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Cochin China and Aden they succeed in rearing children | sensitive, about the mode in which it was acquired. The and forming permanent communities."

In some of the hottest parts of South America Europeans are perfectly acclimatised, and where the race is kept pure it seems to be even improved. Some very valuable notes on this subject have been furnished to the present writer by the well-known botanist Dr Richard Spruce, who resided many years in South America, but who has hitherto been prevented by ill health from giving to the world the results of his researches. As a careful, judicious, and accurate observer, both of man and nature, he has few superiors. He says

"The white inhabitants of Guayaquil (lat. 2° 13′ S.) are kept pure by careful selection. The slightest tincture of red or black blood bars entry into any of the old families who are descendants of Spaniards from the Provincias Vascongadas, or those bordering the Bay of Biscay, where the morals are perhaps the purest (as regards the intercourse of the sexes) of any in Europe, and where for a girl, even of the poorest class, to have a child before marriage is the rarest thing possible. The consequence of this careful breeding is, that the women of Guayaquil are considered (and justly) the finest along the whole Pacific coast. They are often tall, sometimes very handsome, decidedly healthy, although pale, and assuredly prolific enough. Their sons ire big, stout men, but when they lead inactive lives are ipt to become fat and sluggish. Those of them, however, who have farms in the savannahs, and are accustomed to take long rides in all weathers, and those whose trade obliges them to take frequent journeys in the mountainous interior, or even to Europe and North America, are often as active and as little burdened with superfluous flesh as a Scotch farmer.

"The oldest Christian town in Peru is Piura (lat. 5° S.), which was founded by Pizarro himself. The climate is very hot, especially in the three or four months following the southern solstice. In March 1843 the temperature only once fell as low as 83°, during the whole month, the usual lowest night temperature being 85°. Yet people of all colours find it very healthy, and the whites are very prolific. I resided in the town itself nine months, and in the neighbourhood seven months more. The population (in 1863-4) was about 10,000, of which not only a considerable proportion was white, but was mostly descended from the first emigrants after the conquest. Purity of descent was not, however, quite so strictly maintained as at Guayaquil. The military adventurers, who have often risen to high or even supreme rank in Peru, have not seldom | been of mixed race, and fear or favour has often availed to procure them an alliance with the oldest and purest-blooded families."

These instances, so well stated by Dr Spruce, seem to demonstrate the complete acclimatisation of Spaniards in some of the hottest parts of South America. Although we have here nothing to do with mixed races, yet the want of fertility in these has been often taken to be a fact inherent in the mongrel race, and has been also sometimes held to prove that neither the European nor his half-bred offspring can maintain themselves in the tropics. The following observation is therefore of interest :

"At Guayaquil for a lady of good family-married or unmarried-to be of loose morals is so uncommon, that when it does happen it is felt as a calamity by the whole community. But here, and perhaps in most other towns in South America, a poor girl of mixed race-especially if good-looking-rarely thinks of marrying one of her own class until she has-as the Brazilians say-approveitada de sua mocidade' (made the most of her youth) in receiving presents from gentlemen. If she thus bring a good dowry to her husband, he does not care to inquire, or is not

consequences of this indiscriminate sexual intercourse, especially if much prolonged, is to diminish, in some cases to paralyse, the fertility of the female. And as among people of mixed race it is almost universal, the population of these must fall off both in numbers and quality."

The following example of divergent acclimatisation of the same race to hot and cold zones is very interesting, and will conclude our extracts from Dr Spruce's valuable notes:

"One of the most singular cases connected with this subject that have fallen under my own observation, is the difficulty, or apparent impossibility, of acclimatising the Red Indian in a certain zone of the Andes. Any person who has compared the physical characters of the native races of South America must be convinced that these have all originated in a common stirps. Many local differences exist, but none capable of invalidating this conclusion. The warmth yet shade-loving Indian of the Amazon; the Indian of the hot, dry, and treeless coasts of Feru and Guayaquil, who exposes his bare head to the sun with as much zest as an African negro; the Indian of the Andes, for whom no cold seems too great, who goes constantly bare-legged and often bare-headed, through whose rude straw hut the piercing wind of the paramos sweeps, and chills the white man to the very bones;-all these, in the colour and texture of the skin, the hair, and other important features, are plainly of one and the same race.

"Now there is a zone of the equatorial Andes, ranging between about 4000 and 6000 feet altitude, where the very best flavoured coffee is grown, where cane is less luxuriant but more saccharine than in the plains, and which is therefore very desirable to cultivate, but where the red man sickens and dies. Indians taken down from the sierra get ague and dysentery. Those of the plains find the temperature chilly, and are stricken down with influenza and pains in the limbs. I have seen the difficulty experienced in getting farms cultivated in this zone, on both sides of the Cordillera. The permanent residents are generally limited to the major domo and his family; and in the dry season labourers are hired, of any colour that can be obtained-some from the low country, others from the highlands for three, four, or five months, who gather in and grind the cane, and plant for the harvest of the following year; but a staff of resident Indian labourers, such as exists in the farms of the sierra, cannot be kept up in the Yungas, as these half-warm valleys are called. White men, who take proper precautions, and are not chronically soaked with cane-spirit, stand the climate perfectly, but the creole whites are still too much caballeros to devote themselves to agricultural work.

"In what is now the republic of Ecuador, the only peopled portions are the central valley, between the two ridges of the Andes-height 7000 to 12,000 feet—and the hot plain at their western base; nor do the wooded slopes appear to have been inhabited, except by scattered savage hordes, even in the time of the Incas. The Indians of the highlands are the descendants of others who have inhabited that region exclusively for untold ages; and a similar affirmation may be made of the Indians of the plain. Now, there is little doubt that the progenitors of both these sections came from a temperate region (in North America); so that here we have one moiety acclimatised to endure extreme heat, and the other extreme cold; and at this day exposure of either to the opposite extreme (or even, as we have seen, to the climate of an intermediate zone) is always pernicious and often fatal. But if this great difference has been brought about in the red man, might not the same have happened to the white man? Plainly it might, time being given; for one cannot doubt that the inherent adapta

bility is the same in both, or (if not) that the white man possesses it in a higher degree."

hood on his son Henry. At first it was given with the naked fist, a veritable box on the ear, but for this was substituted a gentle stroke on the shoulder with the flat of the sword. A custom of a similar kind is still followed in bestowing the honour of knighthood.

ACCOLTI, BENEDICT, was born in 1415 at Arezzo, in Tuscany, of a noble family, several members of which were distinguished like himself for their attainments in law. He was for some time professor of jurisprudence in the University of Florence, and on the death of the celebrated Poggio in 1459 became chancellor of the Florentine republic. He died in 1466. In conjunction with his brother Leonard, he wrote in Latin a history of the first crusade, entitled De Bello a Christianis contra Barbaros, pro Christi Sepulchro et Judæa recuperandis, libri tres, which, though itself of little interest, furnished Tasso with the historic basis for his Jerusalem Delivered. This work appeared at Venice in 1432, and was translated into Italian in 1543, and into French in 1620. Another work of Accolti's-De Præstantia Virorum sui Evi-was published at Parma in 1689.

ACCOLTI, BERNARD (1465-1535), son of the preceding, known in his own day as l'Unico Aretino, acquired great fame as a reciter of impromptu verse. He was listened to by large crowds, composed of the most learned men and the most distinguished prelates of the age. Among others, Cardinal Bembo has left on record a testimony to his extraordinary talent. talent. His high reputation with his contemporaries seems scarcely justified by the poems he published, though they give evidence of brilliant fancy. It is probable that he succeeded better in his extemporary productions than in those which were the fruit of deliberation. His works, under the title Virginia, Comedia, Capitoli e Strambotti di Messer Bernardo Accolti Aretino, were published at Florence in 1513, and have been several times reprinted.

The observations of Dr Spruce are of themselves almost conclusive as to the possibility of Europeans becoming acclimatised in the tropics; and if it is objected that this evidence applies only to the dark-haired southern races, we are fortunately able to point to facts, almost equally well authenticated and conclusive, in the case of one of the typical Germanic races. At the Cape of Good Hope the Dutch have been settled and nearly isolated for about 200 years, and have kept themselves almost or quite free from native intermixture. They are described as being still perfectly fair in complexion, while physically they are the finest body of men in the colony, being very tall and strong. They marry young, and have large families. The population, according to a census taken in 1798, was under 22,000. In 1865 it was near 182,000, the majority being (according to the Statesman's Year Book for 1873) of "Dutch, German, or French origin, mostly descendants of original settlers." We have here a population which has doubled itself every twenty-two years; and the greater part of this rapid increase must certainly be due to the old European immigrants. In the Moluccas, where the Dutch have had settlements for nearly 250 years, some of the inhabitants trace their descent to early immigrants; and these, as well as most of the people of Dutch descent in the East, are quite as fair as their European ancestors, enjoy excellent health, and are very prolific. But the Dutch accommodate themselves admirably to a tropical climate, doing much of their work early in the morning, dressing very lightly, and living a quiet, temperate, and cheerful life. They also pay great attention to drainage and general cleanliness. In addition to these examples, it may be maintained that the rapid increase of English-speaking populations in the United States and in Australia, only a comparatively small portion of which can be due to direct immigration, is far from support- ACCOLTI, PIETRO, brother of the preceding, was born ing the view of Dr Knox, that Europeans cannot per- at Florence in 1455, and died there in 1549. He was manently maintain themselves in those countries. Mr abbreviator under Leo X., and in that capacity drew up Brace expressly denies that the American physique has in 1520 the famous bull against Luther. In 1527 he was degenerated from the English type. He asserts that manu- made a cardinal by Clement VII., who had employed him facturers and others find that "for labours requiring the as his secretary. utmost physical endurance and muscular power, such as iron-puddling and lumbering in the forests and on the streams, and pioneer work, foreigners are never so suitable as native Americans. The reports of the examining surgeons for volunteers-such as that of Dr W. H. Thomson to the Surgeon-General in 1862, who examined 9000 men -show a far higher average of physique in the Americans examined than in the English, Germans, or Irish. It is a fact well known to our life insurance companies, that the average length of life here is greater than that of the English tables."-The Races of the Old World, p. 375. Although the comparisons here instituted may not be quite fair or conclusive, they furnish good arguments against those who maintain that the Americans are physically deteriorating.

On the whole, we seem justified in concluding that, under favourable conditions, and with a proper adaptation of means to the end in view, man may become acclimatised with at least as much certainty and rapidity (counting by generations rather than by years) as any of the lower animals. (A. R. W.) ACCOLADE (from collum, the neck), a ceremony anciently used in conferring knighthood; but whether it was an embrace (according to the use of the modern French word, accolade), or a slight blow on the neck or check, is not agreed. Both these customs appear to be of great antiquity. Gregory of Tours writes that the early kings of France, in conferring the gilt shoulder-belt, kissed the knights on the left cheek; and William the Conqueror is said to have made use of the blow in conferring the honour of knight

ACCOMMODATION, a term used in Biblical interpretation to denote the presentation of a truth not absolutely as it is in itself, but relatively or under some modification, with the view of suiting it either to some other truth or to the persons addressed. It is generally distinguished into formal and material,—the accommodation in the one case being confined to the method of teaching, and in the other being extended to the matter taught. To the former head may be referred teaching by symbols or parables, by progressive stages graduated according to the capacity of the learner, by the application of prophecy to secondary fulfilments, &c. To the latter head are to be referred the allegations of the anti-supranaturalistic school, that Christ and the writers of Scripture modified or perverted the truth itself in order to secure wider acceptance and speedier success, by speaking in accordance with contemporary ideas rather than with absolute and eternal truth.

ACCOMMODATION, in commerce, denotes generally temporary pecuniary aid given by one trader to another, or by a banker to his customers, but it is used more particularly to describe that class of bills of exchange which represents no actual exchange of real value between the parties.

ACCORAMBONI, VITTORIA, an Italian lady remarkable for her extraordinary beauty and her tragic history. Her contemporaries regarded her as the most captivating woman that had ever been seen in Italy. She was sought in marriage by Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, who, it was generally believed, had murdered his wife,

Isabella de Medici, with his own hand; but her father gave her in preference to Francesco Peretti, nephew of Cardinal Montalto. Peretti was assassinated (1581), and a few days afterwards Vittoria fled from the house of the Cardinal, where she had resided, to that of the Duke of Bracciano. The opposition of Pope Gregory XIII., who even went so far as to confine Vittoria to Fort St Angelo for nearly a year, did not prevent her marriage with the duke. On the accession of Montalto to the papal throne as Sixtus V. (1585), the duke thought it prudent to take refuge with his wife in the territory of the Venetian republic. After a few months' residence at Salò, on the Lake of Garda, he died, bequeathing nearly the whole of his large fortune to his widow. This excited the anger of Ludovico Orsini, a relative, who caused Vittoria to be murdered in her residence at Padau (Dec. 22, 1585). The history of this beautiful and accomplished but unfortunate woman has been written by Adry (1800), and recently by Count Gnoli, and forms the basis of Webster's tragedy, The White Devil, and of Tieck's romance, Vittoria Accoramboni. ACCORDION (from the French accord), a small musical instrument in the shape of a bellows, which produces sounds by the action of wind on metallic reeds of various sizes. It is played by being held in both hands and pulled backwards and forwards, the fingers being left free to touch the keys, which are ranged along each side. The instrument is akin to the concertina, but differs from it in having the chords fixed by a mechanical arrangement. It is manufactured chiefly in Paris.

ACCORSO (in Latin Accursius), FRANCIS, an eminent lawyer, born at Florence about 1182. After practising for some time in his native city, he was appointed professor at Bologna, where he had great success as a teacher. He undertook the great work of arranging into one body the almost innumerable comments and remarks upon the Code, the Institutes, and Digests, the confused dispersion of which among the works of different writers caused much obscurity and contradiction. When he was employed in this work, it is said that, hearing of a similar one proposed and begun by Odofred, another lawyer of Bologna, he feigned indisposition, interrupted his public lectures, and shut himself. up, till he had, with the utmost expedition, accomplished his design. His work has the vague title of the Great Gloss, and, though written in barbarous Latin, has more method than that of any preceding writer on the subject. The best edition of it is that of Godefroi, published at Lyons in 1589, in 6 vols. folio. Accursius was greatly extolled by the lawyers of his own and the immediately succeeding age, and he was even called the Idol of Jurisconsults, but those of later times formed a much lower estimate of his merits. There can be no doubt that he has disentangled with much skill the sense of many laws; but it is equally undeniable that his ignorance of history and antiquities has often led him into absurdities, and been the cause of many defects in his explanations and commentaries. He died at Bologna in 1260. His eldest son Francis, who filled the chair of law at Bologna with great reputation, was invited to Oxford by King Edward I., and in 1275 or 1276 read lectures on law in that university. In 1280 he returned to Bologna, where he died in 1293.

ACCORSO (or ACCURSIUS), MARIANGELO, a learned and ingenious critic, was born at Aquila, in the kingdom of Naples, about 1490. He was a great favourite with Charles V., at whose court he resided for thirty-three years, and by whom he was employed on various foreign missions. To a perfect knowledge of Greek and Latin he added an intimate acquaintance with several modern languages. In discovering and collating ancient manuscripts, for which his travels abroad gave him special opportunities, he displayed uncommon diligence. His work entitled Diatribe in

Ausonium, Solinum, et Ovidium, printed at Rome, in folio, in 1524, is a singular monument of erudition and critical skill. He bestowed, it is said, unusual pains on Claudian, and made, from different manuscripts, above seven hundred corrections on the works of that poet. Unfortunately these criticisms were never published. He was the first editor of the Letters of Cassiodorus, with his Treatise on the Soul; and his edition of Ammianus Marcellinus (1533) contains five books more than any former one. The affected use of antiquated terms, introduced by some of the Latin writers of that age, is humorously ridiculed by him, in a dialogue published in 1531 (republished, with his name, in 1574), entitled Osco, Volsco, Romanaque Eloquentia Interlocutoribus, Dialogus Ludis Romanis actus. Accorso was accused of plagiarism in his notes on Ausonius; and the determined manner in which he repelled, by a most solemn oath, this charge of literary theft, presents us with a singular instance of anxiety and care to preserve a literary reputation unstained.

ACCOUNT, a Stock Exchange term: e.g., "To Buy or Sell for the Account," &c. The word has different, though kindred, significations, all derived from the making up and settling of accounts on particular days, in which stricter sense the word "Settlement" is more specially used.

The financial importance of the Account may be gathered from the Clearing House returns. Confining ourselves to the six years, from the 30th of April 1867 to the 30th of April 1873, we have the following figures, furnished by the Clearing House to Sir John Lubbock, and communicated by him to the Times:—

On fourths On Stock Exchange of the Month. Account Days. £444,443,000

On Consols Settling Days. £132,293,000

April April 1867 to 1868 1868 to 1869 1869 to 1870 1870 to 1871 1871 to 1872 1872 to 1873

£147,113,000

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265,965,000 1,032,474,000 243,561,000

checks, &c., paid at the Clearing House showed an increase of During the year ending April 30, 1873, the total amount of bills, £643,613,000 during the same period ending April 1872, and of £2,745,924,000 over 1868. The amounts passing through on the 4ths of the month amounted to £265,965,000, showing an increase of £36,336,000 over 1872. Account Days formed a sum of £1,032,474,600, being an increase The payments on Stock Exchange of £90,028,000 over 1872. The payments on Consols Account Days for the same period amounted to £243,561,000, giving an increase of £9,718,000 over 1872.

In English and Indian Government Securities, the settlements are monthly, and for foreign, railway, and other securities, generally speaking, they are fortnightly. It follows therefore that in 1867-1868, an ordinary Stock Exchange Account Day involved payments, on Stock Exchange accounts only, averaging about £10,000,000 sterling, and in 1872-3 something like £25,000,000 sterling; and these sums again, enormous as they are, represent for the most part only the balance of much larger transactions. The London Account is, in fact, probably the greatest and most important periodical event in the financial world. The great European centres have their own Account Days and methods of settlement, but the amounts dealt in are very much less than on the London market. The leading cities in the United Kingdom have also their Stock Exchanges, but their practice follows more or less that of London, where the bulk of their business is transacted by means of post and telegraph.

The Account in Consols or other English Government Securities, or in the securities of the Government of India, or in Bank of England Stock, or other Stocks transferable at the Bank of England, extends over a month, the settlements being monthly, and in them the committee of the Stock Exchange does not take cognisance of any bargain for a future account, if it shall have been effected more

than eight days previously to the close of the existing | of containing 140,000,000 gallons has been constructed for

account.

The Account in Securities to Bearer, and, with the above exceptions, in Registered Securities also, extends over a period of from twelve to nineteen days. This period is in each case terminated by the "settlement," which occurs twice in each month (generally about the middle and end), on days fixed by the committee for general purposes of the Stock Exchange in the preceding month.

This "settlement" occupies three continuous days, which are all termed Account days, but the third day is the true Account, Settling, or Pay Day.

Continuation or Carrying-over is the operation by which the settlement of a bargain transacted for money, or for a given account, may for a consideration (called either a Contango' or a Backwardation") be deferred for the period of another account. Such

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a continuation is equivalent to a sale "for the day," and a repur
chase for the succeeding account, or to a purchase
"for the day,"
and a re-sale for the succeeding account. The price at which such
transactions are adjusted is the "Making-Up" price of the day.
Contango is a technical term which expresses the rate of in-
terest charged for the loan of money upon the security of stock
transferred for the period of an account or otherwise, or the rate of
interest paid by the buyer to the seller to be allowed to defer paying
for the stock purchased, until the next settlement day.

Backwardation, or, as it is more often called, Back (for brevity),

in contradistinction to contango, is the amount charged for the loan of stock from one account to the other, and it is paid to the purchaser by the seller in order to allow the seller to defer the delivery of the stock.

A Bull Account is one in which either the purchases have predominated over the sales, or the disposition to purchase has been

more marked than the disposition to sell.

A Bear Account is one in which either the sales have preponderated over the purchases, or in which the disposition to sell has been more strongly displayed than the disposition to buy.

Sometimes the Bull or the Bear disposition extends to the great majority of securities, as when there are general falls or general

rises. Sometimes a Bull Account in one set of securities is contemporaneous with a Bear Account in another.- Vide Cracroft's Stock Exchange Manual.

the water supply of the town. Accrington is a station on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. The population of the two townships of Old and New Accrington was in 1861, 17,688; and in 1871, 21,788.

ACCUM, FREDERICK, chemist, born at Bückeburg in 1769, came to London in 1793, and was appointed teacher of chemistry and mineralogy at the Surrey Institution in 1801. While occupying this position he published several scientific manuals (Chemistry, 1803; Mineralogy, 1808; Crystallography, 1813), but his name will be chiefly remembered in connection with gas-lighting, the introduction of which was mainly due to him and to the enterprising printseller, Ackermann. His excellent Practical Treatise on Gaslight appeared in 1815; and he rendered another valuable service to society by his Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons (1820), which attracted much notice at the time it appeared. Both works, as well as a number of his smaller publications, were translated into German. In consequence of charges affecting his honesty, Accum left London for Germany, and in 1822 was appointed professor in the Industrial Institute and

An

Academy of Architecture at Berlin. He died there in 1838. ACCUMULATOR, a term applied frequently to a powerful electrical machine, which generates or accumulates, by means of friction, electric currents of high tension, manifested by sparks of considerable length. Accumulators have been employed in many places for exploding torpedoes and mines, for blasting, &c. exceedingly powerful apparatus of this kind was employed by the Confederate authorities during the civil war in Whatever the nature of the materials employed in the conAmerica for discharging submarine and river torpedoes. struction of the accumulator, or the form which it may assume mechanically, it is simply a modification of, or an improvement upon, the ordinary cylindrical or the plateACCOUNTANT, earlier form ACCOMPTANT, in the glass frictional electrical machine, the fundamental most general sense, is a person skilled in accounts. It is scientific principles being the same in nearly every case. The applied to the person who has the charge of the accounts exciting body consists generally of a large disc or circular in a public office or in the counting-house of a large private plate of vulcanite,more frequently termed by electricians business. It is also the designation of a distinct profession, "ebonite," in consequence of its resemblance, in point of which deals in any required way with mercantile accounts. hardness and of polish, to polished ebony,—the vulcanite ACCOUNTANT-GENERAL, an officer in the English disc taking the place of the ordinary circular plate of Court of Chancery, who receives all monies lodged in court, thick glass. and by whom they are deposited in bank and disbursed. ACCRA or ACRA, a town, or rather a collection of forts, in a territory of the same name, on the Gold Coast of Africa, about 75 miles east of Cape Coast Castle. Of the forts, Fort St James is a British settlement, Crèvecoeur was established by the Dutch, and Christianborg by the Danes; but the two last have since been ceded to Britain Christianborg in 1850, and Crèvecœur in 1871. Accra is considered to be one of the healthiest stations on the west coast of Africa, and has some trade in the productions of the interior, ivory, gold dust, and palm-oil; while cotton goods, tobacco, rum, and beads are imported in exchange. It is the residence of a British civil commandant.

ACCRINGTON, an important manufacturing town of England, in Lancashire, lies on the banks of a stream called the Hindburn, in a deep valley, 19 miles N. from Manchester and 5 miles E. of Blackburn. It has increased rapidly in recent years, and is the centre of the Manchester cottonprinting trade. There are large cotton factories and printworks, besides bleach-fields, &c., employing many hands. Coal is extensively wrought in the neighbourhood. The town has a good appearance, and among the more handsome buildings are a fine church, in the Gothic style, erected in 1838, and the Peel Institution, an Italian structure, containing an assembly room, a lecture room, &c., The sanitary arrangements generally are good, and a reservoir capable

ACE, the received name for the single point on cards or dice-the unit. Mr Fox Talbot has a speculation (English Etymologies, p. 262) that the Latins invented, if not the game of dice, at least the name for the single point, which they called unus. The Greeks corrupted this into ovos, and at length the Germanic races, learning the game from the Greeks, translated the word into ass, which has now become ace. The fact, however, is, that the root of the word lies in the Latin as, the monetary unit, which is to be identified with the Greek es; Doric, aïs or ås.

ACEPHALA, a name sometimes given to a section of the molluscous animals, which are divided into encephala and acephala, according as they have or want a distinctly differentiated head. The Acephala, or Lamellibranchiata as they are also called, are commonly known as bivalve shell-fish.

ACEPHALI (from à privative, and kepaλn, a head), a term applied to several sects as having no head or leader; and in particular to a sect that separated itself, in the end of the 5th century, from the rule of the patriarchs of Alexandria, and remained without king or bishop for more than 300 years (Gibbon, c. xlvii.)

ACEPHALI was also the name given to the levellers in the reign of Henry I., who are said to have been so poor as to have no tenements, in virtue of which they might acknowledge a superior lord.

ACEPHALI, or Acephalous Persons, fabulous monsters, | in a fertile district, but is rendered very unhealthy by the described by some ancient naturalists and geographers as having no heads.

ACER. See MAPLE.

ACERBI, GIUSEPPE (JOSEPH), an Italian traveller, born at Castel-Goffredo, near Mantua, on the 3d May 1773, studied at Mantua, and devoted himself specially to natural science. In 1798 he undertook a journey through Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Lapland; and in the following year he reached the North Cape, which no Italian had previously visited. He was accompanied in the latter part of the journey by the Swedish colonel Skiöldebrand, an excellent landscape-painter. On his return Acerbi stayed for some time in England, and published his Travels through Sweden, &c. (London, 1802), which was translated into German (Weimar, 1803), and, under the author's personal superintendence, into French (Paris, 1804). The French translation received numerous corrections, but even in this amended form the work contains many mistakes. Acerbi rendered a great service to Italian literature by starting the Biblioteca Italiana (1816), in which he opposed the pretensions of the Academy della Crusca. Being appointed Austrian consul-general to Egypt in 1826, he entrusted the management of the Biblioteca to Gironi, contributing to it afterwards a series of valuable articles on Egypt. While in the East he obtained for the museums of Vienna, Padua, Milan, and Pavia many objects of interest. He returned from Egypt in 1836, and took up his residence in his native place, where he occupied himself with his favourite study till his death in August 1846.

ACERNUS, the Latinised name by which SEBASTIAN FABIAN KLONOwicz, a celebrated Polish poet, is generally known, was born at Sulmierzyce in 1551, and died at Lublin in 1608. He was for some time burgomaster and president of the Jews' civil tribunal in the latter town, where he had taken up his residence after studying at Cracow. Though himself of an amiable disposition, his domestic life was very unhappy, the extravagance and misconduct of his wife driving him at last to the public hospital of Lublin, where he ended his days. He wrote both Latin and Polish poems, and the genius they displayed won for him the name of the Sarmatian Ovid. The titles of fourteen of his works are known; but a number of these were totally destroyed by the Jesuits and a section of the Polish nobility, and copies of the others are for the same reason exceedingly rare. The Victoria Deorum ubi continetur Veri Herois Educatio, a poem in fortyfour cantos, cost the poet ten years' labour.

ACERRA, in Antiquity, a little box or pot, wherein were put the incense and perfumes to be burned on the altars of the gods, and before the dead. It appears to have been the same with what was otherwise called thuribulum and pyxis. The censers of the Jews were acerra; and the Romanists still retain the use of acerræ, under the name of incense pots.

The name acerra was also applied to an altar erected among the Romans, near the bed of a person recently deceased, on which his friends offered incense daily till his burial. The real intention probably was to fumigate the apartment. The Chinese have still a somewhat similar

custom.

ACERRA, a town of Italy, in the province of Terra di Lavoro, situated on the river Agno, 7 miles N.E. of Naples, with which it is connected by rail. It is the ancient Acerrae, the inhabitants of which were admitted to the privileges of Roman citizenship so early as 332 B.C., and which was plundered and burnt by Hannibal during the second Punic war. A few inscriptions are the only traces time has left of the ancient city. The town stands

malaria rising from the artificial water-courses of the surrounding Campagna. It is the seat of a bishop, and has a cathedral and seminary. Flax is grown in the neighbourhood. Population, 11,717.

ACETIC ACID, one of the most important organic acids. It occurs naturally in the juice of many plants, and in certain animal secretions; but is generally obtained, on the large scale, from the oxidation of spoiled wines, or from the destructive distillation of wood. In the former process it is obtained in the form of a dilute aqueous solution, in which also the colouring matters of the wine, salts, &c., are dissolved; and this impure acetic acid is what we ordinarily term vinegar. The strongest vinegar sold in commerce contains 5 per cent. of real acetic acid. It is used as a mordant in calico-printing, as a local irritant in medicine, as a condiment, and in the preparation of various acetates, varnishes, &c. Pure acetic acid is got from the distillation of wood, by neutralising with lime, separating the tarry matters from the solution of acetate of lime, evaporating off the water, and treating the dry residue with sulphuric acid. On applying heat, pure acetic acid distills over as a clear liquid, which, after a short time, if the weather is cold, becomes a crystalline mass known by the name of Glacial Acetic Acid. For synthesis, properties, &c., see CHEMISTRY.

ACHAIA. in Ancient Geography, a name differently applied at different periods. In the earliest times the name was borne by a small district in the south of Thessaly, and was the first residence of the Achæans. At a later period Achaia Propria was a narrow tract of country in the north of the Peloponnesus, running 65 miles along the Gulf of Corinth, and bounded by the Ionian Sea on the W., by Elis and Arcadia on the S., and by Sicyonia on the E. On the south it is separated from Arcadia by lofty mountains, but the plains between the mountains and the sea are very fertile. Its chief town was Patræ. The name of Achaia was afterwards employed to denote collectively the states that joined the Achæan League. When Greece was subdued by the Romans, Achaia was the name given to the most southerly of the provinces into which they divided the country, and included the Peloponnesus, the greater part of Greece Proper, and the islands.

Achæans and the Achæan League. The early inhabitants of Achaia were called Achæans. The name was given also in those times to some of the tribes occupying the eastern portions of the Peloponnesus, particularly Argos and Sparta. Afterwards the inhabitants of Achaia Propria appropriated the name. This republic was not considerable, in early times, as regards either the number of its troops, its wealth, or the extent of its territory, but was famed for its heroic virtues. The Crotonians and Sybarites, to re-establish order in their towns, adopted the laws and customs of the Achæans. After the famous battle of Leuctra, a difference arose betwixt the Lacedæmonians and Thebant, who held the virtue of this people in such veneration, that they terminated the dispute by their decision. The government of the Achæans was democratical. They preserved their liberty till the time of Philip and Alexander; but in the reign of these princes, and afterwards, they were either subjected to the Macedonians, who had made themselves masters of Greece, or oppressed by domestic tyrants. The Achæan commonwealth consisted of twelve inconsiderable towns in Peloponnesus. About 280 years before Christ the republic of the Achæans recovered its old institutions and unanimity. This was the renewal of the ancient confederation, which subsequently became so famous under the name of the ACHEAN LEAGUE having for its object, not as formerly a common worship, but a substantial political union. Though dating from the year B.C. 280, its import

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