the anniversary of the battle of Maiwand obtained a signal victory over Abdur Rahman's lieutenants, mainly through the defection of a Durani regiment. Kandahar fell into his hands, but Abdur Rahman now took the field in person, totally defeated Ayub, and expelled him from Herat. He took refuge in Persia, and for some time lived quietly in receipt of an allowance from the Persian government. In 1887 internal troubles in Afghanistan tempted him to make another endeavour to seize the throne. Defeated and driven into exile, he wandered for some time about Persia, and in November gave himself up to the British agent at Meshed. He was sent to India to live as a state prisoner.

AYUNTAMIENTO, the Spanish name for the district over which a town council has administrative authority; it is used also for a town council, and for the town-hall. The word is derived from the Latin adjungere, and originally meant "meeting." In some parts of Spain and in Spanish America the town council was called the cabildo or chapter, from the Latin capitulum. The ayuntamiento consisted of the official members, and of regidores or regulators, who were chosen in varying proportions from the "hidalgos" or nobles (hijos de algo, sons of somebody) and the "pecheros," or commoners, who paid the pecho, or personal tax; pecho (Lat. pectus) is in Spanish the breast, and then by extension the person. The regidores of the ayuntamientos, or lay cabildos, were checked by the royal judge or corregidor, who was in fact the permanent chairman or president. The distinction between hidalgo and pechero has been abolished in modern Spain, but the powers and the constitution of ayuntamientos have been subject to many modifications.

AYUTHIA, a city of Siam, now known to the Siamese as Krung Kao or "the Old Capital," situated in 100° 32′ E., 14° 21′ N. Pop. about 10,000. The river Me Nam, broken up into a network of creeks, here surrounds a large island upon which stand the ruins of the famous city which was for more than four centuries the capital of Siam. The bulk of the inhabitants live in the floating houses characteristic of lower Siam, using as thoroughfares the creeks to the edges of which the houses are moored. The ruins of the old city are of great archaeological interest, as are the relics, of which a large collection is housed in the local museum. Outside the town is an ancient masonry enclosure for the capture of elephants, which is still periodically used. Ayuthia is on the northern main line of the state railways, 42 m. from Bangkok. Great quantities of paddi are annually sent by river and rail to Bangkok, in return for which cloth and other goods are imported to supply the wants of the agriculturist peasantry. There is no other trade. Ayuthia is the chief town of one of the richest agricultural provincial divisions of Siam and is the headquarters of a high commissioner. The government offices occupy spacious buildings, once a royal summer retreat; the government is that of an ordinary provincial division (Monton).

Historically Ayuthia is the most interesting spot in Siam. Among the innumerable ruins may be seen those of palaces, pagodas, churches and fortifications, the departed glories of which are recorded in the writings of the early European travellers who first brought Siam within the knowledge of the West, and laid the foundations of the present foreign intercourse and trade. The town was twice destroyed by the Burmese, once in 1555 and again in 1767, and from the date of the second destruction it ceased to be the capital of the country.

AZAÏS, PIERRE HYACINTHE (1766-1845), French philosopher, was born at Sorèze and died at Paris. He spent his early years as a teacher and a village organist. At the outbreak of the Revolution he viewed it with favour, but was soon disgusted at the violence of its methods. A critical pamphlet drew upon him the hatred of the revolutionists, and it was not until 1806 that he was able to settle in Paris. In 1809 he published his great work, Des Compensations dans les destinées humaines (5th ed. 1846), which pleased Napoleon so much that he made its author professor at St Cyr. In 1811 he became inspector of the public library at Avignon, and from 1812 to 1815 he held the same position at Nancy. The Restoration government at first suspected him as a Bonapartist, but at length granted him a pension. From that time he occupied himself in lecturing and the publication of philosophical works. In the Compensations he sought to prove that, on the whole, happiness and misery are equally balanced, and therefore that men should accept the government which is given them rather than risk the horrors of revolution. "Le principe de l'inégalité naturelle et essentielle dans les destinées humaines conduit inévitablement au fanatisme révolutionnaire ou au fanatisme religieux." The principles of compensation and equilibrium are found also in the physical universe, the product of matter and force, whose cause is God. Force, naturally expansive and operating on the homogeneous atoms which constitute elemental matter, is subject to the law of equilibrium, or equivalence of action and reaction. The development of phenomena under this law may be divided into three stages—the physical, the physiological, the intellectual and moral. The immaterial in man is the expansive force inherent in him. Moral and political phenomena are the result of the opposing forces of progress and preservation, and their perfection lies in the fulfilment of the law of equilibrium or universal harmony. This may be achieved in seven thousand years, when man will vanish from the world. In an additional five thousand, a similar equilibrium will obtain in the physical sphere, which will then itself pass away. In addition to his philosophical work, Azaïs studied music under his father, Pierre Hyacinthe Azaïs (1743-1796), professor of music at Sorèze and Toulouse, and composer of sacred music in the style of Gossec. He wrote for the Revue musicale a series of articles entitled Acoustique fondamentale (1831), containing an ingenious, but now exploded, theory of the vibration of the air. His other works are: Système universel (8 vols., 1812); Du Sort de l'homme (3 vols., 1820); Cours de philosophie (8 vols., 1824), reproduced as Explication universelle (3 vols., 1826-1828); Jeunesse, maturité, religion, philosophie (1837), De la phrénologie, du magnétisme, et de la folie (1843).

AZALEA, a genus of popular hardy or greenhouse plants, belonging to the heath order (Ericaceae), and scarcely separable botanically from Rhododendron. The beautiful varieties now in cultivation have been bred from a few originals, natives of the hilly regions of China and Japan, Asia Minor, and the United States. They are perhaps unequalled as indoor decorative plants. They are usually increased by grafting the half-ripened shoots on the stronger-growing kinds, the shoots of the stock and the grafts being in a similarly half-ripened condition, and the plants being placed in a moist heat of 65°. Large plants of inferior kinds, if healthy, may be grafted all over with the choicer sorts, so as to obtain a large specimen in a short time. They require a rich and fibrous peat soil, with a mixture of sand to prevent its getting water-logged. The best time to pot azaleas is three or four weeks after the blooming is over. The soil should be made quite solid to prevent its retaining too much water. To produce handsome plants, they must while young be stopped as required. Specimens that have got leggy may be cut back just before growth commences. The lowest temperature for them during the winter is about 35°, and during their season of growth from 55° to 65° at night, and 75° by day, the atmosphere being at the same time well charged with moisture. They are liable to the attacks of thrips and red spider, which do great mischief if not promptly destroyed.

The following are some well-known species:—A. arborescens (Pennsylvania), a deciduous shrub 10-20 ft. high; A. calendulacea (Carolina to Pennsylvania), a beautiful deciduous shrub 2-6 ft. high, with yellow, red, orange and copper-coloured flowers; A. hispida, a North American shrub, 10-15 ft. high, flowers white edged with red; A. indica (China), the so-called Indian azalea, a shrub 3-6 ft. or more high, the original of numerous single and double varieties, many of the more vigorous of which are hardy in southern England and Ireland; A. nudiflora, a North American shrub, 3-4 ft. high, which hybridizes freely with A. calendulacea, A. pontica and others, to produce single and double forms of a great variety of shades; A. pontica (Levant, Caucasus, &c.), 4-6 ft. high, with numerous varieties differing in the colour of the flowers and the tint of the leaves; A. sinensis (China and Japan), a beautiful shrub, 3-4 ft. high, with orange-red or yellow bell-shaped flowers, hardy in the southern half of England, large numbers of varieties being in cultivation under the name of Japanese azaleas.

AZAMGARH, or Azimgarh, a city and district of British India, in the Gorakhpur division of the United Provinces. The town is situated on the river Tons, and has a railway station. It is said to have been founded about 1665 by a powerful landholder named Azim Khan, who owned large estates in this part of the country. Pop. (1901) 18,835.

The area of the district is 2207 sq. m. It is bounded on the N. by the river Gogra, separating it from Gorakhpur district; on the E. by Ghazipur district and the river Ganges; on the S. by the districts of Jaunpur and Ghazipur; and on the W. by Jaunpur and Fyzabad. The portion of the district lying along the banks of the Gogra is a low-lying tract, varying considerably in width; south of this, however, the ground takes a slight rise. The slope of the land is from north-west to south-east, but the general drainage is very inadequate. Roughly speaking, the district consists of a series of parallel ridges, whose summits are depressed into beds or hollows, along which the rivers flow; while between the ridges are low-lying rice lands, interspersed with numerous natural reservoirs. The soil is fertile, and very highly cultivated, bearing magnificent crops of rice, sugar-cane and indigo. There are several indigo factories. A branch of the Bengal & North-Western railway to Azamgarh town was opened in 1898. In 1901 the population was 1,529,785, showing a decrease of 11% in the decade. The district was ceded to the Company in 1801 by the wazirs of Lucknow. In 1857 it became a centre of mutiny. On the 3rd of June 1857 the 17th Regiment of Native Infantry mutinied at Azamgarh, murdered some of their officers, and carried off the government treasure to Fyzabad. The district became a centre of the fighting between the Gurkhas and the rebels, and was not finally cleared until October 1858 by Colonel Kelly.

AẒĀN (Arabic for "announcement"), the call or summons to public prayers proclaimed by the Muezzin (crier) from the mosque twice daily in all Mahommedan countries. In small mosques the Muezzin at Aẓān stands at the door or at the side of the building; in large ones he takes up his position in the minaret. The call translated runs: "God is most great!" (four times), "I testify there is no God but God!" (twice), "I testify that Mahomet is the apostle of God!" (twice), "Come to prayer!" (twice), "Come to salvation!" (twice), "God is most great!" (twice), "There is no God but God!" To the morning Aẓān are added the words, "Prayer is better than sleep!" (twice). The devout Moslem has to make a set response to each phrase of the Muezzin. At first these are mere repetitions of Aẓān, but to the cry "Come to prayer!" the listener must answer, "I have no power nor strength but from God the most High and Great." To that of "Come to salvation!" the formal response is, "What God willeth will be: what He willeth not will not be." The recital of the Aẓān must be listened to with the utmost reverence. The passers in the streets must stand still, all those at work must cease from their labours, and those in bed must sit up.

The Muezzin, who is a paid servant of the mosque, must stand with his face towards Mecca and with the points of his forefingers in his ears while reciting Aẓān. He is specially chosen for good character, and Aẓān must not be recited by any one unclean, by a drunkard, by the insane, or by a woman. The summons to prayers was at first simply "Come to prayer!" Mahomet, anxious to invest the call with the dignity of a ceremony, took counsel of his followers. Some suggested the Jewish trumpet, others the Christian bell, but according to legend the matter was finally settled by a dream:—"While the matter was under discussion, Abdallah, a Khazrajite, dreamed that he met a man clad in green raiment, carrying a bell. Abdallah sought to buy it, saying that it would do well for bringing together the assembly of the faithful. 'I will show thee a better way,' replied the stranger; 'let a crier cry aloud "God is most great, &c."' On awaking, Abdallah went to Mahomet and told him his dream," and Aẓān was thereupon instituted.

AZARA, DON JOSE NICHOLAS DE (1731-1804), Spanish diplomatist, was born in 1731 at Barbunales, Aragon, and was appointed in 1765 Spanish agent and procurator-general, and in 1785 ambassador at Rome. During his long residence there he distinguished himself as a collector of Italian antiquities and as a patron of art. He was also an able and active diplomatist, took a leading share in the difficult and hazardous task of the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain, and was instrumental in securing the election of Pius VI. He withdrew to Florence when the French took possession of Rome in 1798, but acted on behalf of the pope during his exile and after his death at Valence in 1799. He was afterwards Spanish ambassador in Paris. In that post it was his misfortune to be forced by his government to conduct the negotiations which led to the treaty of San Ildefonso, by which Spain was wholly subjected to Napoleon. Azara was friendly to a French alliance, but his experience showed him that his country was being sacrificed to Napoleon. The First Consul liked him personally, and found him easy to influence. Azara died, worn out, in Paris in 1804. His end was undoubtedly embittered by his discovery of the ills which the French alliance must produce for Spain.

Several sympathetic notices of Azara will be found in Thiers, Consulat et Empire. See also Reinado de Carlos IV, by Gen. J. Gomez de Arteche, in the Historia General de España, published by the R. Acad. de la Historia, Madrid, 1892, &c. There is a Notice historique sur le Chevalier d'Azara by Bourgoing (1804).

His younger brother, Don Felix de Azara (1746-1811), spent twenty years in South America as a commissioner for delimiting the boundary between the Spanish and Portuguese territories. He made many observations on the natural history of the country, which, together with an account of the discovery and history of Paraguay and Rio de la Plata, were incorporated in his principal work, Voyage dans l'Amérique méridionale depuis 1781 jusqu'en 1801, published at Paris in 1809 in French from his MS. by C. A. Walckenaer.

AZARIAH, the name of several persons mentioned in the Old Testament. (1) One of Solomon's "princes," son of Zadok the priest (1 Kings iv. 2), was one of several Azariahs among the descendants of Levi (1 Chron. vi. 9, 10, 13, 36; 2 Chron. xxvi. 17). (2) The son of Nathan, a high official under King Solomon (1 Kings iv. 5). (3) King of Judah, son of Amaziah by his wife Jecholiah (2 Kings xv. 1, 2), also called Uzziah (2 Chron. xxvi. 1). (4) Son of Ethan and great-grandson of Judah (1 Chron. ii. 8). (5) Son of Jehu, of the posterity of Judah (1 Chron. ii. 38). (6) A prophet in the reign of Asa, king of Judah (2 Chron. xv. 1). (7) Two sons of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah (2 Chron. xxi. 2). (8) King of Judah, also called Ahaziah and Jehoahaz, son of Jehoram (2 Chron. xxi. 17; xxii. 1, 6). (9) The son of Jeroham, and (10) the son of Obed, were made "captains of hundreds" by Jehoiada the priest (2 Chron. xxiii. 1). (11) Son of Hilkiah and grandfather of Ezra the Scribe (Ezra vii. 1; Neh. vii. 7, viii. 7, x. 2). (12) Son of Maaseiah, one of those who under the commission of Artaxerxes restored the wall of Jerusalem (Neh. iii. 23). (13) Son of Hoshaiah, an opponent of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. xliii. 2). (14) One of the companions in captivity of the prophet Daniel, called Abednego by Nebuchadrezzar, by whom with two companions he was cast into a "burning fiery furnace" for refusing to worship the golden image set up by that monarch (Dan. i. 6, iii. 8-30).

AZAY-LE-RIDEAU, a town of western France, in the department of Indre-et-Loire, on the Indre, 16 m. S.W. of Tours by rail. Pop. (1906) 1453. The town has a fine Renaissance chateau, well restored in modern times, with good collections of furniture and pictures.

AZEGLIO, MASSIMO TAPARELLI, Marquis d' (1798-1866), Italian statesman and author, was born at Turin in October 1798, descended from an ancient and noble Piedmontese family. His father, Cesare d'Azeglio, was an officer in the Piedmontese army and held a high position at court; on the return of Pope Pius VII. to Rome after the fall of Napoleon, Cesare d'Azeglio was sent as special envoy to the Vatican, and he took his son, then sixteen years of age, with him as an extra attaché. Young Massimo was given a commission in a cavalry regiment, which he soon relinquished on account of his health. During his residence in Rome he had acquired a love for art and music, and he now determined to become a painter, to the horror of his family, who belonged to the stiff and narrow Piedmontese aristocracy. His father reluctantly consented, and Massimo settled in Rome, devoting himself to art. He led an abstemious life, maintaining himself by his painting for several years. But he was constantly meditating on the political state of Italy. In 1830 he returned to Turin, and after his father's death in 1831 removed to Milan. There he remained for twelve years, moving in the literary and artistic circles of the city. He became the intimate of Alessandro Manzoni the novelist, whose daughter he married; thenceforth literature became his chief occupation instead of art, and he produced two historical novels, Niccolò dei Lapi and Ettore Fieramosca, in imitation of Manzoni, and with pronounced political tendencies, his object being to point out the evils of foreign domination in Italy and to reawaken national feeling. In 1845 he visited Romagna as an unauthorized political envoy, to report on its conditions and the troubles which he foresaw would break out on the death of Pope Gregory XVI. The following year he published his famous pamphlet Degli ultimi casi di Romagna at Florence, in consequence of which he was expelled from Tuscany. He spent the next few months in Rome, sharing the general enthusiasm over the supposed liberalism of the new pope, Pius IX.; like V. Gioberti and Balbo he believed in an Italian confederation under papal auspices, and was opposed to the Radical wing of the Liberal party. His political activity increased, and he wrote various other pamphlets, among which was I lutti di Lombardia (1848).

On the outbreak of the first war of independence, d'Azeglio donned the papal uniform and took part under General Durando in the defence of Vicenza, where he was severely wounded. He retired to Florence to recover, but as he opposed the democrats who ruled in Tuscany, he was expelled from that country for the second time. He was now a famous man, and early in 1849 Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, invited him to form a cabinet. But realizing how impossible it was to renew the campaign, and "not having the heart to sign, in such wretched internal and external conditions, a treaty of peace with Austria" (Correspondance politique, by E. Rendu), he refused. After the defeat of Novara (23rd of March 1849), Charles Albert abdicated and was succeeded by Victor Emmanuel II. D'Azeglio was again called on to form a cabinet, and this time, although the situation was even more difficult, he accepted, concluded a treaty of peace, dissolved the Chamber, and summoned a new one to ratify it. The treaty was accepted, and d'Azeglio continued in office for the next three years. While all the rest of Italy was a prey to despotism, in Piedmont the king maintained the constitution intact in the face of the general wave of reaction. D'Azeglio conducted the affairs of the country with tact and ability, improving its diplomatic relations, and opposing the claims of the Roman Curia. He invited Count Cavour, then a rising young politician, to enter the ministry in 1850. Cavour and Farini, also a member of the cabinet, made certain declarations in the Chamber (May 1852) which led the ministry in the direction of an alliance with Rattazzi and the Left. Of this d'Azeglio disapproved, and therefore resigned office, but on the king's request he formed a new ministry, excluding both Cavour and Farini. In October, however, owing to ill-health and dissatisfaction with some of his colleagues, as well as for other reasons not quite clear, he resigned once more and retired into private life, suggesting Cavour to the king as his successor.

For the next four years he lived modestly at Turin, devoting himself once more to art, although he also continued to take an active interest in politics, Cavour always consulting him on matters of moment. In 1855 he was appointed director of the Turin art gallery. In 1859 he was given various political missions, including one to Paris and London to prepare the basis for a general congress of the powers on the Italian question. When war between Piedmont and Austria appeared inevitable he returned to Italy, and was sent as royal commissioner by Cavour to Romagna, whence the papal troops had been expelled. After the peace of Villafranca, d'Azeglio was recalled with orders to withdraw the Piedmontese garrisons; but he saw the danger of allowing the papal troops to reoccupy the province, and after a severe inner struggle left Bologna without the troops, and interviewed the king. The latter approved of his action, and said that his orders had not been accurately expressed; thus Romagna was saved. That same year he published a pamphlet in French entitled De la Politique et du droit chrétien au point de vue de la question italienne, with the object of inducing Napoleon III. to continue his pro-Italian policy. Early in 1860 Cavour appointed him governor of Milan, evacuated by the Austrians after the battle of Magenta, a position which he held with great ability. But, disapproving of the government's policy with regard to Garibaldi's Sicilian expedition and the occupation by Piedmont of the kingdom of Naples as inopportune, he resigned office.

The death of his two brothers in 1862 and of Cavour in 1861 caused Massimo great grief, and he subsequently led a comparatively retired life. But he took part in politics, both as a deputy and a writer, his two chief subjects of interest being the Roman question and the relations of Piedmont (now the kingdom of Italy) with Mazzini and the other revolutionists. In his opinion Italy must be unified by means of the Franco-Piedmontese army alone, all connexion with the conspirators being eschewed, while the pope should enjoy nominal sovereignty over Rome, with full spiritual independence, the capital of Italy being established elsewhere, but the Romans being Italian citizens (see his letters to E. Rendu and his pamphlet Le questioni urgenti). He strongly disapproved of the convention of 1864 between the Italian government and the pope. The last few years of d'Azeglio's life were spent chiefly at his villa of Cannero, where he set to work to write his own memoirs. He died of fever on the 15th of January 1866.

Massimo d'Azeglio was a very attractive personality, as well as an absolutely honest patriot, and a characteristic example of the best type of Piedmontese aristocrat. He was cautious and conservative; in his general ideas on the liberation of Italy he was wrong, and to some extent he was an amateur in politics, but of his sincerity there is no doubt. As an author his political writings are trenchant and clear, but his novels are somewhat heavy and old-fashioned, and are interesting only if one reads the political allusions between the lines.

Besides a variety of newspaper articles and pamphlets, d'Azeglio's chief works are the two novels Ettore Fieramosca (1833) and Niccolò dei Lapi (1841), and a volume of autobiographical memoirs entitled I Miei Ricordi, a most charming work published after his death, in 1866, but unfortunately incomplete. See in addition to the Ricordi, L. Carpi's Il Risorgimento Italiano, vol. i. pp. 288 sq. and the Souvenirs historiques of Constance d'Azeglio, Massimo's niece (Turin, 1884).

(L. V.*)

AZERBĀÏJĀN (also spelt Aderbijan; the Azerbādegān of medieval writers, the Athropatakan and Atropatene of the ancients), the north-western and most important province of Persia. It is separated from Russian territory on the N. by the river Aras (Araxes), while it has the Caspian Sea, Gilan and Khamseh (Zenjān) on the E., Kurdistan on the S., and Asiatic Turkey on the W. Its area is estimated at 32,000 sq. m.; its population at 1½ to 2 millions, comprising various races, as Persians proper, Turks, Kurds, Syrians, Armenians, &c. The country is superior in fertility to most provinces of Persia, and consists of a regular succession of undulating eminences, partially cultivated and opening into extensive plains. Near the centre of the province the mountains of Sahand rise in an accumulated mass to the height of 12,000 ft. above the sea. The highest mountain of the province is in its eastern part, Mount Savelan, with an elevation of 15,792 ft., and the Talish Mountains, which run from north to south, parallel to and at no great distance from the Caspian, have an altitude of 9000 ft. The principal rivers are the Aras and Kizil Uzain, both receiving numerous tributaries and flowing into the Caspian, and the Jaghatu, Tatava, Murdi, Aji and others, which drain into the Urmia lake. The country to the west of the lake, with the districts of Selmas and Urmia, is the most prosperous part of Azerbāïjān, yet even here the intelligent traveller laments the want of enterprise among the inhabitants. Azerbāïjān is one of the most productive provinces of Persia. The orchards and gardens in which many villages are embosomed yield delicious fruits of almost every description, and great quantities, dried, are exported, principally to Russia. Provisions are cheap and abundant, but there is a lack of forests and timber trees. Lead, copper, sulphur, orpiment, also lignite, have been found within the confines of the province; also a kind of beautiful, variegated, translucent marble, which takes a high polish, is used in the construction of palatial buildings, tanks, baths, &c., and is known as Maragha, or Tabriz marble. The climate is healthy, not hot in summer, and cold in winter. The cold sometimes is severely felt by the poor classes owing to want of proper fuel, for which a great part of the population has no substitute except dried cow-dung. Snow lies on the mountains for about eight months in the year, and water is everywhere abundant. The best soils when abundantly irrigated yield from 50- to 60-fold, and the water for this purpose is supplied by the innumerable streams which intersect the province. The natives of Azerbāïjān make excellent soldiers, and about a third of the Persian army is composed of them. The province is divided into a number of administrative sub-provinces or districts, each with a hākim, governor or sub-governor, under the governor-general, who under the Kajar dynasty has always been the heir-apparent to the throne of Persia, assisted by a responsible minister appointed by the shah. The administrative divisions are as follows:—Tabriz and environs; Uskuh; Deh-Kharegan; Maragha; Miandoab; Saūjbulagh; Sulduz; Urmia; Selmas; Khoi; Maku; Gerger; Merend; Karadagh; Arvanek; Talish; Ardebil; Mishkin; Khalkhāl; Hashtrud; Garmrud; Afshar; Sain Kaleh; Ujan; Sarab. The revenue amounts to about £200,000 per annum in cash and kind, and nearly all of it is expended in the province for the maintenance of the court of the heir-apparent, the salaries and pay to government officials, troops, pensions, &c.

(A. H.-S.)

AZIMUTH (from the Arabic), in astronomy, the angular distance from the north or south point of the horizon to the foot of the vertical circle through a heavenly body. In the case of a horizontal line the azimuth is its deviation from the north or south direction.

AZO (c. 1150-1230), Italian jurist. This Azo, whose name is sometimes written Azzo and Azzolenus, and who is occasionally described as Azo Soldanus, from the surname of his father, is to be distinguished from two other famous Italians of the same name, viz. Azo Lambertaccius, a canonist of the 13th century, professor of canon law at the university of Bologna, author of Questiones in jus canonicum, and Azo de Ramenghis, a canonist of the 14th century, also a professor of canon law at Bologna, and author of Repetitiones super libro Decretorum. Few particulars are known as to the life of Azo, further than that he was born at Bologna about the middle of the 12th century, and was a pupil of Joannes Bassianus, and afterwards became professor of civil law in the university of his native town. He also took an active part in municipal life, Bologna, with the other Lombard republics, having gained its municipal independence. Azo occupied a very important position amongst the glossators, and his Readings on the Code, which were collected by his pupil, Alessandro de Santo Aegidio, and completed by the additions of Hugolinus and Odofredus, form a methodical exposition of Roman law, and were of such weight before the tribunals that it used to be said, "Chi non ha Azzo, non vada a palazzo." Azo gained a great reputation as a professor, and numbered amongst his pupils Accursius and Jacobus Balduinus. He died about 1230.

AZO COMPOUNDS, organic substances of the type R·N:N·R′ (where R = an aryl radical and R′ = a substituted alkyl, or aryl radical). They may be prepared by the reduction of nitro compounds in alkaline solution (using zinc dust and alkali, or a solution of an alkaline stannite as a reducing agent); by oxidation of hydrazo compounds; or by the coupling of a diazotized amine and any compound of a phenolic or aminic type, provided that there is a free para position in the amine or phenol. They may also be obtained by the molecular rearrangement of the diazoamines, when these are warmed with the parent base and its hydrochloride. This latter method of formation has been studied by H. Goldschmidt and R. U. Reinders (Ber., 1896, 29, p. 1369), who found that the reaction is monomolecular, and that the velocity constant of the reaction is proportional to the amount of the hydrochloride of the base present and also to the temperature, but is independent of the concentration of the diazoamine. The azo compounds are intensely coloured, but are not capable of being used as dyestuffs unless they contain salt-forming, acid or basic groups (see Dyeing). By oxidizing agents they are converted into azoxy compounds, and by reducing agents into hydrazo compounds or amines.

Azo-benzene, C6H5N:NC6H5, discovered by E. Mitscherlich in 1834, may be prepared by reducing nitrobenzene in alcoholic solution with zinc dust and caustic soda; by the condensation of nitrosobenzene with aniline in hot glacial acetic acid solution; or by the oxidation of aniline with sodium hypobromite. It crystallizes from alcohol in orange red plates which melt at 68° C. and boil at 293° C. It does not react with acids or alkalis, but on reduction with zinc dust in acetic acid solution yields aniline.

Amino-azo Compounds may be prepared as shown above. They are usually yellowish brown or red in colour, the presence of more amino groups leading to browner shades, whilst the introduction of alkylated amino groups gives redder shades. They usually crystallize well and are readily reduced. When heated with aniline and aniline hydrochloride they yield indulines (q.v.). Amino-azo-benzene, C6H5·N2·C6H4NH2, crystallizes in yellow plates or needles and melts at 126° C. Its constitution is determined by the facts that it may be prepared by reducing nitro-azo-benzene by ammonium sulphide and that by reduction with stannous chloride it yields aniline and meta-phenylene diamine. Diamino-azo-benzene (chrysoidine), C6H5·N2·C6H3(NH2)2, first prepared by O. Witt (Ber., 1877, 10, p. 656), is obtained by coupling phenyl diazonium chloride with meta-phenylene diamine. It crystallizes in red octahedra and dyes silk and wool yellow. Triamino-azo-benzene (meta-aminobenzene-azo-meta-phenylene diamine or Bismarck brown, phenylene brown, vesuvine, Manchester brown), NH2·C6H4·N2·C6H3(NH2)2, is prepared by the action of nitrous acid on meta-phenylene diamine. It forms brown crystals which are readily soluble in hot water, and it dyes mordanted cotton a dark brown. On the composition of the commercial Bismarck brown see E. Tauber and F. Walder (Ber., 1897, 30, pp. 2111, 2899; 1900, 33, p. 2116). Alkylated amino-azo-benzenes are also known, and are formed by the coupling of diazonium salts with alkylated amines, provided they contain a free para position with respect to the amino group. In these cases it has been shown by H. Goldschmidt and A. Merz (Ber., 1897, 30, p. 670) that the velocity of formation of the amino-azo compound depends only on the nature of the reagents and not on the concentration, and that in coupling the hydrochloride of a tertiary amine with diazobenzene sulphonic acid the reaction takes place between the acid and the base set free by the hydrolytic dissociation of its salt, for the formation of the amino-azo compound, when carried out in the presence of different acids, takes place most rapidly with the weakest acid (H. Goldschmidt and F. Buss, Ber., 1897, 30, p. 2075).

Methyl orange (helianthin, gold orange, Mandarin orange), (CH3)2N·C6H4·N2·C6H4SO3Na, is the sodium salt of para-dimethylaminobenzene-azo-benzene sulphonic acid. It is an orange crystalline powder which is soluble in water, forming a yellow solution. The free acid is intensely red in colour. Methyl orange is used largely as an indicator. The constitution of methyl orange follows from the fact that on reduction by stannous chloride in hydrochloric acid solution it yields sulphanilic acid and para-aminodimethyl aniline.

Oxyazo Compounds.—The oxyazo compounds are prepared by adding a solution of a diazonium salt to a cold slightly alkaline solution of a phenol. The diazo group takes up the para position with regard to the hydroxyl group, and if this be prevented it then goes into the ortho position. It never goes directly into the meta position.

The constitution of the oxyazo compounds has attracted much attention, some chemists holding that they are true azophenols of the type R·N2·R1·OH, while others look upon them as having a quinonoid structure, i.e. as being quinone hydrazones, type R·NH·N:R1:O. The first to attack the purely chemical side were Th. Zincke (Ber., 1883,16, p. 2929; 1884, 17, p. 3026; 1887, 20, p. 3171) and R. Meldola (Jour. Chem. Soc., 1889, 55, pp. 114, 603). Th. Zincke found that the products obtained by coupling a diazonium salt with α-naphthol, and by condensing phenyl-hydrazine with α-naphthoquinone, were identical; whilst Meldola acetylated the azophenols, and split the acetyl products by reduction in acid solution, but obtained no satisfactory results. K. Auwers (Zeit. f. phys. Chem., 1896, 21, p. 355; Ber., 1900, 33, p. 1302) examined the question from the physico-chemical standpoint by determining the freezing-point depressions, the result being that the para-oxyazo compounds give abnormal depressions and the ortho-oxyazo compounds give normal depressions; Auwers then concluded that the para compounds are phenolic and the ortho compounds are quinone hydrazones or act as such. A. Hantzsch (Ber., 1899, 32, pp. 590, 3089) considers that the oxyazo compounds are to be classed as pseudo-acids, possessing in the free condition the configuration of quinone hydrazones, their salts, however, being of the normal phenolic type. J. T. Hewitt (Jour. Chem. Soc., 1900, 77, pp. 99 et seq.) nitrated para-oxyazobenzene with dilute nitric acid and found that it gave a benzene azo-ortho-nitrophenol, whereas quinones are not attacked by dilute nitric acid. Hewitt has also attacked the problem by brominating the oxyazobenzenes, and has shown that when the hydrobromic acid produced in the reaction is allowed to remain in the system, a brombenzene-azo-phenol is formed, whilst if it be removed (by the addition of sodium acetate) bromination takes place in the phenolic nucleus; consequently the presence of the mineral acid gives the azo compound a pseudo-quinonoid character, which it does not possess if the mineral acid be removed from the sphere of the reaction.

Para-oxyazobenzene (benzene-azo-phenol), C6H5N:N(1)·C6H4·OH(4), is prepared by coupling diazotized aniline with phenol in alkaline solution. It is an orange-red crystalline compound which melts at 154° C. Ortho-oxyazobenzene, C6H5N:N(1)C6H4·OH(2), was obtained in small quantity by E. Bamberger (Ber., 1900, 33, p. 3189) simultaneously with the para compound, from which it may be separated by distillation in a current of steam, the ortho compound passing over with the steam. It crystallizes in orange-red needles which melt at 82.5-83° C. On reduction with zinc dust in dilute sal-ammoniac solution, it yields ortho-aminophenol and aniline. Meta-oxyazobenzene, C6H5N:N(1)C6H4·OH(3), was obtained in 1903 by P. Jacobson (Ber., 1903, 36, p. 4093) by condensing ortho-anisidine with diazo benzene, the resulting compound being then diazotized and reduced by alcohol to benzene-azo-meta-anisole, from which meta-oxyazobenzene was obtained by hydrolysis with aluminium chloride. It melts at 112-114° C. and is easily reduced to the corresponding hydrazo compound.

Diazo-Amines.—The diazo-amines, R·N:N·NHR1, are obtained by the action of primary amines on diazonium salts; by the action of nitrous acid on a free primary amine, an iso-diazohydroxide being formed as an intermediate product which then condenses with the amine; and by the action of nitrosamines on primary amines. They are crystalline solids, usually of a yellow colour, which do not unite with acids; they are readily converted into amino-azo compounds (see above) and are decomposed by the concentrated halogen acids, yielding haloid benzenes, nitrogen and an amine. Acid anhydrides replace the imino-hydrogen atom by acidyl radicals, and boiling with water converts them into phenols. They combine with phenyl isocyanate to form urea derivatives (H. Goldschmidt, Ber., 1888, 21, p. 2578), and on reduction with zinc dust (preferably in alcoholic acetic acid solution) they yield usually a hydrazine and an amine. Diazoamino benzene, C6H5·N:N·NHC6H5, was first obtained by P. Griess (Ann., 1862, 121, p. 258). It crystallizes in yellow laminae, which melt at 96° C. and explode at slightly higher temperatures. It is readily soluble in alcohol, ether and benzene.

Diazoimino benzene, C6H5N3, is also known. It may be prepared by the action of ammonia on diazobenzene perbromide; by the action of hydroxylamine on a diazonium sulphate (K. Heumann and L. Oeconomides, Ber., 1887, 20, p. 372); and by the action of phenylhydrazine on a diazonium sulphate. It is a yellow oil which boils at 59° C. (12 mm.), and possesses a stupefying odour. It explodes when heated. Hydrochloric acid converts it into chloraniline, nitrogen being eliminated; whilst boiling sulphuric acid converts it into aminophenol.

Azoxy Compounds, R·N·O·N·R′, are usually yellow or red crystalline solids which result from the reduction of nitro or nitroso compounds by heating them with alcoholic potash (preferably using methyl alcohol). They may also be obtained by the oxidation of azo compounds. When reduced (in acid solution) they yield amines; distillation with reduced iron gives azo compounds, and warming with ammonium sulphide gives hydrazo compounds. Concentrated sulphuric acid converts azoxybenzene into oxyazobenzene (O. Wallach, Ber., 1880, 13, p. 525). Azoxybenzene, (C6H5N)2O, crystallizes from alcohol in yellow needles, which melt at 36° C. On distillation, it yields aniline and azobenzene. Azoxybenzene is also found among the electro-reduction products of nitrobenzene, when the reduction is carried out in alcoholic-alkaline solution.

The mixed azo compounds are those in which the azo group ·N:N· is united with an aromatic radical on the one hand, and with a radical of the aliphatic series on the other. The most easily obtained mixed azo compounds are those formed by the union of a diazonium salt with the potassium or sodium salt of a nitroparaffin (V. Meyer, Ber., 1876, 9, p. 384):

C6H5N2·NO3 + CH3·CH(NO2)K = KNO3 + C6H5N2·CH(NO2)CH3.

Benzene-azo-nitro-ethane.

Those not containing a nitro group may be prepared by the oxidation of the corresponding mixed hydrazo compounds with mercuric oxide. E. Bamberger (Ber., 1898, 31, p. 455) has shown that the nitro-alkyl derivatives behave as though they possess the constitution of hydrazones, for on heating with dilute alkalies they split more or less readily into an alkaline nitrite and an acid hydrazide:

C6H5NH·N:C(NO2)CH3 + NaOH = NaNO2 + C6H5NH·NH·CO·CH3.

Benzene-azo-methane, C6H5·N2·CH3, is a yellow oil which boils at 150° C. and is readily volatile in steam. Benzene-azo-ethane, C6H5·N2·C2H5, is a yellow oil which boils at about 180° C. with more or less decomposition. On standing with 60% sulphuric acid for some time, it is converted into the isomeric acetaldehyde-phenylhydrazone, C6H5NH·N:CH·CH3 (Ber., 1896, 29, p. 794).

The diazo cyanides, C6H5N2·CN, and carboxylic acids, C6H5·N2·COOH, may also be considered as mixed azo derivatives. Diazobenzenecyanide, C6H5N2·CN, is an unstable oil, formed when potassium cyanide is added to a solution of a diazonium salt. Phenyl-azo-carboxylic acid, C6H5·N2·COOH, is obtained in the form of its potassium salt when phenylsemicarbazide is oxidized with potassium permanganate in alkaline solution (J. Thiele, Ber., 1895, 28, p. 2600). It crystallizes in orange-red needles and is decomposed by water. The corresponding amide, phenyl-azo-carbonamide, C6H5N2·CONH2, also results from the oxidation of phenylsemicarbazide (Thiele, loc. cit.), and forms reddish-yellow needles which melt at 114° C. When heated with benzaldehyde to 120° C. it yields diphenyloxytriazole, (C6H5)2CN3C(OH).

AZOIMIDE, or Hydrazoic Acid, N3H, a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, first isolated in 1890 by Th. Curtius (Berichte, 1890, 23, p. 3023). It is the hydrogen compound corresponding to P. Greiss' diazoimino benzene, C6H5N3, which is prepared by the addition of ammonia to diazobenzene perbromide.

Curtius found that benzoyl glycollic acid gave benzoyl hydrazine with hydrazine hydrate:

C6H5OCO·CH2COOH + 2N2H4·H2O = H2O + C6H5CONH·NH2 + NH2·NH·CH2·COOH.

(Ethyl benzoate may be employed instead of benzoyl glycollic acid for this reaction.) This compound gave a nitroso compound with nitrous acid, which changed spontaneously into benzoylazoimide by loss of water:

C6H5CO·NH·NH2 + HONO = H2O + C6H5CO·N(NO)·NH2.

C6H5CO·N(NO)·NH2 = H2O + C6H5CO·N3.

The resulting benzoylazoimide is easily hydrolysed by boiling with alcoholic solutions of caustic alkalis, a benzoate of the alkali metal and an alkali salt of the new acid being obtained; the latter is precipitated in crystalline condition on standing.

An improved method of preparation was found in the use of hippuric acid, which reacts with hydrazine hydrate to form hippuryl hydrazine, C6H5CONH·CH2CONH·NH2, and this substance is converted by nitrous acid into diazo-hippuramide, C6H5CONH·CH2·CO·NH·N2·OH, which is hydrolysed by the action of caustic alkalis with the production of salts of hydrazoic acid. To obtain the free acid it is best to dissolve the diazo-hippuramide in dilute soda, warm the solution to ensure the formation of the sodium salt, and distil the resulting liquid with dilute sulphuric acid. The pure acid may be obtained by fractional distillation as a colourless liquid of very unpleasant smell, boiling at 30° C., and extremely explosive. It is soluble in water, and the solution dissolves many metals (zinc, iron, &c.) with liberation of hydrogen and formation of salts (azoimides, azides or hydrazoates). All the salts are explosive and readily interact with the alkyl iodides. In its properties it shows some analogy to the halogen acids, since it forms difficultly soluble lead, silver and mercurous salts. The metallic salts all crystallize in the anhydrous condition and decompose on heating, leaving a residue of the pure metal. The acid is a "weak" acid, being ionized only to a very slight extent in dilute aqueous solution.

E. Noelting and E. Grandmougin (Berichte, 1891, 24, p. 2546) obtained azoimide from dinitraniline, C6H3(NO2)2·NH2, by diazotization and conversion of the diazo compound into the perbromide, (NO2)2C6H3·N2·Br3. This compound is then decomposed by ammonia, dinitrophenylhydrazoate being formed, which on hydrolysis with alcoholic potash gives potassium hydrazoate (azide) and dinitrophenol. The solution is then acidified and distilled, when azoimide passes over. Somewhat later, they found that it could be prepared from diazobenzene imide, provided a nitro group were present in the ortho or para position to the diazo group. The para-nitro compound is dropped slowly into a cold solution of one part of caustic potash in ten parts of absolute alcohol; the solution becomes dark red in colour and is then warmed for two days on the water bath. After the greater portion of the alcohol has distilled off, the solution is acidified with sulphuric acid and the azoimide distilled over. The yield obtained is only about 40% of that required by theory, on account of secondary reactions taking place. Ortho-nitro-diazobenzene imide only yields 30%.

W. Wislicenus (Berichte, 1892, 25, p. 2084) has prepared the sodium salt by passing nitrous oxide over sodamide at high temperatures. The acid can also be obtained by the action of nitrous acid on hydrazine sulphate; by the oxidation of hydrazine by hydrogen peroxide and sulphuric acid (A. W. Browne, J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 1905, 25, p. 251), or by ammonium metavanadate (A. W. Browne and F. F. Shetterly, Abst. J.C.S., 1907, ii. p. 863).

Ammonium azoimide, N3·NH4, may be prepared by boiling diazohippuramide with alcoholic ammonia, until no more ammonia escapes, the following reaction taking place:

C6H5CO·NHCH2CONH·N2·OH + 2NH3 = N3·NH4 + H2O + C6H5CO·NH·CH2·CO·NH2.

The liquid is then allowed to stand for twelve hours, and the clear alcoholic solution is decanted from the precipitated hippuramide. To the alcoholic solution, four times its volume of ether is added, when the ammonium salt is precipitated. It is then filtered, washed with ether, and air-dried. The salt is readily soluble in water, and is only feebly alkaline. It is extremely explosive. Hydrazine azoimide, N5H5, is also known.

Chloroazoimide, Cl·N3, the chloride corresponding to azoimide, was obtained by F. Raschig (Ber., 1908, 41, p. 4194) as a highly explosive colourless gas on acidifying a mixture of sodium azide and hypochlorite with acetic or boric acid.

AZORES (Açores), or Western Islands, an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, belonging to the kingdom of Portugal. Pop. (1900) 256,291; area, 922 sq. m. The Azores extend in an oblique line from N.W. to S.E., between 36° 55′ and 39° 55′ N., and between 25° and 31° 16′ W. They are divided into three widely severed groups, rising from a depth of more than 2½ m. The south-eastern group consists of St Michael's (São Miguel) and St Mary (Santa Maria), with Formigas; the central, of Fayal (Faial), Pico, St George (São Jorge), Terceira and Graciosa; the north-western, of Flores and Corvo.

The nearest continental land is Cape da Roca on the Portuguese coast, which lies 830 m. E. of St Michael's; while Cape Cantin, the nearest point on the African mainland, is more than 900 m. distant, and Cape Race in Newfoundland, the nearest American headland, is more than 1000 m. Thus the Azores are the farthest from any continent of all the island groups in the Atlantic; but they are usually regarded as belonging to Europe, as their climate and flora are European in character.

Physical Description.—The aspect of all the islands is very similar in general characteristics, presenting an elevated and undulating outline, with little or no tableland, and rising into peaks, of which the lowest, that of Corvo, is 350 ft., and the highest that of Pico, 7612 ft. above sea-level. The lines of sea-coast are, with few exceptions, high and precipitous, with bases of accumulated masses of fallen rock, in which open bays, or scarcely more enclosed inlets, form the harbours of the trading towns. The volcanic character of the whole archipelago is obvious, and has been abundantly confirmed by the numerous earthquakes and eruptions which have taken place since its discovery. Basalt and scoria are the chief erupted materials. Hitherto Flores, Corvo and Graciosa have been quite exempt, and Fayal has only suffered from one eruption (1672). The centre of activity has for the most part been St Michael's, while the neighbouring island of St Mary has altogether escaped. In 1444-1445 there was a great eruption at St Michael's, of which, however, the accounts that have been preserved exaggerate the importance. In 1522 the town of Villa Franca, at that time the capital of the island, was buried, with all its 6000 inhabitants, during a violent convulsion. In 1572 an eruption took place in Pico; in 1580 St George was the scene of numerous outbursts; and in 1614 a little town in Terceira was destroyed. In 1630, 1652, 1656, 1755, 1852, &c., St Michael's was visited with successive eruptions and earthquakes, several of them of great violence. On various occasions, as in 1638, 1720, 1811 and 1867, subterranean eruptions have taken place, which have sometimes been accompanied by the appearance of temporary islands. Of these the most remarkable was thrown up in June 1811, about half a league from the western extremity of St Michael's. It was called Sabrina by the commander of the British man-of-war of that name, who witnessed the phenomenon.

Climate.—The climate is particularly temperate, but the extremes of sensible heat and cold are increased by the humidity. The range of the thermometer is from 45° Fahr., the lowest known extreme, or 48°, the ordinary lowest extreme of January, to 82°, the ordinary, or 86°, the highest known extreme of July, near the level of the sea. Between these two points (both taken in the shade) there is from month to month a pretty regular gradation of increase or decrease, amounting to somewhat less than four degrees. In winter the prevailing winds are from the north-west, west and south; in summer the most frequent are the north, north-east and east. The weather is often extremely stormy, and the winds from the west and south-west render the navigation of the coasts very dangerous.

Fauna.—The mammalia of the Azores are limited to the rabbit, weasel, ferret, rat (brown and black), mouse and bat, in addition to domestic animals. The game includes the woodcock, red partridge (introduced in the 16th century), quail and snipe. Owing to the damage inflicted on the crops by the multitude of blackbirds, bullfinches, chaffinches and green canaries, a reward was formerly paid for the destruction of birds in St Michael's, and it is said that over 400,000 were destroyed in several successive years between 1875 and 1885. There are valuable fisheries of tunny, mullet and bonito. The porpoise, dolphin and whale are also common. Whale-fishing is a profitable industry, with its headquarters at Fayal, whence the sperm-oil is exported. Eels are found in the rivers. The only indigenous reptile is the lizard. Fresh-water molluscs are unknown, and near the coast the marine fauna is not rich; but terrestrial molluscs abound, several species being peculiar to the Azores.

Flora.—The general character of the flora is decidedly European, no fewer than 400 out of the 478 species generally considered as indigenous belonging likewise to that continent, while only four are found in America, and forty are peculiar to the archipelago. Vegetation in most of the islands is remarkably rich, especially in grasses, mosses, and ferns, heath, juniper, and a variety of shrubs. Of tall-growing trees there was, till the 19th century, an almost total lack; but the Bordeaux pine, European poplar, African palm-tree, Australian eucalyptus, chestnut, tulip-tree, elm, oak, and many others, were then successfully introduced. The orange, apricot, banana, lemon, citron, Japanese medlar, and pomegranate are the common fruits, and various other varieties are more or less cultivated. At one time much attention was given to the growing of sugar-cane, but it has now for the most part been abandoned. The culture of indigo, introduced in the 16th century, also belongs to the past. A kind of fern (Dicksonia culcita), called by the natives cabellinho, furnishes a silky material for the stuffing of mattresses and is exported to Brazil and Portugal.

Population.—The inhabitants of the islands are mostly of Portuguese origin, with a well-marked strain of Moorish and Flemish blood. There is a high birth-rate and a low average of infant mortality. A large proportion of the poorer classes, especially among the older men and women, are totally illiterate, but education tends to spread more rapidly than in Portugal itself, owing to the custom of sending children to the United States, where they are taught in the state schools. Negroes, mulattoes, English, Scottish and Irish immigrants are present in considerable numbers, especially in Fayal and St Michael's. The total number of resident foreigners in 1900 was 1490.

Government.—The Azores are subdivided into three administrative districts named after their chief towns, i.e. Ponta Delgada, the capital of St Michael's; Angra, or Angra do Heroismo, the capital of Terceira; and Horta, the capital of Fayal. St Michael's and St Mary are included in the district of Ponta Delgada; Terceira, St George and Graciosa, in that of Angra; Pico, Fayal, Flores and Corvo, in that of Horta. Four members are returned by Ponta Delgada to the parliament in Lisbon, while each of the other districts returns two members. Roman Catholicism is the creed of the majority, and Angra is an episcopal see. For purposes of military administration the islands form two commands, with their respective headquarters at Angra and Ponta Delgada. Besides the frequent and regular services of mails which connect the Azores with Portugal and other countries, there is a cable from Lisbon to Villa Franca do Campo, in St Michael's, and thence to Pico, Fayal, St George and Graciosa. Fayal is connected with Waterville, in Ireland, by a cable laid in 1901. At Angra and Ponta Delgada there are meteorological stations. The principal seaports are Angra (pop. 1900, 10,788), Ponta Delgada (17,620), and Horta (6574).

Trade.—The trade of the Azores, long a Portuguese monopoly, is now to a great extent shared by the United Kingdom and Germany, and is chiefly carried in British vessels. Textiles are imported from Portugal; coal from Great Britain; sugar from Germany, Madeira and the United States; stationery, hardware, chemicals, paints, oils, &c., from the United Kingdom and Germany. The exports consist chiefly of fruit, wine, natural mineral waters and provisions. The trade in pineapples is especially important. No fewer than 940,000 pineapples were exported in 1902 and 1903, going in almost equal quantities to London and Hamburg. The fruit is raised under glass. Pottery, cotton fabrics, spirits, straw hats and tea are produced in the district of Ponta Delgada; linen and woollen goods, cheese, butter, soap, bricks and tiles, in that of Angra; baskets, mats, and various ornamental articles made from straw, osier, and the pith of dried fig-wood, in that of Horta.

The largest and most populous of the Azores is St Michael's, which has an area of 297 sq. m., and in 1900 had 121,340 inhabitants. Graciosa (pop. 8385; area, 17 sq. m.) and St George (16,177; 40 sq. m.) form part of the central group. Graciosa is noteworthy for the beauty of its scenery. Its chief towns are Santa Cruz de Graciosa (2185) and Guadalupe (2717). The chief towns of St George are Ribeira Seca (2817) and Velas (2009).

History.—It does not appear that the ancient Greeks and Romans had any knowledge of the Azores, but from the number of Carthaginian coins discovered in Corvo it has been supposed that the islands must have been visited by that adventurous people. The Arabian geographers, Edrisi in the 12th century, and Ibn-al-Wardi in the 14th, describe, after the Canaries, nine other islands in the Western Ocean, which are in all probability the Azores. This identification is supported by various considerations. The number of islands is the same; the climate under which they are placed by the Arabians makes them north of the Canaries; and special mention is made of the hawks or buzzards, which were sufficiently numerous at a later period to give rise to the present name (Port. Açor, a hawk). The Arabian writers represent them as having been populous, and as having contained cities of some magnitude; but they state that the inhabitants had been greatly reduced by intestine warfare. The Azores are first found distinctly marked in a map of 1351, the southern group being named the Goat Islands (Cabreras); the middle group, the Wind or Dove Islands (De Ventura sive de Columbis); and the western, the Brazil Island (De Brazi)—the word Brazil at that time being employed for any red dye-stuff. In a Catalan map of the year 1375 Corvo is found as Corvi Marini, and Flores as Li Conigi; while St George is already designated San Zorze. It has been conjectured that the discoverers were Genoese, but of this there is not sufficient evidence. It is plain, however, that the so-called Flemish discovery by van der Berg is only worthy of the name in a very secondary sense. According to the usual account, he was driven on the islands in 1432, and the news excited considerable interest at the court of Lisbon. The navigator, Gonzalo Velho Cabral—not to be confounded with his greater namesake, Pedro Alvarez Cabral—was sent to prosecute the discovery. Another version relates that Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal had in his possession a map in which the islands were laid down, and that he sent out Cabral through confidence in its accuracy. The map had been presented to him by his brother, Dom Pedro, who had travelled as far as Babylon. Be this as it may, Cabral reached the island, which he named Santa Maria, in 1432, and in 1444 took possession of St Michael's. The other islands were all discovered by 1457. Colonization had meanwhile been going on prosperously; and in 1466 Fayal was presented by Alphonso V. to his aunt, Isabella, the duchess of Burgundy. An influx of Flemish settlers followed, and the islands became known for a time as the Flemish Islands. From 1580 to 1640 they were subject, like the rest of the Portuguese kingdom, to Spain. At that time the Azores were the grand rendezvous for the fleets on their voyage home from the Indies; and hence they became a theatre of that maritime warfare which was carried on by the English under Queen Elizabeth against the Peninsular powers. One such expedition, which took place in 1591, led to the famous sea-fight off Flores, between the English ship "Revenge," commanded by Sir Richard Grenville, and a Spanish fleet of fifty-three vessels. Under the active administration of the marquis de Pombal (1690-1782), considerable efforts were made for the improvement of the Azores, but the stupid and bigoted government which followed rather tended to destroy these benefits. Towards the beginning of the 19th century, the possession of the islands, was contested by the claimants for the crown of Portugal. The adherents of the constitution, who supported against Miguel the rights of Maria (II.) da Gloria, obtained possession of Terceira in 1829, where they succeeded in maintaining themselves, and after various struggles, Queen Maria's authority was established over all the islands. She resided at Angra from 1830 to 1833.

For a general account of the islands, see The Azores, by W. F. Walker (London, 1886), and Madeira and the Canary Islands, with the Azores, by A. S. Brown (London, 1901). On the fauna and flora of the islands, the following books by H. Drouet are useful:—Eléments de la faune açoréenne (Paris, 1861); Mollusques marins des îles Açores (1858), Lettres açoréennes (1862), and Catalogue de la flore des îles Açores, précédé de l'itinéraire d'une voyage dans cet archipel (1866). The progress of Azorian commerce is best shown in the British and American consular reports. For history, see La Conquista de las Azores en 1583, by C. Fernandez Duro (Madrid, 1886), and Histoire de la découverte des îles Azores et de l'origine de leur dénomination d'îles flamandes, by J. Mees (Ghent, 1901).

AZOTH, the name given by the alchemists to mercury, and by Paracelsus to his universal remedy.

AZOTUS, the name given by Greek and Roman writers to Ashdod, an ancient city of Palestine, now represented by a few remains in the little village of ‛Esdud, in the governmental district of Acre. It was situated about 3 m. inland from the Mediterranean, on the famous military route between Syria and Egypt, about equidistant (18 m.) from Joppa and Gaza. As one of the five chief cities of the Philistines and the seat of the worship of Dagon (1 Sam. v.; cf. 1 Macc. x. 83), it maintained, down even to the days of the Maccabees, a vigorous though somewhat intermittent independence against the power of the Israelites, by whom it was nominally assigned to the territory of Judah. In 711 B.C. it was captured by the Assyrians (Is. xx. 1), but soon regained its power, and was strong enough in the next century to resist the assaults of Psammetichus, king of Egypt, for twenty-nine years (Herod. ii. 157). Restored by the Roman Gabinius from the ruins to which it had been reduced by the Jewish wars (1 Macc. v. 68, x. 77, xvi. 10), it was presented by Augustus to Salome, the sister of Herod. The only New Testament reference is in Acts viii. 40. Ashdod became the seat of a bishop early in the Christian era, but seems never to have attained any importance as a town. The Mount Azotus of 1 Macc. ix. 15, where Judas Maccabeus fell, is possibly the rising ground on which the village stands. A fine Saracenic khān is the principal relic of antiquity at ‛Esdud.

AZOV, or Asov (in Turkish, Asak), a town of Russia, in the government of the Don Cossacks, on the left bank of the southern arm of the Don, about 20 m. from its mouth. The ancient Tanais lay some 10 m. to the north. In the 13th century the Genoese had a factory here which they called Tana. Azov was long a place of great military and commercial importance. Peter the Great obtained possession of it after a protracted siege in 1696, but in 1711 restored it to the Turks; in 1739 it was finally united to the Russian empire. Since then it has greatly declined, owing to the silting up of its harbour and the competition of Taganrog. Its population, principally engaged in the fisheries, numbered 25,124 in 1900.

AZOV, SEA OF an inland sea of southern Europe, communicating with the Black Sea by the Strait of Yenikale, or Kerch, the ancient Bosporus Cimmerius. To the Romans it was known as the Palus Maeotis, from the name of the neighbouring people, who called it in their native language Temarenda, or Mother of Waters. It was long supposed to possess direct communication with the Northern Ocean. In prehistoric times a connexion with the Caspian Sea existed; but since the earliest historical times no great change has taken place in regard to the character or relations of the Sea of Azov. It lies between 45° 20′ and 47° 18′ N. lat, and between 35° and 39° E. long., its length from south-west to north-east being 230 m., and its greatest breadth 110. The area runs to 14,515 sq. m. It generally freezes from November to the middle of April. The Don is its largest and, indeed, its only very important affluent. Near the mouth of that river the depth of the sea varies from 3 to 10 ft., and the greatest depth does not exceed 45 ft. Of recent years, too, the level has been constantly dropping, for the surface lies 4¾ ft. higher than the surface of the Black Sea. Fierce and continuous winds from the east prevail during July and August, and in the latter part of the year those from the north-east and south-east are not unusual; a great variety of currents is thus produced. The water is for the most part comparatively fresh, but differs considerably in this respect according to locality and current. Fish are so abundant that the Turks describe it as Baluk-deniz, or Fish Sea. To the west, separated from the main basin by the long narrow sand-spit of Arabat, lie the remarkable lagoons and marshes known as the Sivash, or Putrid Sea; here the water is intensely salt. The Sea of Azov is of great importance to Russian commerce; along its shores stand the cities of Taganrog, Berdyansk, Mariupol and Yenikale.

AZOXIMES (furo [a.b.] diazoles), a class of organic compounds which contain the ring system

HC = N
N = CH \
/ O.

They may be prepared by converting nitriles into amidoximes by the action of hydroxylamine, the amidoximes so formed being then acylated by acid chlorides or anhydrides. From these acyl derivatives the elements of water are removed, either by simple heating or by boiling their aqueous solution; this elimination is accompanied by the formation of the azoxime ring. Thus

C6H5CN NH2OH
———>
C6H5·C //
\ N·OH

NH2 boil with
———>
propionic anhydride [ C6H5C //
\ N·O·COC2H5

NH2 ] ——> C6H5·C //
\ N·O

N \
// C·C2H5

Azoximes can also be produced from α-benzil dioxime by the "Beckmann" change. Most of the azoximes are very volatile substances, sublime readily, and are easily soluble in water, alcohol and benzene.

For detailed descriptions, see F. Tiemann (Ber., 1885, 18, p. 1059), O. Schulz (Ber., 1885, 18, pp. 1084, 2459), and G. Müller (Ber., 1886, 19, p. 1492); also Annual Reports of the Chemical Society).

AZTECS (from the Nahuatl word aztlan, "place of the Heron," or "Heron" people), the native name of one of the tribes that occupied the tableland of Mexico on the arrival of the Spaniards in America. It has been very frequently employed as equivalent to the collective national title of Nahuatlecas or Mexicans. The Aztecs came, according to native tradition, from a country to which they gave the name of Aztlan, usually supposed to lie towards the north-west, but the satisfactory localization of it is one of the greatest difficulties in Mexican history. The date of the exodus from Aztlan is equally undetermined, being fixed by various authorities in the 11th and by others in the 12th century. One Mexican manuscript gives a date equivalent to A.D. 1164. They gradually increased their influence among other tribes, until, by union with the Toltecs, who occupied the tableland before them, they extended their empire to an area of from 18,000 to 20,000 square leagues. The researches of Humboldt gave the first clear insight into the early periods of their history. See Mexico; Nahuatlan Stock.

AZUAGA, a town of western Spain, in the province of Badajoz, on the Belmez-Fuente del Arco railway. Pop. (1900) 14,192. Azuaga is the central market for the live-stock of the broad upland pastures watered by the Matachel, a left-hand tributary of the Guadiana, and by the Bembézar, a right-hand tributary of the Guadalquivir. Coarse woollen goods and pottery are manufactured in the town.

AZUAY (sometimes written Assuay), a province of Ecuador, bounded N. by the province of Cañar, E. by Oriente, S. by Loja, and W. by El Oro. It was formerly called Cuenca, and formed part of the department of Azuay, which also included the province of Loja. Azuay is an elevated mountainous district with a great variety of climates and products; among the latter are silver, quicksilver, wheat, Indian corn, barley, cattle, wool, cinchona and straw hats. The capital is Cuenca.

AZUNI, DOMENICO ALBERTO (1749-1827), Italian jurist, was born at Sassar, in Sardinia, in 1749. He studied law at Sassari and Turin, and in 1782 was made judge of the consulate at Nice. In 1786-1788 he published his Dizionario Universale Ragionato della Giurisprudenza Mercantile. In 1795 appeared his systematic work on the maritime law of Europe, Sistema Universale dei Principii del Diritto Maritimo dell' Europa, which he afterwards recast and translated into French. In 1806 he was appointed one of the French commission engaged in drawing up a general code of commercial law, and in the following year he proceeded to Genoa as president of the court of appeal. After the fall of Napoleon in 1814, Azuni lived for a time in retirement at Genoa, till he was invited to Sardinia by Victor Emmanuel I., and appointed judge of the consulate at Cagliari, and director of the university library. He died at Cagliari in 1827. Azuni also wrote numerous pamphlets and minor works, chiefly on maritime law, an important treatise on the origin and progress of maritime law (Paris, 1810), and an historical, geographical and political account of Sardinia (1799, enlarged 1802).

AZURARA, GOMES EANNES DE (?-1474), the second notable Portuguese chronicler in order of date. He adopted the career of letters in middle life. He probably entered the royal library as assistant to Fernão Lopes (q.v.) during the reign of King Duarte (1433-1438), and he had sole charge of it in 1452. His Chronicle of the Siege and Capture of Ceuta, a supplement to the Chronicle of King John I., by Lopes, dates from 1450, and three years later he completed the first draft of the Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, our authority for the early Portuguese voyages of discovery down the African coast and in the ocean, more especially for those undertaken under the auspices of Prince Henry the Navigator. It contains some account of the life work of that prince, and has a biographical as well as a geographical interest. On the 6th of June 1454 Azurara became chief keeper of the archives and royal chronicler in succession to Fernão Lopes. In 1456 King Alphonso V. commissioned him to write the history of Ceuta, "the land-gate of the East," under the governorship of D. Pedro de Menezes, from its capture in 1415 until 1437, and he had it ready in 1463. A year afterwards the king charged him with a history of the deeds of D. Duarte de Menezes, captain of Alcacer, and, proceeding to Africa, he spent a twelvemonth in the town collecting materials and studying the scenes of the events he was to describe, and in 1468 he completed the chronicle. Alphonso corresponded with Azurara on terms of affectionate intimacy, and no less than three commendas of the order of Christ rewarded his literary services. He has little of the picturesque ingenuousness of Lopes, and loved to display his erudition by quotations and philosophical reflections, showing that he wrote under the influence of the first Renaissance. Nearly all the leading classical, early Christian and medieval writers figure in his pages, and he was acquainted with the notable chronicles and romances of Europe and had studied the best Italian and Spanish authors. In addition, he had mastered the geographical system of the ancients and their astrology. As an historian he is laborious, accurate and conscientious, though his position did not allow him to tell the whole truth about his hero, Prince Henry.

His works include: (1) Chronica del Rei D. Joam I. Terceira parte em que se contem a tomada de Ceuta (Lisbon, 1644); (2) Chronica do Descobrimento e Conquista de Guiné (Paris, 1841; Eng. version in 2 vols. issued by the Hakluyt Society, London, 1896-1899); (3) Chronica do Conde D. Pedro (de Menezes), printed in the Ineditos de Historia Portugueza, vol. ii. (Lisbon, 1792); (4) Chronica do Conde D. Duarte de Menezes, printed in the Ineditos, vol. iii. (Lisbon, 1793). The preface to the English version of the Chronicle of Guinea contains a full account of the life and writings of Azurara and cites all the authorities.

(E. Pr.)

AZURE (derived, through the Romance languages, from the Arabic al-lazward, for the precious stone lapis lazuli, the initial l having dropped), the lapis lazuli; and so its colour, blue.

AZURITE, or Chessylite, a mineral which is a basic copper carbonate, 2CuCO3·Cu(OH)2. In its vivid blue colour it contrasts strikingly with the emerald-green malachite, also a basic copper carbonate, but containing rather more water and less carbon dioxide. It was known to Pliny under the name caeruleum, and the modern name azurite (given by F. S. Beudant in 1824) also has reference to the azure-blue colour; the name chessylite, also in common use, is of later date (1852), and is from the locality, Chessy near Lyons, which has supplied the best crystallized specimens of the mineral. Crystals of azurite belong to the monoclinic system; they have a vitreous lustre and are translucent. The streak is blue, but lighter than the colour of the mineral in mass. Hardness 3½—4; sp. gr. 3.8.

Azurite occurs with malachite in the upper portions of deposits of copper ore, and owes its origin to the alteration of the sulphide or of native copper by water containing carbon dioxide and oxygen. It is thus a common mineral in all copper mines, and sometimes occurs in large masses, as in Arizona and in South Australia, where it has been worked as an ore of copper, of which element it contains 55%. Being less hydrated than malachite it is itself liable to alteration into this mineral, and pseudomorphs of malachite after azurite are not uncommon. Occasionally the massive material is cut and polished for decorative purposes, though the application in this direction is far less extensive than that of malachite.

(L. J. S.)

AZYMITES (Gr. ἀ-, without; ζύμη, leaven), a name given by the Orthodox Eastern to the Western or Latin Church, because of the latter's use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist, a practice which arose in the 9th century and is also observed by Armenians and Maronites following the Jewish passover custom. The Orthodox Church strenuously maintains its point, arguing that the very name bread, the holiness of the mystery, and the example of Jesus and the early church alike, testify against the use of unleavened bread in this connexion.

B This letter corresponds to the second symbol in the Phoenician alphabet, and appears in the same position in all the European alphabets, except those derived, like the Russian, from medieval Greek, in which the pronunciation of this symbol had changed from b to v. A new form had therefore to be invented for the genuine b in Slavonic, to which there was, at the period when the alphabet was adopted, no corresponding sound in Greek. The new symbol, which occupies the second position, was made by removing the upper loop of B, thus producing a symbol somewhat resembling an ordinary lowercase b. The old B retained the numerical value of the Greek β as 2, and no numerical value was given to the new symbol. In the Phoenician alphabet the earliest forms are or more rounded B. The rounded form appears also in the earliest Aramaic (see Alphabet). Like some other alphabetic symbols it was not borrowed by Greek in its original form. In the very early rock inscriptions of Thera (700-600 B.C.), written from right to left; it appears in a form resembling the ordinary Greek λ; this form apparently arose from writing the Semitic symbol upside down. Its form in inscriptions of Melos, Selinus, Syracuse and elsewhere in the 6th and 5th centuries suggests the influence of Aramaic forms in which the head of the letter is opened, B. The Corinthian B, B and B (also at Corcyra) and the of Byzantine coins are other adaptations of the same symbol. The form B which it takes in the alphabets of Naxos, Delos and other Ionic islands at the same period is difficult to explain. Otherwise its only variation is between pointed and rounded loops (B and B). The sound which the symbol represents is the voiced stop made by closing the lips and vibrating the vocal chords (see Phonetics). It differs from p by the presence of vibration of the vocal chords and from m because the nasal passage as well as the lips is closed. When an audible emission of breath attends its production the aspirate bh is formed. This sound was frequent in the pro-ethnic period of the Indo-European languages and survived into the Indo-Aryan languages. According to the system of phonetic changes generally known as "Grimm's law," an original b appears in English as p, an original bh as b. An original medial p preceding the chief accent of the word also appears as b in English and the other members of the same group. It is not certain that any English word is descended from an original word beginning with b, though it has been suggested that peg is of the same origin as the Latin baculum and the Greek βάκτρον. When the lips are not tightly closed the sound produced is not a stop, but a spirant like the English w. In Late Latin there was a tendency to this spirant pronunciation which appears as early as the beginning of the 2nd century A.D.; by the 3rd century b and consonantal u are inextricably confused. When this consonantal u (English w as seen in words borrowed very early from Latin like wall and wine) passed into the sound of English v (labio-dental) is not certain, but Germanic words borrowed into Latin in the 5th century A.D. have in their Latin representation gu- for Germanic w-, guisa corresponding to English wise and reborrowed indirectly as guise.

The earliest form of the name of the symbol which we can reach is the Hebrew beth, to which the Phoenician must have been closely akin, as is shown by the Greek βῆτα, which is borrowed from it with a vowel affixed.

(P. Gi.)

BAADER, FRANZ XAVER VON (1765-1841), German philosopher and theologian, born on the 27th of March 1765 at Munich, was the third son of F. P. Baader, court physician to the elector of Bavaria. His brothers were both distinguished—the elder, Clemens, as an author; the second, Joseph (1763-1835), as an engineer. Franz studied medicine at Ingolstadt and Vienna, and for a short time assisted his father in his practice. This life he soon found uncongenial, and decided on becoming a mining engineer. He studied under Abraham Gottlob Werner at Freiberg, travelled through several of the mining districts in north Germany, and for four years, 1792-1796, resided in England. There he became acquainted with the works of Jakob Boehme, and with the ideas of Hume, Hartley and Godwin, which were extremely distasteful to him. The mystical speculations of Meister Eckhart, Saint Martin, and above all those of Boehme, were more in harmony with his mode of thought. In 1796 he returned from England, and in Hamburg became acquainted with F. H. Jacobi, with whom he was for years on terms of friendship. He now learned something of Schelling, and the works he published during this period were manifestly influenced by that philosopher. Yet Baader is no disciple of Schelling, and probably gave out more than he received. Their friendship continued till about the year 1822, when Baader's denunciation of modern philosophy in his letter to the emperor Alexander I. of Russia entirely alienated Schelling.

All this time Baader continued to apply himself to his profession of engineer. He gained a prize of 12,000 gulden (about £1000) for his new method of employing Glauber's salts instead of potash in the making of glass. From 1817 to 1820 he held the post of superintendent of mines, and was raised to the rank of nobility for his services. He retired in 1820, and soon after published one of the best of his works, Fermenta Cognitionis, 6 parts, 1822-1825, in which he combats modern philosophy and recommends the study of Boehme. In 1826, when the new university was opened at Munich, he was appointed professor of philosophy and speculative theology. Some of the lectures delivered there he published under the title, Spekulative Dogmatik, 4 parts, 1827-1836. In 1838 he opposed the interference in civil matters of the Roman Catholic Church, to which he belonged, and in consequence was, during the last three years of his life, interdicted from lecturing on the philosophy of religion. He died on the 23rd of May 1841.

It is difficult to summarize Baader's philosophy, for he himself generally gave expression to his deepest thoughts in obscure aphorisms, or mystical symbols and analogies (see Ed. Zeller's Ges. d. deut. Phil. 732, 736). Further, he has no systematic works; his doctrines exist for the most part in short detached essays, in comments on the writings of Boehme and Saint Martin, or in his extensive correspondence and journals. At the same time there are salient points which mark the outline of his thought. Baader starts from the position that human reason by itself can never reach the end it aims at, and maintains that we cannot throw aside the presuppositions of faith, church and tradition. His point of view may be described as Scholasticism; for, like the scholastic doctors, he believes that theology and philosophy are not opposed sciences, but that reason has to make clear the truths given by authority and revelation. But in his attempt to draw still closer the realms of faith and knowledge he approaches more nearly to the mysticism of Eckhart, Paracelsus and Boehme. Our existence depends on the fact that we are cognized by God (cogitor ergo cogito et sum). All self-consciousness is at the same time God-consciousness; our knowledge is never mere scientia, it is invariably con-scientia—a knowing with, consciousness of, or participation in God. Baader's philosophy is thus essentially a theosophy. God is not to be conceived as mere abstract Being (substantia), but as everlasting process, activity (actus). Of this process, this self-generation of God, we may distinguish two aspects—the immanent or esoteric, and the emanent or exoteric. God has reality only in so far as He is absolute spirit, and only in so far as the primitive will is conscious of itself can it become spirit at all. But in this very cognition of self is involved the distinction of knower and known, from which proceeds the power to become spirit. This immanent process of self-consciousness, wherein indeed a trinity of persons is not given but only rendered possible, is mirrored in, and takes place through, the eternal and impersonal idea or wisdom of God, which exists beside, though not distinct from, the primitive will. Concrete reality or personality is given to this divine Ternar, as Baader calls it, through nature, the principle of self-hood, of individual being, which is eternally and necessarily produced by God. Only in nature is the trinity of persons attained. These processes, it must be noticed, are not to be conceived as successive, or as taking place in time; they are to be looked at sub specie aeternitatis, as the necessary elements or moments in the self-evolution of the divine Being. Nor is nature to be confounded with created substance, or with matter as it exists in space and time; it is pure non-being, the mere otherness (alteritas) of God-his shadow, desire, want, or desiderium sui, as it is called by mystical writers. Creation, itself a free and non-temporal act of God's love and will, cannot be speculatively deduced, but must be accepted as an historic fact. Created beings were originally of three orders—the intelligent or angels; the non-intelligent natural existences; and man, who mediated between these two orders. Intelligent beings are endowed with freedom; it is possible, but not necessary, that they should fall. Hence the fact of the fall is not a speculative but an historic truth. The angels fell through pride—through desire to raise themselves to equality with God; man fell by lowering himself to the level of nature. Only after the fall of man begins the creation of space, time and matter, or of the world as we now know it; and the motive of this creation was the desire to afford man an opportunity for taking advantage of the scheme of redemption, for bringing forth in purity the image of God according to which he has been fashioned. The physical philosophy and anthropology which Baader, in connexion with this, unfolds in various works, is but little instructive, and coincides in the main with the utterances of Boehme. In nature and in man he finds traces of the dire effects of sin, which has corrupted both and has destroyed their natural harmony. As regards ethics, Baader rejects the Kantian or any autonomic system of morals. Not obedience to a moral law, but realization in ourselves of the divine life is the true ethical end. But man has lost the power to effect this by himself; he has alienated himself from God, and therefore no ethical theory which neglects the facts of sin and redemption is satisfactory or even possible. The history of man and of humanity is the history of the redeeming love of God. The means whereby we put ourselves so in relation with Christ as to receive from Him his healing virtue are chiefly prayer and the sacraments of the church; mere works are never sufficient. Man in his social relations is under two great institutions. One is temporal, natural and limited—the state; the other is eternal, cosmopolitan and universal—the church. In the state two things are requisite: first, common submission to the ruler, which can be secured or given only when the state is Christian, for God alone is the true ruler of men; and, secondly, inequality of rank, without which there can be no organization. A despotism of mere power and liberalism, which naturally produces socialism, are equally objectionable. The ideal state is a civil community ruled by a universal or Catholic church, the principles of which are equally distinct from mere passive pietism, or faith which will know nothing, and from the Protestant doctrine, which is the very radicalism of reason.

Baader is, without doubt, among the greatest speculative theologians of modern Catholicism, and his influence has extended itself even beyond the precincts of his own church. Among those whom he influenced were R. Rothe, Julius Müller and Hans L. Markensen.

His works were collected and published by a number of his adherents—F. Hoffman, J. Hamberger, E. v. Schaden, Lutterbeck, von Osten-Sacken and Schlüter—Baader's sämmtliche Werke (16 vols., 1851-1860). Valuable introductions by the editors are prefixed to the several volumes. Vol. xv. contains a full biography; vol. xvi. an index, and an able sketch of the whole system by Lutterbeck. See F. Hoffmann, Vorhalle zur spekulativen Lehre Baader's (1836); Grundzüge der Societäts-Philosophie Franz Baader's (1837); Philosophische Schriften (3 vols., 1868-1872); Die Weltalter (1868); Biographie und Briefwechsel (Leipzig, 1887); J. Hamberger, Cardinalpunkte der Baaderschen Philosophie (1855); Fundamentalbegriffe von F. B.'s Ethik, Politik, u. Religions-Philosophie (1858); J. A. B. Lutterbeck, Philosophische Standpunkte Baaders (1854); Baaders Lehre vom Weltgebäude (1866). The most satisfactory surveys are those given by Erdmann, Versuch einer Gesch. d. neuern Phil. iii. 2, pp. 583-636; J. Claassen, Franz von Baaders Leben und theosophische Werke (Stuttgart, 1886-1887), and Franz von Baaders Gedanken über Staat und Gesellschaft (Gütersloh, 1890); Otto Pfleiderer, Philosophy of Religion (vol. ii., Eng. trans. 1887); R. Falckenberg, History of Philosophy, pp. 472-475 (trans. A. C. Armstrong, New York, 1893); Reichel, Die Sozietätsphilosophie Franz v. Baaders (Tübingen, 1901); Kuno Fischer, Zur hundertjährigen Geburtstagfeier Baaders (Erlangen, 1865).

BAAL, a Semitic word, which primarily signifies lord, owner or inhabitant, and then, in accordance with the Semitic way of looking at family and religious relations, is specially appropriated to express the relation of a husband to his wife and of the deity to his worshipper. In the latter usage it indicated not that the god was the lord of the worshipper, but rather the possessor of, or ruler in, some place or district. In the Old Testament it is regularly written with the article, i.e. "the Baal"; and the baals of different tribes or sanctuaries were not necessarily conceived as identical, so that we find frequent mention of Baalim, or rather "the Baalim" in the plural. That the Israelites even applied the title of Baal to Yahweh himself is proved by the occurrence of such names as Jerubbaal (Gideon), Eshbaal (one of Saul's sons) and Beeliada (a son of David, 1 Chron. xiv. 7). The last name appears in 2 Sam. v. 16 as Eliada, showing that El (God) was regarded as equivalent to Baal; cf. also the name Be‛aliah, "Yahweh is baal or lord," which survives in 1 Chron. xii. 5. However, when the name Baal was exclusively appropriated to idolatrous worship (cf. Hos. ii. 16 seq.), abhorrence for the unholy word was marked by writing bōsheth (shameful thing) for baal in compound proper names, and thus we get the usual forms Ishbosheth, Mephibosheth.

The great difficulty which has been felt by investigators in determining the character and attributes of the god Baal mainly arises from the original appellative sense of the word, and many obscure points become clear if we remember that when a title becomes a proper name it may be appropriated by different peoples to quite distinct deities. Baal being originally a title, and not a proper name, the innumerable baals could be distinguished by the addition of the name of a place or of some special attribute. Accordingly, the baals are not to be regarded necessarily as local variations of one and the same god, like the many Virgins or Madonnas of Catholic lands, but as distinct numina. Each community could speak of its own baal, although a collection of allied communities might share the same cult, and naturally, since the attributes ascribed to the individual baals were very similar, subsequent syncretism was facilitated.

The Baal, as the head of each worshipping group, is the source of all the gifts of nature (cf. Hos. ii. 8 seq., Ezek. xvi. 19); as the god of fertility all the produce of the soil is his, and his adherents bring to him their tribute of first-fruits. He is the patron of all growth and fertility, and, by the "uncontrolled use of analogy characteristic of early thought," the Baal is the god of the productive element in its widest sense. Originating probably, in the observation of the fertilizing effect of rains and streams upon the receptive and reproductive soil, baalism becomes identical with the grossest nature-worship. Joined with the baals there are naturally found corresponding female figures known as Ashtārōth, embodiments of Ashtōreth (see Astarte; Ishtar). In accordance with primitive notions of analogy, which assume that it is possible to control or aid the powers of nature by the practice of "sympathetic magic" (see Magic), the cult of the baals and Ashtārōth was characterized by gross sensuality and licentiousness.

The fragmentary allusions to the cult of Baal Peor (Num. xxv., Hos. ix. 10, Ps. cvi. 28 seq.) exemplify the typical species of Dionysiac orgies that prevailed. On the summits of hills and mountains flourished the cult of the givers of increase, and "under every green tree" was practised the licentiousness which in primitive thought was held to secure abundance of crops (see Frazer, Golden Bough, 2nd ed. vol. ii. pp. 204 sqq.). Human sacrifice (Jer. xix. 5), the burning of incense (Jer. vii. 9), violent and ecstatic exercises, ceremonial acts of bowing and kissing, the preparing of sacred mystic cakes, appear among the offences denounced by the Israelite prophets, and show that the cult of Baal (and Astarte) included the characteristic features of heathen worship which recur in various parts of the Semitic world, although attached to other names.

By an easy transition the local gods of the streams and springs which fertilized the increase of the fields became identified with the common source of all streams, and proceeding along this line it was possible for the numerous baals to be regarded eventually as mere forms of one absolute deity. Consequently, the Baal could be identified with some supreme power of nature, e.g. the heavens, the sun, the weather or some planet. The particular line of development would vary in different places, but the change from an association of the Baal with earthly objects to heavenly is characteristic of a higher type of belief and appears to be relatively later. The idea which has long prevailed that Baal was properly a sky-god affords no explanation of the local character of the many baals; on the other hand, on the theory of a higher development where the gods become heavenly or astral beings, the fact that ruder conceptions of nature were still retained (often in the unofficial but more popular forms of cult) is more intelligible.

A specific Baal of the heavens appears to have been known among the Hittites in the time of Rameses II., and considerably later, at the beginning of the 7th century, it was the title of one of the gods of Phoenicia. In Babylonia, from a very early period, Baal became a definite individual deity, and was identified with the planet Jupiter. This development is a mark of superior culture and may have been spread through Babylonian influence. Both Baal and Astarte were venerated in Egypt at Thebes and Memphis in the XIXth Dynasty, and the former, through the influence of the Aramaeans who borrowed the Babylonian spelling Bel, ultimately became known as the Greek Belos who was identified with Zeus.

Of the worship of the Tyrian Baal, who is also called Melkart (king of the city), and is often identified with the Greek Heracles, but sometimes with the Olympian Zeus, we have many accounts in ancient writers, from Herodotus downwards. He had a magnificent temple in insular Tyre, founded by Hiram, to which gifts streamed from all countries, especially at the great feasts. The solar character of this deity appears especially in the annual feast of his awakening shortly after the winter solstice (Joseph. C. Apion. i. 18). At Tyre, as among the Hebrews, Baal had his symbolical pillars, one of gold and one of smaragdus, which, transported by phantasy to the farthest west, are still familiar to us as the Pillars of Hercules. The worship of the Tyrian Baal was carried to all the Phoenician colonies. His name occurs as an element in Carthaginian proper names (Hannibal, Hasdrubal, &c.), and a tablet found at Marseilles still survives to inform us of the charges made by the priests of the temple of Baal for offering sacrifices.

The history of Baalism among the Hebrews is obscured by the difficulty of determining whether the false worship which the prophets stigmatize is the heathen worship of Yahweh under a conception, and often with rites, which treated him as a local nature god; or whether Baalism was consciously recognized to be distinct from Yahwism from the first. Later religious practice was undoubtedly opposed to that of earlier times, and attempts were made to correct narratives containing views which had come to be regarded as contrary to the true worship of Yahweh. The Old Testament depicts the history of the people as a series of acts of apostasy alternating with subsequent penitence and return to Yahweh, and the question whether this gives effect to actual conditions depends upon the precise character of the elements of Yahweh worship brought by the Israelites into Palestine. This is still under dispute. There is strong evidence at all events that many of the conceptions are contrary to historical fact, and the points of similarity between native Canaanite cult and Israelite worship are so striking that only the persistent traditions of Israel's origin and of the work of Moses compel the conclusion that the germs of specific Yahweh worship existed from his day. The earliest certain reaction against Baalism is ascribed to the reign of Ahab, whose marriage with Jezebel gave the impulse to the introduction of a particular form of the cult. In honour of his wife's god, the king, following the example of Solomon, erected a temple to the Tyrian Baal (see above). This, however, did not prevent him from remaining a follower of Yahweh, whose prophets he still consulted, and whose protection he still cherished when he named his sons Ahaziah and Jehoram ("Yah[weh] holds," "Y. is high"). The antagonism of Elijah was not against Baalism in general, but against the introduction of a rival deity. But by the time of Hosea (ii. 16 seq.) a further advance was marked, and the use of the term "Baal" was felt to be dangerous to true religion. Thus there gradually grew up a tendency to avoid the term, and in accordance with the idea of Ex. xxiii. 13, it was replaced by the contemptuous bōsheth, "shame" (see above). However, the books of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah (cf. also Zeph. i. 4) afford complete testimony for the prevalence of Baalism as late as the exile, but prove that the clearest distinction was then drawn between the pure worship of Yahweh the god of Israel and the inveterate and debased cults of the gods of the land. (See further Hebrew Religion; Prophet.)

Bibliography.—W. Robertson Smith, Relig. Semites, 2nd ed. pp. 93-113 (against his theory of the introduction of Baal among the Arabs see M. J. Lagrange, Études d. relig. sem. pp. 83-98). For the reading "Baal" in the Amarna tablets (Palestine, about 1400 B.C.) see Knudtzon, Beitr. z. Assyriol. (1901), pp. 320 seq., 415; other cuneiform evidence in E. Schrader's Keilinsch. u. Alte Test. 3rd ed. p. 357 (by H. Zimmern; see also his Index, sub voce). On Baal-Shamem (B. of the heavens) M. Lidzbarski's monograph (Ephemeris, i. 243-260, ii. 120) is invaluable, and this work, with his Handbuch d. nordsemit. Epigraphik, contains full account of the epigraphical material. See Baethgen, Beitr. z. semit. Religionsgesch. pp. 17-32; also the articles on Baal by E. Meyer in Roscher's Lexikon, and G. F. Moore in Ency. Bib. (On Beltane fires and other apparent points of connexion with Baal it may suffice to refer to Aug. Fick, Vergleich. Worterbuch, who derives the element bel from an old Celtic root meaning shining, &c.)

(W. R. S.; S. A. C.)

Cf. its use as a noun of relation e.g. a ba‛al of hair, "a hairy man" (2 Kings i. 8), b. of wings, "a winged creature," and in the plural, b. of arrows, "archers" (Gen. xlix. 23), b. of oath, "conspirators" (Neh. vi. 18).

Compounds with geographical terms (towns, mountains), e.g. Baal of Tyre, of Lebanon, &c., are frequent; see G. B. Gray, Heb. Proper Names, pp. 124-126. Baal-berith or El-berith of Shechem (Judg. ix. 4, 46) is usually interpreted to be the Baal or God of the covenant, but whether of covenants in general or of a particular covenant concluded at Shechem is disputed. The Βαλμαρκως (near Beirut) apparently presided over dancing; another compound (in Cyprus) seems to represent a Baal of healing. On the "Baal of flies" see Beelzebub.

The general analogy shows itself further in the idea of the deity as the husband (ba‛al) of his worshippers or of the land in which they dwell. The Astarte of Gabal (Byblus) was regularly known as the ba‛alath (fem. of baal), her real name not being pronounced (perhaps out of reverence).

See further Clermont-Ganneau, Pal. Explor. Fund Quart. Stat., 1901, pp. 239, 369 sqq.; Büchler, Rev. d'études juives, 1901, pp. 125 seq.

The extent to which elements of heathen cult entered into purer types of religion is illustrated in the worship of Yahweh. The sacred cakes of Astarte and old holy wells associated with her cult were later even transferred to the worship of the Virgin (Ency. Bib. col. 3993; Rouvier, in Bull. Archéol., 1900, p. 170).

The sanctuary of Heracles at Daphne near Antioch was properly that of the Semitic Baal, and at Amathus Jupiter Hospes takes the place of Heracles or Malika, in which the Tyrian Melkart is to be recognized (W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem. 2nd ed. pp. 178, 376). See further Phoenicia.

BAALBEK (anc. Heliopolis), a town of the Buka‛a (Coelesyria), altitude 3850 ft., situated E. of the Litani and near the parting between its waters and those of the Asi. Pop. about 5000, including 2000 Metawali and 1000 Christians (Maronite and Orthodox). Since 1902 Baalbek has been connected by railway with Rayak (Rejak) on the Beirut-Damascus line, and since 1907 with Aleppo. It is famous for its temple ruins of the Roman period, before which we have no record of it, certain though it be that Heliopolis is a translation of an earlier native name, in which Baal was an element. It has been suggested, but without good reason, that this name was the Baalgad of Josh. xi. 17.

Heliopolis was made a colonia probably by Octavian (coins of 1st century A.D.), and there must have been a Baal temple there in which Trajan consulted the oracle. The foundation of the present buildings, however, dates from Antoninus Pius, and their dedication from Septimius Severus, whose coins first show the two temples. The great courts of approach were not finished before the reigns of Caracalla and Philip. In commemoration, no doubt, of the dedication of the new sanctuaries, Severus conferred the jus Italicum on the city. The greater of the two temples was sacred to Jupiter (Baal), identified with the Sun, with whom were associated Venus and Mercury as σύμβωμοι θεοί. The lesser temple was built in honour of Bacchus (not the Sun, as formerly believed). Jupiter-Baal was represented locally as a beardless god in long scaly drapery, holding a whip in his right hand and lightning and ears of corn in his left. Two bulls supported him. In this guise he passed into European worship in the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D. The extreme licence of the Heliopolitan worship is often animadverted upon by early Christian writers, and Constantine, making an effort to curb the Venus cult, built a basilica. Theodosius erected another, with western apse, in the main court of the Jupiter temple.

When Abu Ubaida (or Obaida) attacked the place after the Moslem capture of Damascus (A.D. 635), it was still an opulent city and yielded a rich booty. It became a bone of contention between the various Syrian dynasties and the caliphs first of Damascus, then of Egypt, and in 748 was sacked with great slaughter. In 1090 it passed to the Seljuks, and in 1134 to Jenghiz Khan; but after 1145 it remained attached to Damascus and was captured by Saladin in 1175. The Crusaders raided its valley more than once, but never took the city. Three times shaken by earthquake in the 12th century, it was dismantled by Hulagu in 1260. But it revived, and most of its fine Moslem mosque and fortress architecture, still extant, belongs to the reign of Sultan Kalaūn (1282) and the succeeding century, during which Abulfeda describes it as a very strong place. In 1400 Timur pillaged it, and in 1517 it passed, with the rest of Syria, to the Ottoman dominion. But Ottoman jurisdiction was merely nominal in the Lebanon district, and Baalbek was really in the hands of the Metawali (see Lebanon), who retained it against other Lebanon tribes, until "Jezzar" Pasha, the rebel governor of the Acre province, broke their power in the last half of the 18th century. The anarchy which succeeded his death in 1804 was only ended by the Egyptian occupation (1832). With the treaty of London (1840) Baalbek became really Ottoman, and since the settlement of the Lebanon (1864) has attracted great numbers of tourists.

The ruins were brought to European notice by Pierre Belon in 1555, though previously visited, in 1507, by Martin von Baumgarten. Much damaged by the earthquake of 1759, they remained a wilderness of fallen blocks till 1901, when their clearance was undertaken by the German Archaeological Institute and entrusted to the direction of Prof. O. Puchstein. They lie mainly on the ancient Acropolis, which has been shored up with huge walls to form a terrace raised on vaults and measuring about 1100 ft. from E. to W. The Propylaea lie at the E. end, and were approached by a flight of steps now quarried away. These propylaea formed a covered hall, or vestibule, about 35 ft. deep, flanked with towers richly decorated within and without (much damaged by Arab reconstruction). Columns stood in front, whose bases still exist and bear the names of Antoninus Pius and Julia Domna. Hence, through a triple gateway in a richly ornamented screen, access is gained to the first or Hexagonal Court, which measures about 250 ft. from angle to angle. It is now razed almost to foundation level; but it can be seen that it was flanked with halls each having four columns in front. A portal on the W., 50 ft. wide, flanked by lesser ones 10 ft. wide (that on the N. is alone preserved), admitted to the Main Court, in whose centre was the High Altar of Burnt Sacrifice. This altar and a great tank on the N. were covered by the foundations of Theodosius' basilica and not seen till the recent German clearance. The Main Court measures about 440 ft. from E. to W. and 370 ft. from N. to S., thus covering about 3½ acres. It had a continuous fringe of covered halls of various dimensions and shapes, once richly adorned with statues and columnar screens. Some of these halls are in fair preservation. Stairs on the W. led up to the temple of Jupiter-Baal, now much ruined, having only 6 of the 54 columns of its peristyle erect. Three fell in the earthquake of 1759. Those still standing are Nos. 11 to 16 in the southern rank. Their bases and shafts are not finished, though the capitals and rich entablature seem completely worked. They have a height of 60 ft. and diameter of 7½ ft., and are mostly formed of three blocks. The architrave is threefold and bears a frieze with lion-heads, on which rest a moulding and cornice.

The temple of Bacchus stood on a platform of its own formed by a southern projection of the Acropolis. It was much smaller than the Jupiter temple, but is better preserved. The steps of the E. approach were intact up to 1688. The temple was peripteral with 46 columns in its peristyle. These were over 52 ft. in height and of the Corinthian order, and supported an entablature 7 ft. high with double frieze, connected with the cella walls by a coffered ceiling, which contained slabs with heads of gods and emperors. Richard Burton, when consul-general at Damascus in 1870, cleared an Arab screen out of the vestibule, and in consequence the exquisite doorway leading into the cella can now be well seen. On either side of it staircases constructed within columns lead to the roof. The cracked door-lintel, which shows an eagle on the soffit, was propped up first by Burton, and lately, more securely, by the Germans. The cella, now ruinous, had inner wall-reliefs and engaged columns, which supported rich entablatures.

The vaults below the Great Court of the Jupiter Temple, together with the supporting walls of the terrace, are noticeable. In the W. wall of the latter occur the three famous megaliths, which gave the name Trilithon to the Jupiter temple in Byzantine times. These measure from 63 to 64 ft. in length and 13 ft. in height and breadth, and have been raised 20 ft. above the ground. They are the largest blocks known to have been used in actual construction, but are excelled by another block still attached to its bed in the quarries half a mile S.W. This is 68 ft. long by 14 ft. high and weighs about 1500 tons. For long these blocks were supposed, even by European visitors, to be relics of a primeval race of giant builders.

In the town, below the Acropolis, on the S.E. is a small temple of the late imperial age, consisting of a semicircular cella with a peristyle of eight Corinthian columns, supporting a projecting entablature. The cella is decorated without with a frieze, and within with pillars and arcading. This temple owes its preservation to its use as a church of St Barbara, a local martyr, also claimed by the Egyptian Heliopolis. Hence the building is known as Barbarat al-atika. Considerable remains of the N. gate of the city have also been exposed.

Bibliography.—These vast ruins, more imposing from their immensity than pleasing in detail, have been described by scores of travellers and tourists; but it will be sufficient here to refer to the following works:—(First discoverers) M. von Baumgarten, Peregrinatio in ... Syriam (1594); P. Belon, De admirabili operum antiquorum praestantia (1553); and Observations, &c. (1555). (Before earthquake of 1759) R. Wood, Ruins of Baalbec (1757). (Before excavation) H. Frauberger, Die Akropolis von Baalbek (1892). (After excavation) O. Puchstein, Führer durch die Ruinen v. Baalbek (1905), (with Th. v. Lüpke) Ansichten, &c. (1905). See also R. Phené Spiers, Quart. Stat. Pal. Exp. Fund, 1904, pp. 58-64, and the Builder, 11 Feb. 1905.

(D. G. H.)

BAARN, a small town in the province of Utrecht, Holland, 5 m. by rail E. of Hilversum, at the junction of a branch line to Utrecht. Like Hilversum it is situated in the midst of picturesque and wooded surroundings, and is a favourite summer resort of people from Amsterdam. The Baarnsche Bosch, or wood, stretches southward to Soestdyk, where there is a royal country-seat, originally acquired by the state in 1795. Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland, who was very fond of the spot, formed a zoological collection here which was removed to Amsterdam in 1809. In 1816 the estate was presented by the nation to the prince of Orange (afterwards King William II.) in recognition of his services at the battle of Quatre Bras. Since then the palace and grounds have been considerably enlarged and beautified. Close to Baarn in the south-west were formerly situated the ancient castles of Drakenburg and Drakenstein, and at Vuursche there is a remarkable dolmen.

BABADAG, or Babatag, a town in the department of Tulcea, Rumania; situated on a small lake formed by the river Taitza among the densely wooded highlands of the northern Dobrudja. Pop. (1900) about 3500. The Taitza lake is divided only by a strip of marshland from Lake Razim, a broad landlocked sheet of water which opens on the Black Sea. Babadag is a market for the wool and mutton of the Dobrudja. It was founded by Bayezid I., sultan of the Turks from 1389 to 1403. It occasionally served as the winter headquarters of the Turks in their wars with Russia, and was bombarded by the Russians in 1854.

BABBAGE, CHARLES (1792-1871), English mathematician and mechanician, was born on the 26th of December 1792 at Teignmouth in Devonshire. He was educated at a private school, and afterwards entered St Peter's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1814. Though he did not compete in the mathematical tripos, he acquired a great reputation at the university. In the years 1815-1817 he contributed three papers on the "Calculus of Functions" to the Philosophical Transactions, and in 1816 was made a fellow of the Royal Society. Along with Sir John Herschel and George Peacock he laboured to raise the standard of mathematical instruction in England, and especially endeavoured to supersede the Newtonian by the Leibnitzian notation in the infinitesimal calculus. Babbage's attention seems to have been very early drawn to the number and importance of the errors introduced into astronomical and other calculations through inaccuracies in the computation of tables. He contributed to the Royal Society some notices on the relation between notation and mechanism; and in 1822, in a letter to Sir H. Davy on the application of machinery to the calculation and printing of mathematical tables, he discussed the principles of a calculating engine, to the construction of which he devoted many years of his life. Government was induced to grant its aid, and the inventor himself spent a portion of his private fortune in the prosecution of his undertaking. He travelled through several of the countries of Europe, examining different systems of machinery; and some of the results of his investigations were published in the admirable little work, Economy of Machines and Manufactures (1834). The great calculating engine was never completed; the constructor apparently desired to adopt a new principle when the first specimen was nearly complete, to make it not a difference but an analytical engine, and the government declined to accept the further risk (see Calculating Machines). From 1828 to 1839 Babbage was Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge. He contributed largely to several scientific periodicals, and was instrumental in founding the Astronomical (1820) and Statistical (1834) Societies. He only once endeavoured to enter public life, when, in 1832, he stood unsuccessfully for the borough of Finsbury. During the later years of his life he resided in London, devoting himself to the construction of machines capable of performing arithmetical and even algebraical calculations. He died at London on the 18th of October 1871. He gives a few biographical details in his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), a work which throws considerable light upon his somewhat peculiar character. His works, pamphlets and papers were very numerous; in the Passages he enumerates eighty separate writings. Of these the most important, besides the few already mentioned, are Tables of Logarithms (1826); Comparative View of the Various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives (1826); Decline of Science in England (1830); Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (1837); The Exposition of 1851 (1851).

See Monthly Notices, Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 32.

BABEL, the native name of the city called Babylon (q.v.) by the Greeks, the modern Hillah. It means "gate of the god," not "gate of the gods," corresponding to the Assyrian Bāb-ili. According to Gen. xi 1-9 (J), mankind, after the deluge, travelled from the mountain of the East, where the ark had rested, and settled in Shinar. Here they attempted to build a city and a tower whose top might reach unto heaven, but were miraculously prevented by their language being confounded. In this way the diversity of human speech and the dispersion of mankind were accounted for; and in Gen. xi. 9 (J) an etymology was found for the name of Babylon in the Hebrew verb bālal, "to confuse or confound," Babel being regarded as a contraction of Balbel. In Gen. x. 10 it is said to have formed part of the kingdom of Nimrod.

The origin of the story has not been found in Babylonia. The tower was no doubt suggested by one of the temple towers of Babylon. W. A. Bennet (Genesis, p. 169; cf. Hommel in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible) suggests E-Saggila, the great temple of Merodach (Marduk). The variety of languages and the dispersion of mankind were regarded as a curse, and it is probable that, as Prof. Cheyne (Encyclopaedia Biblica, col. 411) says, there was an ancient North Semitic myth to explain it. The event was afterwards localized in Babylon. The myth, as it appears in Genesis, is quite polytheistic and anthropomorphic. According to Cornelius Alexander (frag. 10) and Abydenus (frags. 5 and 6) the tower was overthrown by the winds; according to Yaqut (i. 448 f.) and the Lisan el-‛Arab (xiii. 72) mankind were swept together by winds into the plain afterwards called "Babil," and were scattered again in the same way (see further D. B. Macdonald in the Jewish Encyclopaedia). A tradition similar to that of the tower of Babel is found in Central America. Xelhua, one of the seven giants rescued from the deluge, built the great pyramid of Cholula in order to storm heaven. The gods, however, destroyed it with fire and confounded the language of the builders. Traces of a somewhat similar story have also been met with among the Mongolian Tharus in northern India (Report of the Census of Bengal, 1872, p. 160), and, according to Dr Livingstone, among the Africans of Lake Ngami. The Esthonian myth of "the Cooking of Languages" (Kohl, Reisen in die Ostseeprovinzen, ii. 251-255) may also be compared, as well as the Australian legend of the origin of the diversity of speech (Gerstäcker, Reisen, vol. iv. pp. 381 seq.).

BAB-EL-MANDEB (Arab, for "The Gate of Tears"), the strait between Arabia and Africa which connects the Red Sea (q.v.) with the Indian Ocean. It derives its name from the dangers attending its navigation, or, according to an Arabic legend, from the numbers who were drowned by the earthquake which separated Asia and Africa. The distance across is about 20 m. from Ras Menheli on the Arabian coast to Ras Siyan on the African. The island of Perim (q.v.), a British possession, divides the strait into two channels, of which the eastern, known as the Bab Iskender (Alexander's Strait), is 2 m. wide and 16 fathoms deep, while the western, or Dact-el-Mayun, has a width of about 16 m. and a depth of 170 fathoms. Near the African coast lies a group of smaller islands known as the "Seven Brothers." There is a surface current inwards in the eastern channel, but a strong under-current outwards in the western channel.

BABENBERG, the name of a Franconian family which held the duchy of Austria before the rise of the house of Habsburg. Its earliest known ancestor was one Poppo, who early in the 9th century was count in Grapfeld. One of his sons, Henry, called margrave and duke in Franconia, fell fighting against the Normans in 886; another, Poppo, was margrave in Thuringia from 880 to 892, when he was deposed by the German king Arnulf. The family had been favoured by the emperor Charles the Fat, but Arnulf reversed this policy in favour of the rival family of the Conradines. The leaders of the Babenbergs were the three sons of Duke Henry, who called themselves after their castle of Babenberg on the upper Main, round which their possessions centred. The rivalry between the two families was intensified by their efforts to extend their authority in the region of the middle Main, and this quarrel, known as the "Babenberg feud," came to a head at the beginning of the 10th century during the troubled reign of the German king, Louis the Child. Two of the Babenberg brothers were killed, and the survivor Adalbert was summoned before the imperial court by the regent Hatto I., archbishop of Mainz, a partisan of the Conradines. He refused to appear, held his own for a time in his castle at Theres against the king's forces, but surrendered in 906, and in spite of a promise of safe-conduct was beheaded. From this time the Babenbergs lost their influence in Franconia; but in 976 Leopold, a member of the family who was a count in the Donnegau, is described as margrave of the East Mark, a district not more than 60 m. in breadth on the eastern frontier of Bavaria which grew into the duchy of Austria. Leopold, who probably received the mark as a reward for his fidelity to the emperor Otto II. during the Bavarian rising in 976, extended its area at the expense of the Hungarians, and was succeeded in 994 by his son Henry I. Henry, who continued his father's policy, was followed in 1018 by his brother Adalbert and in 1055 by his nephew Ernest, whose marked loyalty to the emperors Henry III. and Henry IV. was rewarded by many tokens of favour. The succeeding margrave, Leopold II., quarrelled with Henry IV., who was unable to oust him from the mark or to prevent the succession of his son Leopold III. in 1096. Leopold supported Henry, son of Henry IV., in his rising against his father, but was soon drawn over to the emperor's side, and in 1106 married his daughter Agnes, widow of Frederick I., duke of Swabia. He declined the imperial crown in 1125. His zeal in founding monasteries earned for him his surname "the Pious," and canonization by Pope Innocent VIII. in 1485. He is regarded as the patron saint of Austria. One of Leopold's sons was Otto, bishop of Freising (q.v.). His eldest son, Leopold IV., became margrave in 1136, and in 1139 received from the German king Conrad III. the duchy of Bavaria, which had been forfeited by Duke Henry the Proud. Leopold's brother Henry (surnamed Jasomirgott from his favourite oath, "So help me God!") was made count palatine of the Rhine in 1140, and became margrave of Austria on Leopold's death in 1141. Having married Gertrude, the widow of Henry the Proud, he was invested in 1143 with the duchy of Bavaria, and resigned his office as count palatine. In 1147 he went on crusade, and after his return renounced Bavaria at the instance of the new king Frederick I. As compensation for this, Austria, the capital of which had been transferred to Vienna in 1146, was erected into a duchy. The second duke was Henry's son Leopold I., who succeeded him in 1177 and took part in the crusades of 1182 and 1190. In Palestine he quarrelled with Richard I., king of England, captured him on his homeward journey and handed him over to the emperor Henry VI. Leopold increased the territories of the Babenbergs by acquiring Styria in 1192 under the will of his kinsman Duke Ottakar IV. He died in 1194, and Austria fell to one son, Frederick, and Styria to another, Leopold; but on Frederick's death in 1198 they were again united by Duke Leopold II., surnamed "the Glorious." The new duke fought against the infidel in Spain, Egypt and Palestine, but is more celebrated as a lawgiver, a patron of letters and a founder of towns. Under him Vienna became the centre of culture in Germany and the great school of Minnesingers (q.v.). His later years were spent in strife with his son Frederick, and he died in 1230 at San Germano, whither he had gone to arrange the peace between the emperor Frederick II. and Pope Gregory IX. His son Frederick II. followed as duke, and earned the name of "Quarrelsome" by constant struggles with the kings of Hungary and Bohemia and with the emperor. He deprived his mother and sisters of their possessions, was hated by his subjects on account of his oppressions, and in 1236 was placed under the imperial ban and driven from Austria. Restored when the emperor was excommunicated, he treated in vain with Frederick for the erection of Austria into a kingdom. He was killed in battle in 1246, when the male line of the Babenbergs became extinct. The city of Bamberg grew up around the ancestral castle of the family.

See G. Juritsch, Geschichte der Babenberger und ihrer Länder (Innsbruck, 1894); M. Schmitz, Oesterreichs Scheyern-Wittelsbacher oder die Dynastie der Babenberger (Munich, 1880).

BABER, or Babar (1483-1530), a famous conqueror of India and founder of the so-called Mogul dynasty. His name was Zahir ud-din-Mahomet, and he was given the surname of Baber, meaning the tiger. Born on the 14th of February 1483, he was a descendant of Timur, and his father, Omar Sheik, was king of Ferghana, a district of what is now Russian Turkestan. Omar died in 1495, and Baber, though only twelve years of age, succeeded to the throne. An attempt made by his uncles to dislodge him proved unsuccessful, and no sooner was the young sovereign firmly settled than he began to meditate an extension of his own dominions. In 1497 he attacked and gained possession of Samarkand, to which he always seems to have thought he had a natural and hereditary right. A rebellion among his nobles robbed him of his native kingdom, and while marching to recover it his troops deserted him, and he lost Samarkand also. After some reverses he regained both these places, but in 1501 his most formidable enemy, Shaibani (Sheibani) Khan, ruler of the Uzbegs, defeated him in a great engagement and drove him from Samarkand. For three years he wandered about trying in vain to recover his lost possessions; at last, in 1504, he gathered some troops, and crossing the snowy Hindu Kush besieged and captured the strong city of Kabul. By this dexterous stroke he gained a new and wealthy kingdom, and completely re-established his fortunes. In the following year he united with Hussain Mirza of Herat against Shaibani. The death of Hussain put a stop to this expedition, but Baber spent a year at Herat, enjoying the pleasures of that capital. He returned to Kabul in time to quell a formidable rebellion, but two years later a revolt among some of the leading Moguls drove him from his city. He was compelled to take to flight with very few companions, but his great personal courage and daring struck the army of his opponents with such dismay that they again returned to their allegiance and Baber regained his kingdom. Once again, in 1510, after the death of Shaibani, he endeavoured to obtain possession of his native country. He received considerable aid from Shah Ismael of Persia, and in 1511 made a triumphal entry into Samarkand. But in 1514 he was utterly defeated by the Uzbegs and with difficulty reached Kabul. He seems now to have resigned all hopes of recovering Ferghana, and as he at the same time dreaded an invasion of the Uzbegs from the west, his attention was more and more drawn towards India. Several preliminary incursions had been already made, when in 1521 an opportunity presented itself for a more extended expedition. Ibrahim, emperor of Delhi, had made himself detested, even by his Afghan nobles, several of whom called upon Baber for assistance. He at once assembled his forces, 12,000 strong, with some pieces of artillery and marched into India. Ibrahim, with 100,000 soldiers and numerous elephants, advanced against him. The great battle was fought at Panipat on the 21st of April 1526, when Ibrahim was slain and his army routed. Baber at once took possession of Agra. A still more formidable enemy awaited him; the Rana Sanga of Mewar collected the enormous force of 210,000 men, with which he moved against the invaders. On all sides there was danger and revolt, even Baber's own soldiers, worn out with the heat of this new climate, longed for Kabul. By vigorous measures and inspiriting speeches he restored their courage, though his own heart was nearly failing him, and in his distress he abjured the use of wine, to which he had been addicted. At Kanwaha, on the 10th of March 1527, he won a great victory and made himself absolute master of northern India. The remaining years of his life he spent in arranging the affairs and revenues of his new empire and in improving his capital, Agra. He died on the 26th of December 1530 in his forty-eighth year. Baber was above the middle height, of great strength and an admirable archer and swordsman. His mind was as well cultivated as his bodily powers; he wrote well, and his observations are generally acute and accurate; he was brave, kindly and generous.

Full materials for his life are found in his Memoirs, written by himself (translated into English by Leyden and Erskine (London, 1826); abridged in Caldecott, Life of Baber (London, 1844). See also Lane-Poole, Baber (Rulers of India Series), 1899.

BABEUF, FRANÇOIS NOEL (1760-1797), known as Gracchus Babeuf, French political agitator and journalist, was born at Saint Quentin on the 23rd of November 1760. His father, Claude Babeuf, had deserted the French army in 1738 and taken service under Maria Theresa, rising, it is said, to the rank of major. Amnestied in 1755 he returned to France, but soon sank into dire poverty, being forced to earn a pittance for his wife and family as a day labourer. The hardships endured by Babeuf during early years do much to explain his later opinions. He had received from his father the smatterings of a liberal education, but until the outbreak of the Revolution he was a domestic servant, and from 1785 occupied the invidious office of commissaire à terrier, his function being to assist the nobles and priests in the assertion of their feudal rights as against the unfortunate peasants. On the eve of the Revolution Babeuf was in the employ of a land surveyor at Roye. His father had died in 1780, and he was now the sole support, not only of his wife and two children, but of his mother, brothers and sisters. In the circumstances it is not surprising that he was the life and soul of the malcontents of the place. He was an indefatigable writer, and the first germ of his future socialism is contained in a letter of the 21st of March 1787, one of a series—mainly on literature—addressed to the secretary of the Academy of Arras. In 1789 he drew up the first article of the cahier of the electors of the bailliage of Roye, demanding the abolition of feudal rights. Then, from July to October, he was in Paris superintending the publication of his first work: Cadastre perpétuel, dédié à l'assemblée nationale, l'an 1789 et le premier de la liberté française, which was written in 1787 and issued in 1790. The same year he published a pamphlet against feudal aids and the gabelle, for which he was denounced and arrested, but provisionally released. In October, on his return to Roye, he founded the Correspondant picard, the violent character of which cost him another arrest. In November he was elected a member of the municipality of Roye, but was expelled. In March 1791 he was appointed commissioner to report on the national property (biens nationaux) in the town, and in September 1792 was elected a member of the council-general of the department of the Somme. Here, as everywhere, the violence of his attitude made his position intolerable to himself and others, and he was soon transferred to the post of administrator of the district of Montdidier. Here he was accused of fraud for having substituted one name for another in a deed of transfer of national lands. It is probable that his fault was one of negligence only; but, distrusting the impartiality of the judges of the Somme, he fled to Paris, and on the 23rd of August 1793 was condemned in contumaciam to twenty years' imprisonment. Meanwhile he had been appointed secretary to the relief committee (comité des subsistances) of the commune of Paris. The judges of Amiens, however, pursued him with a warrant for his arrest, which took place in Brumaire of the year II. (1794). The court of cassation quashed the sentence, through defect of form, but sent Babeuf for a new trial before the Aisne tribunal, by which he was acquitted on the 18th of July.

Babeuf now returned to Paris, and on the 3rd of September 1794 published the first number of his Journal de la liberté de la presse, the title of which was altered on the 5th of October to Le Tribun du peuple. The execution of Robespierre on the 28th of July had ended the Terror, and Babeuf—now self-styled "Gracchus" Babeuf—defended the men of Thermidor and attacked the fallen terrorists with his usual violence. But he also attacked, from the point of view of his own socialistic theories, the economic outcome of the Revolution. This was an attitude which had few supporters, even in the Jacobin club, and in October Babeuf was arrested and sent to prison at Arras. Here he came under the influence of certain terrorist prisoners, notably of Lebois, editor of the Journal de l'égalité, afterwards of the Ami du peuple, papers which carried on the traditions of Marat. He emerged from prison a confirmed terrorist and convinced that his Utopia, fully proclaimed to the world in No. 33 of his Tribun, could only be realized through the restoration of the constitution of 1793. He was now in open conflict with the whole trend of public opinion. In February 1795 he was again arrested, and the Tribun du peuple was solemnly burnt in the Théâtre des Bergères by the jeunesse dorée, the young men whose mission it was to bludgeon Jacobinism out of the streets and cafés. But for the appalling economic conditions produced by the fall in the value of assignats, Babeuf might have shared the fate of other agitators who were whipped into obscurity.

It was the attempts of the Directory to deal with this economic crisis that gave Babeuf his real historic importance. The new government was pledged to abolish the vicious system by which Paris was fed at the expense of all France, and the cessation of the distribution of bread and meat at nominal prices was fixed for the 20th of February 1796. The announcement caused the most wide-spread consternation. Not only the workmen and the large class of idlers attracted to Paris by the system, but rentiers and government officials, whose incomes were paid in assignats on a scale arbitrarily fixed by the government, saw themselves threatened with actual starvation. The government yielded to the outcry that arose; but the expedients by which it sought to mitigate the evil, notably the division of those entitled to relief into classes, only increased the alarm and the discontent. The universal misery gave point to the virulent attacks of Babeuf on the existing order, and at last gained him a hearing. He gathered round him a small circle of his immediate followers known as the Société des Égaux, soon merged with the rump of the Jacobins, who met at the Pantheon; and in November 1795 he was reported by the police to be openly preaching "insurrection, revolt and the constitution of 1793."

For a time the government, while keeping itself informed of his activities, left him alone; for it suited the Directory to let the socialist agitation continue, in order to frighten the people from joining in any royalist movement for the overthrow of the existing regime. Moreover the mass of the ouvriers, even of extreme views, were repelled by Babeuf's bloodthirstiness; and the police agents reported that his agitation was making many converts—for the government. The Jacobin club of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine refused to admit Babeuf and Lebois, on the ground that they were "égorgeurs." With the development of the economic crisis, however, Babeuf's influence increased. After the club of the Pantheon was closed by Bonaparte, on the 27th of February 1796, his aggressive activity redoubled. In Ventôse and Germinal he published, under the nom de plume of "Lalande, soldat de la patrie," a new paper, the Éclaireur du peuple, ou le défenseur de vingt-cinq millions d'opprimés, which was hawked clandestinely from group to group in the streets of Paris. At the same time No. 40 of the Tribun excited an immense sensation. In this he praised the authors of the September massacres as "deserving well of their country," and declared that a more complete "September 2nd" was needed to annihilate the actual government, which consisted of "starvers, bloodsuckers, tyrants, hangmen, rogues and mountebanks." The distress among all classes continued to be appalling; and in March the attempt of the Directory to replace the assignats (q.v.) by a new issue of mandats created fresh dissatisfaction after the breakdown of the hopes first raised. A cry went up that national bankruptcy had been declared, and thousands of the lower class of ouvrier began to rally to Babeuf's flag. On the 4th of April it was reported to the government that 500,000 people in Paris were in need of relief. From the 11th Paris was placarded with posters headed Analyse de la doctrine de Babœuf (sic), tribun du peuple, of which the opening sentence ran: "Nature has given to every man the right to the enjoyment of an equal share in all property," and which ended with a call to restore the constitution of 1793. Babeuf's song Mourant de faim, mourant de froid (Dying of hunger, dying of cold), set to a popular air, began to be sung in the cafés, with immense applause; and reports were current that the disaffected troops in the camp of Grenelle were ready to join an émeute against the government. The Directory thought it time to act; the bureau central had accumulated through its agents, notably the ex-captain Georges Grisel, who had been initiated into Babeuf's society, complete evidence of a conspiracy for an armed rising fixed for Floréal 22, year IV. (11th of May 1796), in which Jacobins and socialists were combined. On the 10th of May Babeuf was arrested with many of his associates, among whom were A. Darthé and P. M. Buonarroti, the ex-members of the Convention, Robert Lindet, J. A. B. Amar, M. G. A. Vadier and Jean Baptiste Drouet, famous as the postmaster of Saint-Menehould who had arrested Louis XVI., and now a member of the Council of Five Hundred.

The coup was perfectly successful. The last number of the Tribun appeared on the 24th of April, but Lebois in the Ami du peuple tried to incite the soldiers to revolt, and for a while there were rumours of a military rising. The trial of Babeuf and his accomplices was fixed to take place before the newly constituted high court of justice at Vendôme. On Fructidor 10 and 11 (27th and 28th of August), when the prisoners were removed from Paris, there were tentative efforts at a riot with a view to rescue, but these were easily suppressed. The attempt of five or six hundred Jacobins (7th of September) to rouse the soldiers at Grenelle met with no better success. The trial of Babeuf and the others, begun at Vendôme on the 20th of February 1797, lasted two months. The government for reasons of their own made the socialist Babeuf the leader of the conspiracy, though more important people than he were implicated; and his own vanity played admirably into their hands. On Prairial 7 (26th of April 1797) Babeuf and Darthé were condemned to death; some of the prisoners, including Buonarroti, were exiled; the rest, including Vadier and his fellow-conventionals, were acquitted. Drouet had succeeded in making his escape, according to Barras, with the connivance of the Directory. Babeuf and Darthé were executed at Vendôme on Prairial 8 (1797).

Babeuf's character has perhaps been sufficiently indicated above. He was a type of the French revolutionists, excitable, warm-hearted, half-educated, who lost their mental and moral balance in the chaos of the revolutionary period. Historically, his importance lies in the fact that he was the first to propound socialism as a practical policy, and the father of the movements which played so conspicuous a part in the revolutions of 1848 and 1871.

See V. Advielle, Hist. de Gracchus Babeuf et de Babouvisme (2 vols., Paris, 1884); P. M. Buonarroti, Conspiration pour l'égalité, dite de Babeuf (2 vols., Brussels, 1828; later editions, 1850 and 1869), English translation by Bronterre O'Brien (London, 1836); Cambridge Modern History, vol. viii.; Adolf Schmidt, Pariser Zustände wahrend der Revolutionszeit von 1789-1800 (Jena, 1874). French trans. by P. Viollet, Paris pendant la Révolution d'après les rapports de la police secrète, 1789-1800 (4 vols., 1880-1894); A. Schmidt, Tableaux de la Révolution française, &c. (Leipzig, 1867-1870), a collection of reports of the secret police on which the above work is based. A full report of the trial at Vendôme was published in four volumes at Paris in 1797, Débats du procès, &c.

(W. A. P.)

BÁBÍISM, the religion founded in Persia in A.D. 1844-1845 by Mírzá ‛Alí Muhammad of Shíráz, a young Sayyid who was at that time not twenty-five years of age. Before his "manifestation" (zuhúr), of which he gives in the Persian Bayán a date corresponding to 23rd May 1844, he was a disciple of Sayyid Kázim of Rasht, the leader of the Shaykhís, a sect of extreme Shí‛ites characterized by the doctrine (called by them Rukn-i-rábi‛, "the fourth support") that at all times there must exist an intermediary between the twelfth Imám and his faithful followers. This intermediary they called "the perfect Shí‛ite," and his prototype is to be found in the four successive Bábs or "gates" through whom alone the twelfth Imám, during the period of his "minor occultation" (Ghaybat-i-sughrá, A.D. 874-940), held communication with his partisans. It was in this sense, and not, as has been often asserted, in the sense of "Gate of God" or "Gate of Religion," that the title Báb was understood and assumed by Mírzá ‛Alí Muhammad; but, though still generally thus styled by non-Bábís, he soon assumed the higher title of Nuqta ("Point"), and the title Báb, thus left vacant, was conferred on his ardent disciple, Mullá Husayn of Bushrawayh.

The history of the Bábís, though covering a comparatively short period, is so full of incident and the particulars now available are so numerous, that the following account purports to be only the briefest sketch. The Báb himself was in captivity first at Shíráz, then at Mákú, and lastly at Chihríq, during the greater part of the six years (May 1844 until July 1850) of his brief career, but an active propaganda was carried on by his disciples, which resulted in several serious revolts against the government, especially after the death of Muhammad Sháh in September 1848. Of these risings the first (December 1848-July 1849) took place in Mázandarán, at the ruined shrine of Shaykh Tabarsí, near Bárfurúsh, where the Bábís, led by Mullá Muhammad ‛Alí of Bárfurúsh and Mullá Husayn of Bushrawayh ("the first who believed"), defied the shah's troops for seven months before they were finally subdued and put to death. The revolt at Zanján in the north-west of Persia, headed by Mullá Muhammad ‛Ali Zanjání, also lasted seven or eight months (May-December 1850), while a serious but less protracted struggle was waged against the government at Níríz in Fárs by Agá Sayyid Yahyá of Níríz. Both revolts were in progress when the Báb, with one of his devoted disciples, was brought from his prison at Chihríq to Tabríz and publicly shot in front of the arg or citadel. The body, after being exposed for some days, was recovered by the Bábís and conveyed to a shrine near Tehrán, whence it was ultimately removed to Acre in Syria, where it is now buried. For the next two years comparatively little was heard of the Bábís, but on the 15th of August 1852 three of them, acting on their own initiative, attempted to assassinate Násiru'd-Dín Sháh as he was returning from the chase to his palace at Niyávarán. The attempt failed, but was the cause of a fresh persecution, and on the 31st of August 1852 some thirty Bábís, including the beautiful and talented poetess Qurratu'l-'Ayn, were put to death in Tehrán with atrocious cruelty. Another of the victims of that day was Hájji Mírzá Jání of Káshán, the author of the oldest history of the movement from the Bábí point of view. Only one complete MS. of his invaluable work (obtained by Count Gobineau in Persia) exists in any public library, the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. The so-called "New History" (of which an English translation was published at Cambridge in 1893 by E. G. Browne) is based on Mírzá Jání's work, but many important passages which did not accord with later Bábí doctrine or policy have been suppressed or modified, while some additions have been made. The Báb was succeeded on his death by Mírzá Yahyá of Núr (at that time only about twenty years of age), who escaped to Bagdad, and, under the title of Subh-i-Ezel ("the Morning of Eternity"), became the pontiff of the sect. He lived, however, in great seclusion, leaving the direction of affairs almost entirely in the hands of his elder half-brother (born 12th November 1817), Mírzá Husayn ‛Alí, entitled Bahá' u'lláh ("the Splendour of God"), who thus gradually became the most conspicuous and most influential member of the sect, though in the Iqán, one of the most important polemical works of the Bábís, composed in 1858-1859, he still implicitly recognized the supremacy of Subh-i-Ezel. In 1863, however, Bahá declared himself to be "He whom God shall manifest" (Man Yuz-hiruhu'lláh, with prophecies of whose advent the works of the Báb are filled), and called on all the Bábís to recognize his claim. The majority responded, but Subh-i-Ezel and some of his faithful adherents refused. After that date the Bábís divided into two sects, Ezelís and Bahá'ís, of which the former steadily lost and the latter gained ground, so that in 1908 there were probably from half a million to a million of the latter, and at most only a hundred or two of the former. In 1863 the Bábís were, at the instance of the Persian government, removed from Bagdad to Constantinople, whence they were shortly afterwards transferred to Adrianople. In 1868 Bahá and his followers were exiled to Acre in Syria, and Subh-i-Ezel with his few adherents to Famagusta in Cyprus, where he was still living in 1908. Bahá'u'lláh died at Acre on the 16th of May 1892. His son ‛Abbás Efendí (also called ‛Abdu'l-Bahá, "the servant of Bahá") was generally recognized as his successor, but another of his four sons, Muhammad ‛Alí, put forward a rival claim. This caused a fresh and bitter schism, but ‛Abbás Efendí steadily gained ground, and there could be little doubt as to his eventual triumph. The controversial literature connected with this latest schism is abundant, not only in Persian, but in English, for since 1900 many Americans have adopted the religion of Bahá. The original apostle of America was Ibráhím George Khayru'lláh, who began his propaganda at the Chicago Exhibition and later supported the claims of Muhammad ‛Alí. Several Persian missionaries, including the aged and learned Mírzá Abu'l-Fazl of Gulpáyagán, were thereupon despatched to America by ‛Abbás Efendí, who was generally accepted by the American Bahá'ís as "the Master." The American press contained many notices of the propaganda and its success. An interesting article on the subject, by Stoyan Krstoff Vatralsky of Boston, Mass., entitled "Mohammedan Gnosticism in America," appeared in the American Journal of Theology for January 1902, pp. 57-58.

A correct understanding of the doctrines of the early Bábís (now represented by the Ezelís) is hardly possible save to one who is conversant with the theology of Islám and its developments, and especially the tenets of the Shí‛a. The Bábís are Muhammadans only in the sense that the Muhammadans are Christians or the Christians Jews; that is to say, they recognize Muhammad (Mahomet) as a true prophet and the Qur'án (Koran) as a revelation, but deny their finality. Revelation, according to their view, is progressive, and no revelation is final, for, as the human race progresses, a fuller measure of truth, and ordinances more suitable to the age, are vouchsafed. The Divine Unity is incomprehensible, and can be known only through its Manifestations; to recognize the Manifestation of the cycle in which he lives is the supreme duty of man. Owing to the enormous volume and unsystematic character of the Bábí scriptures, and the absence of anything resembling church councils, the doctrine on many important points (such as the future life) is undetermined and vague. The resurrection of the body is denied, but some form of personal immortality is generally, though not universally, accepted. Great importance was attached to the mystical values of letters and numbers, especially the numbers 18 and 19 ("the number of the unity") and 19² = 361 ("the number of all things"). In general, the Báb's doctrines most closely resembled those of the Isma‛ílís and Hurúfís. In the hands of Bahá the aims of the sect became much more practical and ethical, and the wilder pantheistic tendencies and metaphysical hair-splittings of the early Bábís almost disappeared. The intelligence, integrity and morality of the Bábís are high, but their efforts to improve the social position of woman have been much exaggerated. They were in no way concerned (as was at the time falsely alleged) in the assassination of Násiru'd-Dín Sháh in May 1896. Of recent persecutions of the sect the two most notable took place at Yazd, one in May 1891, and another of greater ferocity in June 1903. Some account of the latter is given by Napier Malcolm in his book Five Years in a Persian Town (London, 1905), pp. 87-89 and 186. In the constitutional movement in Persia (1907) the Bábís, though their sympathies are undoubtedly with the reformers, wisely refrained from outwardly identifying themselves with that party, to whom their open support, by alienating the orthodox mujtahids and mullás, would have proved fatal. Here, as in all their actions, they clearly obeyed orders issued from headquarters.

Literature.—The literature of the sect is very voluminous, but mostly in manuscript. The most valuable public collections in Europe are at St Petersburg, London (British Museum) and Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale), where two or three very rare MSS. collected by Gobineau, including the precious history of the Báb's contemporary, Hájji Mírzá Jání of Káshán, are preserved. For the bibliography up to 1889, see vol. ii. pp. 173-211 of the Traveller's Narrative, written to illustrate the Episode of the Báb, a Persian work composed by Bahá's son, ‛Abbás Efendí, edited, translated and annotated by E. G. Browne (Cambridge, 1891). More recent works are:—Browne, The New History of the Báb (Cambridge, 1893); and "Catalogue and Description of the 27 Bábí Manuscripts," Journal of R. Asiat. Soc. (July and October 1892); Andreas, Die Bábí's in Persien (1896); Baron Victor Rosen, Collections scientifiques de l'Institut des Langues orientales, vol. i. (1877), pp. 179-212; vol. iii. (1886), pp. 1-51; vol. vi. (1891), pp. 141-255; "Manuscrits Bâbys"; and other important articles in Russian by the same scholar; and by Captain A. G. Toumansky in the Zapiski vostochnava otdyèleniya Imperatorskava Russkava Archeologicheskava Obshchestva (vols. iv.-xii., St Petersburg, 1890-1900); also an excellent edition by Toumansky, with Russian translation, notes and introduction, of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (the most important of Bahá's works), &c. (St Petersburg, 1899). Mention should also be made of an Arabic history of the Bábís (unsympathetic but well-informed) written by a Persian, Mírzá Muhammad Mahdí Khan, Za‛imu'd-Duwla, printed in Cairo in A.H. 1321 (= A.D. 1903-1904). Of the works composed in English for the American converts the most important are:—Bahá'u'lláh (The Glory of God), by Ibráhím Khayru'lláh, assisted by Howard MacNutt (Chicago, 1900); The Three Questions (n.d.) and Facts for Baháists (1901), by the same; Life and Teachings of ‛Abbás Efendí, by Myron H. Phelps, with preface by E. G. Browne (New York, 1903); Isabella Brittingham, The Revelations of Bahá'u'lláh, in a Sequence of Four Lessons (1902); Laura Clifford Burney, Some Answered Questions Collected [in Acre, 1904-1906] and Translated from the Persian of ‛Abdu'l-Bahá [i.e. ‛Abbás Efendí] (London, 1908). In French, A. L. M. Nicolas (first dragoman at the French legation at Tehrán) has published several important translations, viz. Le Livre des sept preuves de la mission du Báb (Paris, 1902); Le Livre de la certitude (1904); and Le Beyân arabe (1905); and there are other notable works by H. Dreyfus, an adherent of the Bábí faith. Lastly, mention should be made of a remarkable but scarce little tract by Gabriel Sacy, printed at Cairo in June 1902, and entitled Du règne de Dieu et de l'Agneau, connu sous le nom de Babysme.

(E. G. B.)

BABINGTON, ANTHONY (1561-1586), English conspirator, son of Henry Babington of Dethick in Derbyshire, and of Mary, daughter of George, Lord Darcy, was born in October 1561, and was brought up secretly a Roman Catholic. As a youth he served at Sheffield as page to Mary queen of Scots, for whom he early felt an ardent devotion. In 1580 he came to London, attended the court of Elizabeth, and joined the secret society formed that year supporting the Jesuit missionaries. In 1582 after the execution of Father Campion he withdrew to Dethick, and attaining his majority occupied himself for a short time with the management of his estates. Later he went abroad and became associated at Paris with Mary's supporters who were planning her release with the help of Spain, and on his return he was entrusted with letters for her. In April 1586 he became, with the priest John Ballard, leader of a plot to murder Elizabeth and her ministers, and organize a general Roman Catholic rising in England and liberate Mary. The conspiracy was regarded by Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, one of its chief instigators, and also by Walsingham, as the most dangerous of recent years; it included, in its general purpose of destroying the government, a large number of Roman Catholics, and had ramifications all over the country. Philip II. of Spain, who ardently desired the success of an enterprise "so Christian, just and advantageous to the holy Catholic faith," promised to assist with an expedition directly the assassination of the queen was effected. Babington's conduct was marked by open folly and vanity. Desirous of some token of appreciation from Mary for his services, he entered into a long correspondence with her, which was intercepted by the spies of Walsingham. On the 4th of August Ballard was seized and betrayed his comrades, probably under torture. Babington then applied for a passport abroad, for the ostensible purpose of spying upon the refugees, but in reality to organize the foreign expedition and secure his own safety. The passport being delayed, he offered to reveal to Walsingham a dangerous conspiracy, but the latter sent no reply, and meanwhile the ports were closed and none allowed to leave the kingdom for some days. He was still allowed his liberty, but one night while supping with Walsingham's servant he observed a memorandum of the minister's concerning himself, fled to St John's Wood, where he was joined by some of his companions, and after disguising himself succeeded in reaching Harrow, where he was sheltered by a recent convert to Romanism. Towards the end of August he was discovered and imprisoned in the Tower. On the 13th and 14th of September he was tried with Ballard and five others by a special commission, when he confessed his guilt, but strove to place all the blame upon Ballard. All were condemned to death for high treason. On the 19th he wrote to Elizabeth praying for mercy, and the same day offered £1000 for procuring his pardon; and on the 20th, having disclosed the cipher used in the correspondence between himself and Mary, he was executed with the usual barbarities in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The detection of the plot led to Mary's own destruction. There is no positive documentary proof in Mary's own hand that she had knowledge of the intended assassination of Elizabeth, but her circumstances, together with the tenour of her correspondence with Babington, place her complicity beyond all reasonable doubt.

Cata. of State Papers Simancas, iii. 606, Mendoza to Philip.

BABINGTON, CHURCHILL (1821-1889), English classical scholar and archaeologist, was born at Roecliffe, in Leicestershire, on the 11th of March 1821. He was educated by his father till he was seventeen, when he was placed under the tuition of Charles Wycliffe Goodwin, the orientalist and archaeologist. He entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1839, and graduated B.A. in 1843, being seventh in the first class of the classical tripos and a senior optime. In 1845 he obtained the Hulsean Prize for his essay The Influence of Christianity in promoting the Abolition of Slavery in Europe. In 1846 he was elected to a fellowship and took orders. He proceeded to the degree of M.A. in 1846 and D.D. in 1879. From 1848 to 1861 he was vicar of Horningsea, near Cambridge, and from 1866 to his death on the 12th of January 1889, vicar of Cockfield in Suffolk. From 1865 to 1880 he held the Disney professorship of archaeology at Cambridge. In his lectures, illustrated from his own collections of coins and vases, he dealt chiefly with Greek and Roman pottery and numismatics.

Dr Babington was a many-sided man and wrote on a variety of subjects. His early familiarity with country life gave him a taste for natural history, especially botany and ornithology. He was also an authority on conchology. He was the author of the appendices on botany (in part) and ornithology in Potter's History and Antiquities of Charnwood Forest (1842); Mr Macaulay's Character of the Clergy ... considered (1849), a defence of the clergy of the 17th century, which received the approval of Mr Gladstone, against the strictures of Macaulay. He also brought out the editio princeps of the speeches of Hypereides Against Demosthenes (1850), On Behalf of Lycophron and Euxenippus (1853), and his Funeral Oration (1858). It was by his edition of these speeches from the papyri discovered at Thebes (Egypt) in 1847 and 1856 that Babington's fame as a Greek scholar was made. In 1855 he published an edition of Benefizio della Morte di Cristo, a remarkable book of the Reformation period, attributed to Paleario, of which nearly all the copies had been destroyed by the Inquisition. Babington's edition was a facsimile of the editio princeps published at Venice in 1543, with Introduction and French and English versions. He also edited the first two volumes of Higden's Polychronicon (1858) and Bishop Pecock's Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy (1860), undertaken at the request of the Master of the Rolls; Introductory Lecture on Archaeology (1865); Roman Antiquities found at Rougham [1872]; Catalogue of Birds of Suffolk (1884-1886); Flora of Suffolk (with W. M. Hind, 1889), and (1855, 1865) some inscriptions found in Crete by T. A. B. Spratt, the explorer of the island. In addition to contributing to various classical and scientific journals, he catalogued the classical MSS. in the University Library and the Greek and English coins in the Fitzwilliam museum.

BABIRUSA ("pig-deer"), the Malay name of the wild swine of Celebes and Buru, which has been adopted in zoology as the scientific designation of this remarkable animal (the only representative of its genus), in the form of Babirusa alfurus. The skin is nearly naked, and very rough and rugged. The total number of teeth is 34, with the formula i.2/3. c.1/1. p.2/3. m.3/3. The molars, and more especially the last, are smaller and simpler than in the pigs of the genus Sus, but the peculiarity of this genus is the extraordinary development of the canines, or tusks, of the male. These teeth are ever-growing, long, slender and curved, and without enamel. Those of the upper jaw are directed upwards from their bases, so that they never enter the mouth, but pierce the skin of the face, thus resembling horns rather than teeth; they curve backwards, downwards, and finally often forwards again, almost or quite touching the forehead. Dr A. R. Wallace remarks that "it is difficult to understand what can be the use of these horn-like teeth. Some of the old writers supposed that they served as hooks by which the creature could rest its head on a branch. But the way in which they usually diverge just over and in front of the eye has suggested the more probable idea, that they serve to guard these organs from thorns and spines while hunting for fallen fruits among the tangled thickets of rattans and other spiny plants. Even this, however, is not satisfactory, for the female, who must seek her food in the same way, does not possess them. I should be inclined to believe rather that these tusks were once useful, and were then worn down as fast as they grew, but that changed conditions of life have rendered them unnecessary, and they now develop into a monstrous form, just as the incisors of the beaver and rabbit will go on growing if the opposite teeth do not wear them away. In old animals they reach an enormous size, and are generally broken off as if by fighting." On this latter view we may regard the tusks of the male babirusa as examples of redundant development, analogous to that of the single pair of lower teeth in some of the beaked whales. Unlike ordinary wild pigs, the babirusa produces uniformly coloured young. (See Swine.)

(R. L.*)

BABOON (from the Fr. babuin, which is itself derived from Babon, the Egyptian deity to whom it was sacred), properly the designation of the long-muzzled, medium-tailed Egyptian monkey, scientifically known as Papio anubis; in a wider sense applied to all the members of the genus Papio (formerly known as Cynocephalus) now confined to Africa and Arabia, although in past times extending into India. Baboons are for the most part large terrestrial monkeys with short or medium-sized tails, and long naked dog-like muzzles, in the truncated extremity of which are pierced the nostrils. As a rule, they frequent barren rocky districts in large droves, and are exceedingly fierce and dangerous to approach. They have large cheek-pouches, large naked callosities, often brightly coloured, on the buttocks, and short thick limbs, adapted rather to walking than to climbing. Their diet includes practically everything eatable they can capture or kill. The typical representative of the genus is the yellow baboon (P. cynocephalus, or babuin), distinguished by its small size and grooved muzzle, and ranging from Abyssinia to the Zambezi. The above-mentioned anubis baboon, P. anubis (with the subspecies neumanni, pruinosus, heuglini and doguera), ranging from Egypt all through tropical Africa, together with P. sphinx, P. olivaceus, the Abyssinian P. lydekkeri, and the chacma, P. porcarius of the Cape, represent the subgenus Choeropithecus. The named Arabian baboon, P. hamadryas of North Africa and Arabia, dedicated by the ancient Egyptians to the god Thoth, and the South Arabian P. arabicus, typify Hamadryas; while the drill and mandrill of the west coast, P. leucophaeus and P. maimon, constitute the subgenus Maimon. The anubis baboons, as shown by the frescoes, were tamed by the ancient Egyptians and trained to pluck sycamore-figs from the trees. (See Primates; Chacma; Drill; Gelada and Mandrill).

(R. L.*)

BABRIUS, author of a collection of fables written in Greek. Practically nothing is known of him. He is supposed to have been a Roman, whose gentile name was possibly Valerius, living in the East, probably in Syria, where the fables seem first to have gained popularity. The address to "a son of King Alexander" has caused much speculation, with the result that dates varying between the 3rd century B.C. and the 3rd century A.D. have been assigned to Babrius. The Alexander referred to may have been Alexander Severus (A.D. 222-235), who was fond of having literary men of all kinds about his court. "The son of Alexander" has further been identified with a certain Branchus mentioned in the fables, and it is suggested that Babrius may have been his tutor; probably, however, Branchus is a purely fictitious name. There is no mention of Babrius in ancient writers before the beginning of the 3rd century A.D., and his language and style seem to show that he belonged to that period. The first critic who made Babrius more than a mere name was Richard Bentley, in his Dissertation on the Fables of Aesop. In a careful examination of these prose Aesopian fables, which had been handed down in various collections from the time of Maximus Planudes, Bentley discovered traces of versification, and was able to extract a number of verses which he assigned to Babrius. Tyrwhitt (De Babrio, 1776) followed up the researches of Bentley, and for some time the efforts of scholars were directed towards reconstructing the metrical original of the prose fables. In 1842 M. Minas, a Greek, the discoverer of the Philosophoumena of Hippolytus, came upon a MS. of Babrius in the convent of St Laura on Mount Athos, now in the British Museum. This MS. contained 123 fables out of the supposed original number, 160. They are arranged alphabetically, but break off at the letter O. The fables are written in choliambic, i.e. limping or imperfect iambic verse, having a spondee as the last foot, a metre originally appropriated to satire. The style is extremely good, the expression being terse and pointed, the versification correct and elegant, and the construction of the stories is fully equal to that in the prose versions. The genuineness of this collection of the fables was generally admitted by scholars. In 1857 Minas professed to have discovered at Mount Athos another MS. containing 94 fables and a preface. As the monks refused to sell this MS., he made a copy of it, which was sold to the British Museum, and was published in 1859 by Sir G. Cornewall Lewis. This, however, was soon proved to be a forgery. Six more fables were brought to light by P. Knöll from a Vatican MS. (edited by A. Eberhard, Analecta Babriana, 1879).

Editions.—Boissonade (1844); Lachmann (1845); Schneider (1853); Eberhard (1876); Gitlbauer (1882); Rutherford (1883); Knöll, Fabularum Babrianarum Paraphrasis Bodleiana (1877); Feuillet (1890); Desrousseaux (1890); Passerat (1892); Croiset (1892); Crusius (1897). See also Mantels, Über die Fabeln des B. (1840); Crusius, De Babrii Aetate (1879); Ficus, De Babrii Vita (1889); J. Weiner, Quaestiones Babrianae (1891); Conington, Miscellaneous Writings, ii. 460-491; Marchiano, Babrio (1899); Fusci, Babrio (1901); Christoffersson, Studia de Fabulis Babrianis (1901). There are translations in English by Davies (1860) and in French by Levèque (1890), and in many other languages.

BABU, a native Indian clerk. The word is really a term of respect attached to a proper name, like "master" or "Mr," and Babu-ji is still used in many parts of India, meaning "sir"; but without the suffix the word itself is now generally used contemptuously as signifying a semi-literate native, with a mere veneer of modern education.

BABY-FARMING, a term meaning generally the taking in of infants to nurse for payment, but usually with an implication of improper treatment. Previous to the year 1871 the abuse of the practice of baby-farming in England had grown to an alarming extent, while the trials of Margaret Waters and Mary Hall called attention to the infamous relations between the lying-in houses and the baby-farming houses of London. The evil was, no doubt, largely connected with the question of illegitimacy, for there was a wide-spread existence of baby-farms where children were received without question on payment of a lump sum. Such children were nearly all illegitimate, and in these cases it was to the pecuniary advantage of the baby-farmer to hasten the death of the child. It had become also the practice for factory operatives and mill-hands to place out their children by the day, and since in many cases the children were looked upon as a burden and a drain on their parents' resources, too particular inquiry was not always made as to the mode in which the children were cared for. The form was gone through too of paying a ridiculously insufficient sum for the maintenance of the child. In 1871 the House of Commons found it necessary to appoint a select committee "to inquire as to the best means of preventing the destruction of the lives of infants put out to nurse for hire by their parents." "Improper and insufficient food," said the committee, "opiates, drugs, crowded rooms, bad air, want of cleanliness, and wilful neglect are sure to be followed in a few months by diarrhoea, convulsions and wasting away." These unfortunate children were nearly all illegitimate, and the mere fact of their being hand-nursed, and not breast-nursed, goes some way (according to the experience of the Foundling hospital and the Magdalene home) to explain the great mortality among them. Such children, when nursed by their mothers in the workhouse, generally live. The practical result of the committee of 1871 was the act of 1872, which provided for the compulsory registration of all houses in which more than one child under the age of one year were received for a longer period than twenty-four hours. No licence was granted by the justices of the peace, unless the house was suitable for the purpose, and its owner a person of good character and able to maintain the children. Offences against the act, including wilful neglect of the children even in a suitable house, were punishable by a fine of £5 or six months' imprisonment with or without hard labour. In 1896 a select committee of the House of Lords sat and reported on the working of this act. In consequence of this report the act of 1872 was repealed and superseded by the Infant Life Protection Act 1897, which did away with the system of registration and substituted for it one of notice to a supervening authority. By the act all persons retaining or receiving for hire more than one infant under the age of five had to give written notice of the fact to the local authority. The local authorities were empowered to appoint inspectors, and required to arrange for the periodical inspection of infants so taken in, while they could also fix the number of infants which might be retained. By a special clause any person receiving an infant under the age of two years for a sum of money not exceeding twenty pounds had to give notice of the fact to the local authority. If any infants were improperly kept, the inspector might obtain an order for their removal to a work-house or place of safety until restored to their parents or guardians, or otherwise legally disposed of. The act of 1897 was repealed and amended by the Children Act 1908, which codified the law relating to children, and added many new provisions. This act is dealt with in the article Children, Law relating to.

In the United States the law is noticeably strict in most states. In Massachusetts, a law of 1891 directs that "every person who receives for board, or for the purpose of procuring adoption, an infant under the age of three years shall use diligence to ascertain whether or not such infant is illegitimate, and if he knows or has reason to believe it to be illegitimate shall forthwith notify the State Board of Charity of the fact of such reception; and said board and its officers or agents may enter and inspect any building where they may have reason to believe that any such illegitimate infant is boarded, and remove such infant when, in their judgment, such removal is necessary by reason of neglect, abuse or other causes, in order to preserve the infant's life, and such infant so removed shall be in the custody of said Board of Charity, which shall make provision therefor according to law." The penal code of the state of New York requires a licence for baby-farming to be issued by the board of health of the city or town where such children are boarded or kept, and "every person so licensed must keep a register wherein he shall enter the names and ages of all such children, and of all children born on such premises, and the names and residences of their parents, as far as known, the time of reception and the discharge of such children, and the reasons therefor, and also a correct register of every child under five years of age who is given out, adopted, taken away, or indentured from such place to or by any one, together with the name and residence of the person so adopting" (Pen. Code, § 288, subsec. 4).

Persons neglecting children may be prosecuted under § 289 of the N.Y. penal code, which provides that any person who "wilfully causes or permits the life or limb of any child, actually or apparently under the age of sixteen years, to be endangered, or its health to be injured, or its morals to become depraved ... is guilty of a misdemeanour."

In Australia particular care has been taken by most of the states to prevent the evils of baby-farming. In South Australia there is a State Children's Council, which, under the State Children Act of 1895, has large powers with respect to the oversight of infants under two years boarded out by their mother. "Foster-mothers," as the women who take in infants as boarders are called, must be licensed, while the number of children authorized to be kept by the foster-mother is fixed by licence; every licensed foster-mother must keep a register containing the name, age and place of birth of every child received by her, the names, addresses and description of the parents, or of any person other than the parents from or to whom the child was received or delivered over, the date of receipt or delivery over, particulars of any accident to or illness of the child, and the name of the medical practitioner (if any) by whom attended. In New South Wales the Children's Protection Act of 1892, with the amendments of 1902, requires the same state supervision over the homes in which children are boarded out, with licensing of foster-mothers. In Victoria an act was passed in 1890 for "making better provision for the protection of infant life." In New Zealand, there is legislation to the same effect by the "Adoption of Children Act 1895" and the "Infant Life Protection Act 1896."

Baby is a diminutive or pet form of "babe," now chiefly used in poetry or scriptural language. "Babe" is probably a form of the earlier baban, a reduplicated form of the infant sound ba.

BABYLON (mod. Hillah), an ancient city on the left bank of the Euphrates, about 70 m. S. of Bagdad. "Babylon" is the Greek form of Babel or Bab-ili, "the gate of the god" (sometimes incorrectly written "of the gods"), which again is the Semitic translation of the original Sumerian name Ka-dimirra. The god was probably Merodach or Marduk (q.v.), the divine patron of the city. In an inscription of the Kassite conqueror Gaddas the name appears as Ba-ba-lam, as if from the Assyrian babalu, "to bring"; another foreign Volksetymologie is found in Genesis xi. 9, from balbal, "to confound." A second name of the city, which perhaps originally denoted a separate village or quarter, was Su-anna, and in later inscriptions it is often represented ideographically by E-ki, the pronunciation and meaning of which are uncertain. One of its oldest names, however, was Din-tir, of which the poets were especially fond; Din-tir signifies in Sumerian "the life of the forest," though a native lexicon translates it "seat of life." Uru-azagga, "the holy city," was also a title sometimes applied to Babylon as to other cities in Babylonia. Ka-dimirra, the Semitic Bab-ili, probably denoted at first E-Saggila, "the house of the lofty head," the temple dedicated to Bel-Merodach, along with its immediate surroundings. Like the other great sanctuaries of Babylonia the temple had been founded in pre-Semitic times, and the future Babylon grew up around it. Since Merodach was the son of Ea, the culture god of Eridu near Ur on the Persian Gulf, it is possible that Babylon was a colony of Eridu. Adjoining Babylon was a town called Borsippa (q.v.).

The earliest mention of Babylon is in a dated tablet of the reign of Sargon of Akkad (3800 B.C.), who is stated to have built sanctuaries there to Anunit and Aē (or Ea), and H. Winckler may be right in restoring a mutilated passage in the annals of this king so as to make it mean that Babylon owed its name to Sargon, who made it the capital of his empire. If so, it fell back afterwards into the position of a mere provincial town and remained so for centuries, until it became the capital of "the first dynasty of Babylon" and then of Khammurabi's empire (2250 B.C.). From this time onward it continued to be the capital of Babylonia and the holy city of western Asia. The claim to supremacy in Asia, however real in fact, was not admitted de jure until the claimant had "taken the hands" of Bel-Merodach at Babylon, and thereby been accepted as his adopted son and the inheritor of the old Babylonian empire. It was this which made Tiglath-pileser III. and other Assyrian kings so anxious to possess themselves of Babylon and so to legitimize their power. Sennacherib alone seems to have failed in securing the support of the Babylonian priesthood; at all events he never underwent the ceremony, and Babylonia throughout his reign was in a constant state of revolt which was finally suppressed only by the complete destruction of the capital. In 689 B.C. its walls, temples and palaces were razed to the ground and the rubbish thrown into the Arakhtu, the canal which bordered the earlier Babylon on the south. The act shocked the religious conscience of western Asia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib was held to be an expiation of it, and his successor Esar-haddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death Babylonia was left to his elder son Samas-sum-yukin, who eventually headed a revolt against his brother Assur-bani-pal of Assyria. Once more Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians and starved into surrender. Assur-bani-pal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation," but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian empire the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance.

With the recovery of Babylonian independence under Nabopolassar a new era of architectural activity set in, and his son Nebuchadrezzar made Babylon one of the wonders of the ancient world. It surrendered without a struggle to Cyrus, but two sieges in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, and one in the reign of Xerxes, brought about the destruction of the defences, while the monotheistic rule of Persia allowed the temples to fall into decay. Indeed part of the temple of E-Saggila, which like other ancient temples served as a fortress, was intentionally pulled down by Xerxes after his capture of the city. Alexander was murdered in the palace of Nebuchadrezzar, which must therefore have been still standing, and cuneiform texts show that, even under the Seleucids, E-Saggila was not wholly a ruin. The foundation of Seleucia in its neighbourhood, however, drew away the population of the old city and hastened its material decay. A tablet dated 275 B.C. states that on the 12th of Nisan the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to the new town, where a palace was built as well as a temple to which the ancient name of E-Saggila was given. With this event the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later we find sacrifices being still performed in its old sanctuary.

Our knowledge of its topography is derived from the classical writers, the inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar, and the excavations of the Deutsche Orientgesellschaft, which were begun in 1899. The topography is necessarily that of the Babylon of Nebuchadrezzar; the older Babylon which was destroyed by Sennacherib having left few, if any, traces behind. Most of the existing remains lie on the E. bank of the Euphrates, the principal being three vast mounds, the Babil to the north, the Qasr or "Palace" (also known as the Mujelliba) in the centre, and the Ishān ‛Amran ibn ‛Ali, with the outlying spur of the Jumjuma, to the south. Eastward of these come the Ishān el-Aswad or "Black Mound" and three lines of rampart, one of which encloses the Babil mound on the N. and E. sides, while a third forms a triangle with the S.E. angle of the other two. W. of the Euphrates are other ramparts and the remains of the ancient Borsippa.

We learn from Herodotus and Ctesias that the city was built on both sides of the river in the form of a square, and enclosed within a double row of lofty walls to which Ctesias adds a third. Ctesias makes the outermost wall 360 stades (42 m.) in circumference, while according to Herodotus it measured 480 stades (56 m.), which would include an area of about 200 sq. m. The estimate of Ctesias is essentially the same as that of Q. Curtius (v. 1. 26), 368 stades, and Clitarchus (ap. Diod. Sic. ii. 7), 365 stades; Strabo (xvi. 1. 5) makes it 385 stades. But even the estimate of Ctesias, assuming the stade to be its usual length, would imply an area of about 100 sq. m. According to Herodotus the height of the walls was about 335 ft. and their width 85 ft; according to Ctesias the height was about 300 ft. The measurements seem exaggerated, but we must remember that even in Xenophon's time (Anab. iii. 4. 10) the ruined wall of Nineveh was still 150 ft high, and that the spaces between the 250 towers of the wall of Babylon (Ctes. 417, ap. Diod. ii. 7) were broad enough to let a four-horse chariot turn (Herod. i. 179). The clay dug from the moat served to make the bricks of the wall, which had 100 gates, all of bronze, with bronze lintels and posts. The two inner enclosures were faced with enamelled tiles and represented hunting-scenes. Two other walls ran along the banks of the Euphrates and the quays with which it was lined, each containing 25 gates which answered to the number of streets they led into. Ferry-boats plied between the landing-places of the gates, and a movable drawbridge (30 ft. broad), supported on stone piers, joined the two parts of the city together.

The account thus given of the walls must be grossly exaggerated and cannot have been that of an eye-witness. Moreover, the two walls—Imgur-Bel, the inner wall, and Nimitti-Bel, the outer—which enclosed the city proper on the site of the older Babylon have been confused with the outer ramparts (enclosing the whole of Nebuchadrezzar's city), the remains of which can still be traced to the east. According to Nebuchadrezzar, Imgur-Bel was built in the form of a square, each side of which measured "30 aslu by the great cubit"; this would be equivalent, if Professor F. Hommel is right, to 2400 metres. Four thousand cubits to the east the great rampart was built "mountain high," which surrounded both the old and the new town; it was provided with a moat, and a reservoir was excavated in the triangle on the inner side of its south-east corner, the western wall of which is still visible. The Imgur-Bel of Sargon's time has been discovered by the German excavators running south of the Qasr from the Euphrates to the Gate of Ishtar.

The German excavations have shown that the Qasr mound represents both the old palace of Nabopolassar, and the new palace adjoining it built by Nebuchadrezzar, the wall of which he boasts of having completed in 15 days. They have also laid bare the site of the "Gate of Ishtar" on the east side of the mound and the little temple of Nin-Makh (Beltis) beyond it, as well as the raised road for solemn processions (A-ibur-sabu) which led from the Gate of Ishtar to E-Saggila and skirted the east side of the palace. The road was paved with stone and its walls on either side lined with enamelled tiles, on which a procession of lions is represented. North of the mound was a canal, which seems to have been the Libilkhegal of the inscriptions, while on the south side was the Arakhtu, "the river of Babylon," the brick quays of which were built by Nabopolassar.

The site of E-Saggila is still uncertain. The German excavators assign it to the ‛Amrān mound, its tower having stood in a depression immediately to the north of this, and so place it south of the Qasr; but E. Lindl and F. Hommel have put forward strong reasons for considering it to have been north of the latter, on a part of the site which has not yet been explored. A tablet copied by George Smith gives us interesting details as to the plan and dimensions of this famous temple of Bel; a plan based on these will be found in Hommel's Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients, p. 321. There were three courts, the outer or great court, the middle court of Ishtar and Zamama, and the inner court on the east side of which was the tower of seven stages (known as the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth), 90 metres high according to Hommel's calculation of the measurements in the tablet; while on the west side was the temple proper of Merodach and his wife Sarpanit or Zarpanit, as well as chapels of Anu, Ea and Bel on either side of it. A winding ascent led to the summit of the tower, where there was a chapel, containing, according to Herodotus, a couch and golden table (for the showbread) but no image. The golden image of Merodach 40 ft. high, stood in the temple below, in the sanctuary called E-Kua or "House of the Oracle," together with a table, a mercy-seat and an altar—all of gold. The deities whose chapels were erected within the precincts of the temple enclosure were regarded as forming his court. Fifty-five of these chapels existed altogether in Babylon, but some of them stood independently in other parts of the city.

There are numerous gates in the walls both of E-Saggila and of the city, the names of many of which are now known. Nebuchadrezzar says that he covered the walls of some of them with blue enamelled tiles "on which bulls and dragons were pourtrayed," and that he set up large bulls and serpents of bronze on their thresholds.

The Babil mound probably represents the site of a palace built by Nebuchadrezzar at the northern extremity of the city walls and attached to a defensive outwork 60 cubits in length. Since H. Rassam found remains of irrigation works here it might well be the site of the Hanging Gardens. These consisted, we are told, of a garden of trees and flowers, built on the topmost of a series of arches some 75 ft. high, and in the form of a square, each side of which measured 400 Greek ft. Water was raised from the Euphrates by means of a screw (Strabo xvi. 1. 5; Diod. ii. 10. 6). In the Jumjuma mound at the southern extremity of the old city the contract and other business tablets of the Egibi firm were found.

See C. J. Rich, Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon (1816), and Collected Memoirs (1839); A. H. Layard, Nineveh and Babylon (1853); C. P. Tiele, De Hoofdtempel van Babel (1886); A. H. Sayce, Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, App. ii. (1887); C. J. Ball in Records of the Past (new ser. iii. 1890); Mittheilungen der deutschen Orientgesellschaft (1899-1906); F. Delitzsch, Im Lande des einstigen Paradieses (1903); F. H. Weissbach, Das Stadtbild von Babylon (1904); F. Hommel, Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients (1904).

(A. H. S.)

BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. I. Geography.—Geographically as well as ethnologically and historically, the whole district enclosed between the two great rivers of western Asia, the Tigris and Euphrates, forms but one country. The writers of antiquity clearly recognized this fact, speaking of the whole under the general name of Assyria, though Babylonia, as will be seen, would have been a more accurate designation. It naturally falls into two divisions, the northern being more or less mountainous, while the southern is flat and marshy; the near approach of the two rivers to one another, at a spot where the undulating plateau of the north sinks suddenly into the Babylonian alluvium, tends to separate them still more completely. In the earliest times of which we have any record, the northern portion was included in Mesopotamia; it was definitely marked off as Assyria only after the rise of the Assyrian monarchy. With the exception of Assur, the original capital, the chief cities of the country, Nineveh, Calah and Arbela, were all on the left bank of the Tigris. The reason of this preference for the eastern bank of the Tigris was due to its abundant supply of water, whereas the great Mesopotamian plain on the western side had to depend upon the streams which flowed into the Euphrates. This vast flat, the modern El-Jezireh, is about 250 miles in length, interrupted only by a single limestone range, rising abruptly out of the plain, and branching off from the Zagros mountains under the names of Sarazūr, Hamrin and Sinjar. The numerous remains of old habitations show how thickly this level tract must once have been peopled, though now for the most part a wilderness. North of the plateau rises a well-watered and undulating belt of country, into which run low ranges of limestone hills, sometimes arid, sometimes covered with dwarf-oak, and often shutting in, between their northern and north-eastern flank and the main mountain-line from which they detach themselves, rich plains and fertile valleys. Behind them tower the massive ridges of the Niphates and Zagros ranges, where the Tigris and Euphrates take their rise, and which cut off Assyria from Armenia and Kurdistan.

The name Assyria itself was derived from that of the city of Assur (q.v.) or Asur, now Qal`at Sherqat (Kaleh Shergat), which stood on the right bank of the Tigris, midway between the Greater and the Lesser Zab. It remained the capital long after the Assyrians had become the dominant power in western Asia, but was finally supplanted by Calah (Nimrūd), Nineveh (Nebi Yunus and Kuyunjik), and Dur-Sargina (Khorsabad), some 60 m. farther north (see Nineveh).

In contrast with the arid plateau of Mesopotamia, stretched the rich alluvial plain of Chaldaea, formed by the deposits of the two great rivers by which it was enclosed. The soil was extremely fertile, and teemed with an industrious population. Eastward rose the mountains of Elam, southward were the sea-marshes and the Kaldā or Chaldaeans and other Aramaic tribes, while on the west the civilization of Babylonia encroached beyond the banks of the Euphrates, upon the territory of the Semitic nomads (or Suti). Here stood Ur (Mugheir, more correctly Muqayyar) the earliest capital of the country; and Babylon, with its suburb, Borsippa (Birs Nimrūd), as well as the two Sipparas (the Sepharvaim of Scripture, now Abu Habba), occupied both the Arabian and Chaldaean sides of the river (see Babylon). The Arakhtu, or "river of Babylon," flowed past the southern side of the city, and to the south-west of it on the Arabian bank lay the great inland freshwater sea of Nejef, surrounded by red sandstone cliffs of considerable height, 40 m. in length and 35 in breadth in the widest part. Above and below this sea, from Borsippa to Kufa, extend the famous Chaldaean marshes, where Alexander was nearly lost (Arrian, Exp. Al. vii. 22; Strab. xvi. 1, § 12); but these depend upon the state of the Hindiya canal, disappearing altogether when it is closed.

Eastward of the Euphrates and southward of Sippara, Kutha and Babylon were Kis (Uhaimir, 9 m. E. of Hillah), Nippur (Niffer)—where stood the great sanctuary of El-lil, the older Bel—Uruk or Erech (Warka) and Larsa (Senkera) with its temple of the sun-god, while eastward of the Shatt el-Hai, probably the ancient channel of the Tigris, was Lagash (Tello), which played an important part in early Babylonian history. The primitive seaport of the country, Eridu, the seat of the worship of Ea the culture-god, was a little south of Ur (at Abu Shahrain or Nowāwis on the west side of the Euphrates). It is now about 130 m. distant from the sea; as about 46 m. of land have been formed by the silting up of the shore since the foundation of Spasinus Charax (Muhamrah) in the time of Alexander the Great, or some 115 ft. a year, the city would have been in existence at least 6000 years ago. The marshes in the south like the adjoining desert were frequented by Aramaic tribes; of these the most famous were the Kaldā or Chaldaeans who under Merodach-baladan made themselves masters of Babylon and gave their name in later days to the whole population of the country. The combined stream of the Euphrates and Tigris as it flowed through the marshes was known to the Babylonians as the nār marrati, "the salt river" (cp. Jer. l. 21), a name originally applied to the Persian Gulf.

The alluvial plain of Babylonia was called Edin, the Eden of Gen. ii., though the name was properly restricted to "the plain" on the western bank of the river where the Bedouins pastured the flocks of their Babylonian masters. This "bank" or kisad, together with the corresponding western bank of the Tigris (according to Hommel the modern Shatt el-Hai), gave its name to the land of Chesed, whence the Kasdim of the Old Testament. In the early inscriptions of Lagash the whole district is known as Gu-Edinna, the Sumerian equivalent of the Semitic Kisad Edini. The coast-land was similarly known as Gu-ābba (Semitic Kisad tamtim), the "bank of the sea." A more comprehensive name of southern Babylonia was Kengi, "the land," or Kengi Sumer, "the land of Sumer," for which Sumer alone came afterwards to be used. Sumer has been supposed to be the original of the Biblical Shinar; but Shinar represented northern rather than southern Babylonia, and was probably the Sankhar of the Tell el-Amarna tablets (but see Sumer). Opposed to Kengi and Sumer were Urra (Uri) and Akkad or northern Babylonia. The original meaning of Urra was perhaps "clayey soil," but it came to signify "the upper country" or "highlands," kengi being "the lowlands." In Semitic times Urra was pronounced Uri and confounded with uru, "city"; as a geographical term, however, it was replaced by Akkadu (Akkad), the Semitic form of Agadē—written Akkattim in the Elamite inscriptions—the name of the elder Sargon's capital, which must have stood close to Sippara, if indeed it was not a quarter of Sippara itself. The rise of Sargon's empire was doubtless the cause of this extension of the name of Akkad; from henceforward, in the imperial title, "Sumer and Akkad" denoted the whole of Babylonia. After the Kassite conquest of the country, northern Babylonia came to be known as Kar-Duniyas, "the wall of the god Duniyas," from a line of fortification similar to that built by Nebuchadrezzar between Sippara and Opis, so as to defend his kingdom from attacks from the north. As this last was "the Wall of Semiramis" mentioned by Strabo (xi. 14. 8), Kar-Duniyas may have represented the Median Wall of Xenophon (Anab. ii. 4. 12), traces of which were found by F. R. Chesney extending from Faluja to Jibbar.

The country was thickly studded with towns, the sites of which are still represented by mounds, though the identification of most of them is still doubtful. The latest to be identified are Bismya, between Nippur and Erech, which recent American excavations have proved to be the site of Udab (also called Adab and Usab) and the neighbouring Fāra, the site of the ancient Kisurra. The dense population was due to the elaborate irrigation of the Babylonian plain which had originally reclaimed it from a pestiferous and uninhabitable swamp and had made it the most fertile country in the world. The science of irrigation and engineering seems to have been first created in Babylonia, which was covered by a network of canals, all skilfully planned and regulated. The three chief of them carried off the waters of the Euphrates to the Tigris above Babylon,—the Zabzallat canal (or Nahr Sarsar) running from Faluja to Ctesiphon, the Kutha canal from Sippara to Madain, passing Tell Ibrahim or Kutha on the way, and the King's canal or Ar-Malcha between the other two. This last, which perhaps owed its name to Khammurabi, was conducted from the Euphrates towards Upi or Opis, which has been shown by H. Winckler (Altorientalische Forschungen, ii. pp. 509 seq.) to have been close to Seleucia on the western side of the Tigris. The Pallacopas, called Pallukkatu in the Neo-Babylonian texts, started from Pallukkatu or Faluja, and running parallel to the western bank of the Euphrates as far as Iddaratu or Teredon (?) watered an immense tract of land and supplied a large lake near Borsippa. B. Meissner may be right in identifying it with "the Canal of the Sun-god" of the early texts. Thanks to this system of irrigation the cultivation of the soil was highly advanced in Babylonia. According to Herodotus (i. 193) wheat commonly returned two hundred-fold to the sower, and occasionally three hundred-fold. Pliny (H. N. xviii. 17) states that it was cut twice, and afterwards was good keep for sheep, and Berossus remarked that wheat, sesame, barley, ochrys, palms, apples and many kinds of shelled fruit grew wild, as wheat still does in the neighbourhood of Anah. A Persian poem celebrated the 360 uses of the palm (Strabo xvi. 1. 14), and Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiv. 3) says that from the point reached by Julian's army to the shores of the Persian Gulf was one continuous forest of verdure.

II. Classical Authorities.—Such a country was naturally fitted to be a pioneer of civilization. Before the decipherment of the cuneiform texts our knowledge of its history, however, was scanty and questionable. Had the native history of Berossus survived, this would not have been the case; all that is known of the Chaldaean historian's work, however, is derived from quotations in Josephus, Ptolemy, Eusebius and the Syncellus. The authenticity of his list of 10 antediluvian kings who reigned for 120 sari or 432,000 years, has been partially confirmed by the inscriptions; but his 8 postdiluvian dynasties are difficult to reconcile with the monuments, and the numbers attached to them are probably corrupt. It is different with the 7th and 8th dynasties as given by Ptolemy in the Almagest, which prove to have been faithfully recorded:—

1. Nabonassar (747 B.C.)

14 years

2. Nadios

2 "

3. Khinziros and Poros (Pul)

5 "

4. Ilulaeos

5 "

5. Mardokempados (Merodach-Baladan)

12 "

6. Arkeanos (Sargon)

5 "

7. Interregnum

2 "

8. Hagisa

1 month

9. Belibos (702 B.C.)

3 years

10. Assaranadios (Assur-nadin-sum)

6 "

11. Rēgebelos

1 year

12. Mesēsimordakos

4 years

13. Interregnum

8 "

14. Asaridinos (Esar-haddon)

13 "

15. Saosdukhinos (Savul-sum-yukin)

20 "

16. Sinēladanos (Assur-bani-pal)

22 "

The account of Babylon given by Herodotus is not that of an eye-witness, and his historical notices are meagre and untrustworthy. He was controverted by Ctesias, who, however, has mistaken mythology for history, and Greek romance owed to him its Ninus and Semiramis, its Ninyas and Sardanapalus. The only ancient authority of value on Babylonian and Assyrian history is the Old Testament.

III. Modern Discovery.—The excavations of P. E. Botta and A. H. Layard at Nineveh opened up a new world, coinciding as they did with the successful decipherment of the cuneiform system of writing. Layard's discovery of the library of Assur-bani-pal put the materials for reconstructing the ancient life and history of Assyria and Babylonia into the hands of scholars. He also was the first to excavate in Babylonia, where C. J. Rich had already done useful topographical work. Layard's excavations in this latter country were continued by W. K. Loftus, who also opened trenches at Susa, as well as by J. Oppert on behalf of the French government. But it was only in the last quarter of the 19th century that anything like systematic exploration was attempted. After the death of George Smith at Aleppo in 1876, an expedition was sent by the British Museum (1877-1879), under the conduct of Hormuzd Rassam, to continue his work at Nineveh and its neighbourhood. Excavations in the mounds of Balawāt, called Imgur-Bel by the Assyrians, 15 m. east of Mosul, resulted in the discovery of a small temple dedicated to the god of dreams by Assur-nazir-pal III. (883 B.C.), containing a stone coffer or ark in which were two inscribed tables of alabaster of rectangular shape, as well as of a palace which had been destroyed by the Babylonians but restored by Shalmaneser II. (858 B.C.). From the latter came the bronze gates with hammered reliefs, which are now in the British Museum. The remains of a palace of Assur-nazir-pal III. at Nimrūd (Calah) were also excavated, and hundreds of enamelled tiles were disinterred. Two years later (1880-1881) Rassam was sent to Babylonia, where he discovered the site of the temple of the sun-god of Sippara at Abu-Habba, and so fixed the position of the two Sipparas or Sepharvaim. Abu-Habba lies south-west of Bagdad, midway between the Euphrates and Tigris, on the south side of a canal, which may once have represented the main stream of the Euphrates, Sippara of the goddess Anunit, now Dēr, being on its opposite bank.

Meanwhile (1877-1881) the French consul, de Sarzec, had been excavating at Tello, the ancient Lagash, and bringing to light monuments of the pre-Semitic age, which included the diorite statues of Gudea now in the Louvre, the stone of which, according to the inscriptions upon them, had been brought from Magan, the Sinaitic peninsula. The subsequent excavations of de Sarzec in Tello and its neighbourhood carried the history of the city back to at least 4000 B.C., and a collection of more than 30,000 tablets has been found, which were arranged on shelves in the time of Gudea (c. 2700 B.C.). In 1886-1887 a German expedition under Dr Koldewey explored the cemetery of El Hibba (immediately to the south of Tello), and for the first time made us acquainted with the burial customs of ancient Babylonia. Another German expedition, on a large scale, was despatched by the Orientgesellschaft in 1899 with the object of exploring the ruins of Babylon; the palace of Nebuchadrezzar and the great processional road were laid bare, and Dr W. Andrae subsequently conducted excavations at Qal`at Sherqat, the site of Assur. Even the Turkish government has not held aloof from the work of exploration, and the Museum at Constantinople is filled with the tablets discovered by Dr V. Scheil in 1897 on the site of Sippara. J. de Morgan's exceptionally important work at Susa lies outside the limits of Babylonia; not so, however, the American excavations (1903-1904) under E. J. Banks at Bismya (Udab), and those of the university of Pennsylvania at Niffer (see Nippur) first begun in 1889, where Mr J. H. Haynes has systematically and patiently uncovered the remains of the great temple of El-lil, removing layer after layer of débris and cutting sections in the ruins down to the virgin soil. Midway in the mound is a platform of large bricks stamped with the names of Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-Sin (3800 B.C.); as the débris above them is 34 ft. thick, the topmost stratum being not later than the Parthian era (H. V. Hilprecht, The Babylonian Expedition, i. 2, p. 23), it is calculated that the débris underneath the pavement, 30 ft. thick, must represent a period of about 3000 years, more especially as older constructions had to be levelled before the pavement was laid. In the deepest part of the excavations, however, inscribed clay tablets and fragments of stone vases are still found, though the cuneiform characters upon them are of a very archaic type, and sometimes even retain their primitive pictorial forms.