vi

PREFACE.

"Conversations-Lexikon," above referred to,-are the second edition of Pierer's Universal-Lexikon," the publication of which is now nearly completed; the "Encyclopédie des gens du monde," completed in 1845; the "Univers pittoresque," still in progress, (particularly in reference to France and Frenchmen); the "Dictionnaire de la conversation et de la lecture;" the supplementary volumes of the "Biographie Universelle :" the Annual Registers, English and French; M'Culloch's "Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Dictionary;" Waterston's "Cyclopædia of Commerce;" the last edition of Cannabich's "Lehrbuch der Geographie" (1842); Berghaus' "Allgemeine Länder und Völkerkunde," the last volume (the sixth) having been published in 1844; the Penny Cyclopædia, with the supplement to it, now publishing in monthly numbers; Brande's "Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art;" and Knight's "Political Dictionary," which has just been completed. Very few articles have been transcribed or translated entirely from these or any other sources; but while in his preparations the editor has consulted a number of authorities on the several subjects which he has treated, he has not hesitated to use the identical words he found employed by either British, French, or German writers, in every instance where they seemed to convey the meaning intended in a distinct and appropriate manner. And in the selection of his subjects, be added, he has kept constantly in view what was likely to be of especial interest to an American reader, and was not readily accessible to him elsewhere.

it

may

In accordance with the plan of the preceding volumes of the Encyclopædia Americana, the biographical notices which are given of distinguished Americans have been confined to the deceased. But the editor has endeavoured to comprehend in his list as many persons as were fairly entitled to a place in it. Yet he is aware of the omission of some whose claims may be regarded by their immediate relatives and friends to be quite as great as are those of not a few whose names have been inserted; and some two or three individuals, of an unquestionably high reputation with the community at large, have met with an apparent neglect, simply on account of the prolonged delay, or unwillingness of the parties by whom they were most intimately known, to furnish the information repeatedly and perseveringly asked for concerning them.-The notices which are given of foreigners are of the living as well as of the

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dead. From the practice, also, which prevails to a greater extent in France and Germany than anywhere else, of publishing, in their encyclopædical and other collections to which the editor has had access, the personal history of the prominent contemporary characters, the present volume will be found to contain much curious and valuable matter of this description, relating to Frenchmen and Germans, and to the natives, likewise, of some of the other continental European States.

It was originally intended that the additional geographical information concerning the United States should find a place, according to its being of a more or less general character, in the article United States, or in separate articles distributed throughout the volume. This plan was adhered to through some of the first letters of the alphabet, but after these had been put in type the editor saw reason to prefer treating the subjects referred to under the single head of the United States; and this statement will explain an inconsistency in the arrangement, which, slight as it is, could not fail to be noticed.

There are some articles in the preceding volumes of this work, such as Bank, Constitution, &c., in which the subject is treated successively in relation to a number of different countries; it has been thought most. advisable to distribute such additions as were to be made on these several subjects under the heads of each separate country. And here, any one who shall consult the articles generally in the present volume, and shall fail to find the information for which he is seeking, may be requested not to conclude hastily that, because it is not to be found in the article which he expected to contain it, it will be found in no other; he will, quite probably, meet with it in some article, the title of which will be suggested to his mind on a moment's reflection.

Such of the articles in this supplement as are continuations of articles in the former portions of the Encyclopædia Americana are marked with an asterisk; and the reader of them is desired to be particular in noting this, since, if he were not to do so, he might, in many or even most instances, deem the articles to be singularly defective in their statements or arrangement.

A few of the articles, it is proper to mention, have no reference to the period which has elapsed since the publication of the former volumes, but are intended to supply omissions which occur in them.

And it may be further stated, that much the larger portion of the present volume has been prepared by the editor; for some of the biographical articles, as well as for several of those relating to science and its application to the arts, he is indebted to others. These last treat of subjects which have latterly attracted, in a very high degree, the attention, not of scientific men only, but of the public generally—such as geology; magnetism and electricity; the telegraph; the causes which produce the explosion of steam-boilers; &c.—all of them containing information nowhere else to be met with in a condensed and connected form.

Philadelphia, November 20, 1846.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA AMERICANA:

SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME.

ABARDEH; the name given to several

or damages one's property. But this must

African tribes who occupy the region be done in such a manner that no breach of the peace is committed, and no more injury be done to the property of another than is sufficient to accomplish the object intended.

between the Nile and the Red Sea. Some of them have penetrated into Upper Egypt, where they earn a subsistence by the transportation of merchandise on their camels. They trade chiefly in senna, and in charcoal made of the acacia wood. Burckhardt regards them as Arabs; Ritter conjectures that they are descended from the people known, under the Roman emperors, as Blemmyes; but Rüppell is of opinion that they are a branch of the ancient Ethiopian race established at Meroë. In their manners and customs, they do not differ from the Bedouins.

ABATTOIR. The public slaughter-houses are so called in France. Those of Paris are the most remarkable. Five of them were constructed by a decree of Napoleon, promulgated in 1809; three on the right bank of the Seine, and two on the left. They are situated without the city, and consist of a spacious area surrounded by a high wall. Within the enclosure are stables for the animals destined to be slaughABANDONMENT; a term used in insurance. tered, and apartments for the different Before any demand can be legally made butchers, built of stone, and provided with for the total loss of a ship, or goods with every means to facilitate their operations, which she is freighted, the owner of the and secure a proper degree of cleanliness. ship or goods must abandon or relinquish They pay a small sum for each animal to the insurer all right to any portion of they kill, as a rent for the accommodations the property which may be saved. The which they receive, and to compensate the term is also used in the language of the labour of the subordinate persons employed customs, when the owner of a commodity in the establishment. These payments imported relinquishes it altogether, rather amounted in the aggregate, in 1824, to a than pay the duties imposed upon it. million of francs. It is singular that buildABANO; a small town not far from Pa-ings of the nature of these abattoirs should, dua, in Italy, noted for its sulphur or mineral springs, which were well known to the Romans, under the names of Aquæ Aponi and Aquæ Patavinæ; and a description of them is given in a letter of Theodoric, the king of the Ostrogoths. Remains of ancient baths were discovered towards the end of the last century. The waters are the warmest of the kind in Europe, their temperature being as high as 180 or 187 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. When applied to the surface of the body, either by bathing, or by means of the mud application or process, they are said to be efficacious in the cure of rheumatism, gout, and diseases of the skin.

ABATEMENT. To abate a nuisance is to remove whatever unlawfully annoys one, VOL. XIV.-2

hitherto, scarcely have been erected anywhere out of France; and that most people, even in the largest towns, should remain willing to endure the nuisance of numerous private slaughtering yards or sheds, offensive in the highest degree to both the eye and the smell, and, what is worse, diffusing pestilence and death through the midst of their population.

ABBAS MIRZA, the second son of Feth Ali, Shah of Persia, was born in 1785. The partiality of his father, together with his descent from the royal race of the Khadjars, led to his being, at an early age, proclaimed heir to the throne, to the prejudice of his elder brother, whom he survived. He possessed considerable talents, and agreeable and winning manners, but

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ABBAS MIRZA-ABD' EL KADER.

by a Dutchman, of the name of Van Robais, in 1665, under the auspices of Colbert. One English writer remarks, that "the cloths are little inferior to those of our own country;" and another speaks of their surpassing "even the English."

was chiefly remarkable for his appreciation on the river Somme. Vessels of from 100 of the advantages of European culture and to 150 tons burthen can come up to the civilization. Being appointed governor of town, where the tide rises 6 or 7 feet. 'It the province of Azerbijan, on the northern was fortified in the time of Charlemagne, frontier of the kingdom, he endeavoured and in the 17th century was erected into to introduce them there, as far as lay with- a fortress of the 4th order by Vauban. The in his knowledge and power, and especial- principal edifice is the Gothic church of ly, with the assistance of British officers St. Wolfram; and the houses are in genewhom he employed for the purpose, to or-ral well constructed. It contains about ganize and discipline his army after the 19,000 inhabitants. What, however, is European model. These efforts were, ne- most remarkable in Abbeville, is the mavertheless, unavailing. He contended un-nufacture of fine woollen cloths, established successfully against the Russians in the wars of 1803 and 1813. By the treaty of Gulistan, in 1814, in which Russia guarantied the succession to the throne of Persia to whichsoever native prince should be named by the Shah, he was necessarily placed in a certain dependence on the Russian government. The irksomeness of his situation, added to his predilection | for the English, gradually augmented his dislike to his northern neighbours, and at length, through his influence with his father, produced a renewal of the war with them in 1826. Misfortunes now ensued more rapidly, and to a greater extent, than in the contests in which Abbas had been previously engaged. The Russians overran the whole of Armenia, and entered Tabriz itself, the prince's residence. And it was only by great sacrifices that a peace could be purchased from them by the Persians, at Turkmanshai, February 27th 1828. On the massacre of the Russian ambassador and suite by the fanatical populace of the capital, Teheran, in the following year, Abbas was sent by the Shah to Petersburg, to deprecate the wrath of the Russian government, as well as to serve as a hostage for the good faith of his father. He was favourably received by the emperor; and having accomplished the object of his mission, he returned home, content to live in peace with Russia, till his death in 1833.-Abbas Mirza, it may be mentioned, had the singular honour conferred upon him of being elected a member of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, as a reward for the enlightened views and thirst for knowledge which he exhibited on all occasions, and also, perhaps, for his leaning towards the English. Be this last, however, as it may, the reply which he returned to the letter, accompanying the diploma transmitted to him, would in itself go far to justify his election, viz., "that the acquisition of a province would have afforded him a less gratification."

ABBEVILLE a considerable town in the department of the Somme, in France, and situated in a pleasant and fertile valley,

On

ABD' EL KADER, who, next to Mehemed Ali, is unquestionably the most remarkable individual in the existing Mohammedan world, was born towards the end of the year 1806, at the ghetna of his family; a seminary for the education of marabouts, in the vicinity of Mascara, in the territory of Algiers. His family were of the tribe of Hashem, which traced its descent from the Fatimite caliphs. When eight years of age, he accompanied his father in a pilgrimage to Mecca; whence he acquired the title of El Hadji, the pilgrim. returning from this journey, he completed his education at the school of Fez, in Morocco, by the study of the Koran, and of Arabian literature and science. He visited Egypt in 1827; where, at Alexandria and Cairo, he observed the civilization of Europe, at least in so far as it had found its way into that country under the auspices of its ruler. His exterior is dignified and prepossessing; his disposition humane; and his habits correct, and exempt from the sensuality which very generally characterizes the Arab race. Adhering most zealously to his religious faith, and perfectly understanding how to avail himself of the fanaticism of his followers, he yet partakes not of their intolerance. He has always governed the tribes which acknowledged him as their chief, with a gentle sceptre; and many traits are recorded of his magnanimity to his foes. His public life began with the conquest of Algiers by the French, in 1830. The Arab tribes of the province of Oran then at once seized upon the opportunity afforded them of becoming independent. Abd' el Kader's father appeared at their head, and overpowered the Turkish troops which still occupied the capital. The inhabitants offered the chief authority over them to their deliverer. The latter, however, declined the offer in