close of the reign of George III., about four thousand inclosure bills were passed. Under these allotments were made, not to the occupier, but the owner of a cottage, and this compensation for the extinguished common right generally benefited only the large landholder; and when this was not the case, the cottager was tempted by a high price offered by his richer neighbours, or driven by the abuses of the old poor-law, to part with his patch of land.

So long as the labourer can obtain fair wages, he can obtain the chief necessaries of life, yet it happens that in most parts of the country he would be unable to procure any other description of vegetables, except potatoes, unless he had a garden attached to his cottage. The cottager's garden should be large enough to enable him to grow sufficient vegetables of all kinds for his own consumption; though if potatoes for winter storing can be purchased from his employer, or grown under the usual conditions on a patch of his employer's land, it will be as profitable as growing them himself, that is, if he is in full employment and obtains piece-work at good wages. The necessity for cultivating the land on his own account, further than for the purpose of raising sufficient vegetables for his own consumption, and of resorting to what is understood by the allotment system, is, in proportion to its urgency, an indication of the low position of the agricultural labourer, and proves either that he has not constant employment or that his wages are very low. If he has sunk to this inferior state, and there are no other means of increasing his resources, the allotment system is then an expedient deserving of attention; but it should be understood that, in an economical sense, it is a more satisfactory state of things when the improvement in the condition of the labourer arises from the prosperity of the farmer and his ability to give higher wages. The profits of the farmer and the wages of the labourer are derived from the same source, and if the latter are reduced to a very low point, wages must be low also. When improvenient in the condition of the labourer springs from the allotment system, and not from

| the wages which he receives, it may ge nerally be assumed either that the resources of the farmer are impaired, or that the labourers are so numerous that they cannot all obtain as much work as they are capable of performing.

The question of the advantages of the allotment system may be reduced within narrow limits. If it be understood in the sense of the definition given of it at the head of this article, the object is rather moral than economical But the allotment system may also be intended, not to change the labourer into an independent cultivator, but to supply him with a means of making a living in those places where his ordinary wages are not sufficient. But, as already ob served, this implies and admits that his condition is not so good as it ought to be for his own and the general benefit. There is a superabundance of agricultural labour, or a want of sufficient capital invested in agriculture, in the place of the labourers' residence, or both causes combine to depress his condition. Now it is possible that the allotment system, if carried to any great extent, might contribute to increase the superabundance of labour, by inviting to a district more labourers than are wanted, or by giving them an inducement to marry too soon, and so ultimately to depress the condition of the labourer still further. It is no answer to this, that plots of ground have been and are cultivated by the labourer advantageously to himself and profitably to the owner. It may be admitted that circumstances in any given place may be such, that the distribution of allotments among labourers who are not fully emplayed, may be a great temporary advantage to themselves and to the neighbourhood. But a continual extension of such allotments in the same neighbourhood, though it might be called for by the wants of the labourers, would be no benefit to that neighbourhood, nor ultimately to the labourers themselves; for the end would be, that many of them would be reduced to get their entire means of subsistence out of a small plot of ground. The allotment system then, if carried to this extent, involves the question of the advantage of very small farms

his vocation, and he cannot be anything else. If he becomes half labourer and half cultivator, he runs a risk of failing in both capacities; and if he becomes a cultivator on a small scale, and with insufficient capital, he must enter into competition in the market with those who can produce cheaper than himself; or he must confine himself to a bare subsistence from his ground, with little or nothing to give in exchange for those things which he wants and cannot produce himself.

ALLOY. [COINAGE.]'

ALMANAČ. The derivation of this word has given some trouble to grammarians. The most rational derivation appears to be from the two Arabic words al, the article, and mana or manah, to

count.

An almanac, in the modern sense of the word, is an annual publication, giving the civil divisions of the year, the moveable and other feasts, and the times of the various astronomical phenomena, including not only those which are remarkable, such as the eclipses of the moon or sun, but also those of a more ordinary and useful character, such as the places of the sun, moon, and planets, the position of the principal fixed stars, the times of high and low water, and such information relative to the weather as observation has hitherto furnished. The agricultural, political, and statistical information which is usually contained in popular almanacs, though as valuable a part of the work as any, is comparatively of modern date.

It is impossible that any country in which astronomy was at all cultivated could be long without an almanac of some species. Accordingly we find the first astronomers of every age and country employed, either in their construction or improvement. The belief in astrology, which has prevailed throughout the East from time immemorial, rendered almanacs absolutely necessary, as the very foundation of the pretended science consisted in an accurate knowledge of the state of the heavens. With the almanacs, if indeed they had them not before, the above-mentioned absurdities were introduced into the West, and it is only within

these few years that astrological predictions have not been contained in nine almanacs out of ten. It is not known what were the first almanacs published in Europe. That the Alexandrine Greeks constructed them in or after the time of Ptolemy, appears from an account of Theon, the celebrated commentator upon the Almagest, in a manuscript found by M. Delambre at Paris, in which the method of arranging them is explained, and the proper materials pointed out. It is impossible to suppose that at any period almanacs were uncommon: but in the dearth of books whose names have come down to us, the earliest of which Lalande, an indefatigable bibliographer, could obtain any notice, are those of Solomon Jarchus, published in and about 1150, and of the celebrated Purbach, published 1450-1461. The almanacs of Regiomontanus, said by Bailly, in his 'History of Astronomy,' to have been the first ever published, but which it might be more correct to say ever printed, appeared between 1475 and 1506, since which time we can trace a continued chain of such productions. (Bibliographie Astronomique of Lalaude, and Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary, article Ephemeris.") The almanacs of Regiomontanus, which simply contained the eclipses and the places of the planets, were sold, it is said, for ten crowns of gold. An almanac for 1442, in manuscript, we presume, is preserved in the Bibliothèque du Roi at Paris. The almanacs of Engel of Vienna were published from 1494 to 1500, and those of Bernard de Granolachs of Barcelona, from about 1487. There are various manuscript almanacs of the fourteenth century in the libraries of the British Museum, and of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

The first astronomical almanacs published in France were those of Duret de Montbrison, in 1637, which series continued till 1700. But there must have been previous publications of some similar description; for, in 1579, an ordonnance of Henry III. forbade all makers of almanacs to prophesy, directly or indirectly, concerning the affairs either of the state or of individuals. In England James I. granted a monopoly of the trade

in almanacs to the Universities and to the Stationers' Company, and under their patronage astrology flourished till beyond the middle of the last century, but not altogether unopposed; the humorous attack of Swift, under the name of Bickerstaff, upon Partridge's almanac, is well known, both from the amusement which the public derived from the controversy and the perpetuation of the assumed surname in the Tatler.' But though Swift stopped the mouth of Partridge, he could not destroy the corporation under whose direction the almanac was published. The Stationers' Company (for the Universities were only passive, having accepted an annuity from their colleagues, and resigned any active exercise of their privilege) found another Partridge, as good a prophet as his predecessor; nor have we been without one to this day.

The Stationers' Company appears to have acted from a simple desire to give people that which would sell, whether astrological or not; and not from any peculiar turn for prophecy inherent in the corporation. Thus even in 1624 they issued at the same time the usual predictions in one almanac, and undisguised contempt of them in another, apparently to suit all tastes. The almanac of Allstree, published in the above-mentioned year, calls the supposed influence of the moon upon different members of the body "heathenish," and dissuades from astrology in the following lines, which make up in sense for their want of elegance and rhythm:

"Let every philomathy (i. e. mathematician) Leave lying Astrology, And write true Astronomy, And l'le beare you company." In 1775 a blow was struck which demolished the legal monopoly. One Thomas Carnan, a bookseller, whose name deserves honourable remembrance, had some years before detected or presumed the illegality of the exclusive right, and invaded it accordingly. The cause came before the Court of Common Pleas in the year above mentioned, and was there decided against the Company. Lord North, in 1779, brought a bill into the House of Commons to renew and legalize the privilege, but, after an able

argument by Erskine in favour of the public, the House rejected the ministerial project by a majority of 45. The absurdity and even indecency of some of these productions were fully exposed by Erskine; but the defeated monopolists managed to regain the exclusive market by purchasing the works of their competitors. The astrological and other predictions still continued; but it is some extenuation that the public, long used to predictions of the deaths of princes and falls of rain, refused to receive any almanacs which did not contain their favourite absurdities. It is said (Baily, Further remarks on the defective state of the Nauticul Almanac, &c., p. 9) that the Stationers' Company once tried the experiment of partially reconciling Francis Moore and common sense, by no greater step than omitting the column of the moon's influence on the parts of the human body, and that most of the copies were returned upon their hands. For more detail upon the contents of former almanacs, see the Companion to the Almanac for 1829, and also the London Magazine of December, 1828, and Journal of Education, No. V.

The British Almanac' was published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in 1828. Its success induced the Stationers' Company to believe that the public would no longer refuse a good almanac because it only predicted purely astronomical phenomena, and they accordingly published the Englishman's Almanac,' which is unexceptionable. Other almanacs have diminished the quantity and tone of their objectionable parts.

Of the professedly astronomical almanacs the most important in England is the Nautical Almanac,' published by the Admiralty for the use both of astronomers and seamen. This work was projected by Dr. Maskelyne, then Astronomer Royal, and first appeared in 1767. The employment of lunar distances in finding the longitude, of the efficacy of which method Maskelyne had satisfied himself in a voyage to St. Helena, required new tables, which should give the distances of the moon from the sun and principal fixed stars, for intervals of a

few hours at most. By the zeal of Dr. Maskelyne, aided by the government, the project was carried into effect, and it continued under his superintendence for forty-eight years. During this time it eceived the highest encomiums from all foreign authorities, for which see the French Encyclopædie, art. Almanach,' and the Histories of Montucla and Delambre. From 1774 to 1789 the French 'Connoissance des Tems' borrowed its lunar distances from the English almanac. On the death of Maskelyne it did not continue to improve, and, without absolutely falling off, was inadequate to the wants either of seamen or astronomers. From the year 1820, various complaints were made of it in print. It was latterly stated that officers employed in surveys were obliged to have recourse to foreign almanacs for what could not be obtained in their own; that Berlin, Coimbra, and even Milan were better provided with the helps of navigation; and, finally, that the calculations were not made from the best and most improved tables. In consequence of these complaints, which were almost universally allowed by astronomers to contain a great deal of truth, the government, in 1830, requested the opinion of the Astronomical Society upon the subject, and the Report of the Committee appointed by that body, which may be found in the fourth volume of their Transactions, is a sufficient proof of the opinion of practical astronomers on the previous state of the work. The alterations proposed by the Society were entirely adopted by the government, and the first almanac containing them was that for 1834. The contents of the old Nautical Almanac' may be found in the Companion to the Almanac for 1829. We subjoin a list of the principal alterations and additions which appear in the new work:

1. The substitution of mean for apparent time throughout, the sun's right ascension and declination being given for both mean and apparent noon.

2. The addition of the mean time of transit of the first point of Aries, or the beginning of the sidereal day.

3. The moon's right ascension and dealination given for every hour, instead of

|

every twelve hours. We must mention however that the intervals of twelve hours were diminished to three hours in the Nautical Almanac' for 1833, by Mr. Pond, the Astronomer Royal.

4. The distances of the moon from the planets for every three hours.

5. The time of contact of Jupiter's satellites and their shadows with the planet.

6. Logarithms of the quantities which vary from day to day, used in the reduction of the fixed stars.

7. Lists of stars which come on the meridian nearly with the moon; of occultations of the planets and stars by the moon, visible at Greenwich.

8. The places of the old planets for every day at noon, instead of every tenth day; and those of the four small planets for every fourth day, which were previously not mentioned at all.

9. The 60 stars, whose places were given for every ten days, are increased to 100.

10. The number of lunar distances given is very much increased.

Besides these principal alterations, there is a large number of minor additions, tending for the most part to save labour in calculation; and the extent to which the results have been carried is materially enlarged. Any errata discovered in any mathematical tables which are generally or even occasionally of use, will be published in the 'Nautical Almanac,' if communicated by the finder.

This country was forestalled in most of the important changes just mentioned, by the Berlin Ephemeris,' published under the superintendence of Professor Encke. Its predecessor, the Astronomisches Jahrbuch,' was conducted for fifty years by the celebrated Bode; and was entirely remodelled by Encke in 1830. Of other works of the same kind, published on the Continent, those of Coimbra and Milan are among the most valuable; the latter was commenced in 1755, by M. de Cæsaris; we have not been able to learn the date of the first establishment of the former.

The oldest national astronomical almanac is the French Connoissance des Tems,' published at present under the superintendence of the Bureau des Longitudes at Paris. It was commenced in