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ELECTROSTATICS, the name given to that department of electrical science in which the phenomena of electricity at rest are considered. Besides their ordinary condition all bodies are capable of being thrown into a physical state in which they are said to be electrified or charged with electricity. When in this condition they become sources of electric force, and the space round them in which this force is manifested is called an “electric field” (see Electricity). Electrified bodies exert mechanical forces on each other, creating or tending to create motion, and also induce electric charges on neighbouring surfaces.

The reader possessed of no previous knowledge of electrical phenomena will best appreciate the meaning of the terms employed by the aid of a few simple experiments. For this purpose the following apparatus should be provided:—(1) two small metal tea-trays and some clean dry tumblers, the latter preferably varnished with shellac varnish made with alcohol free from water; (2) two sheets of ebonite rather larger than the tea-trays; (3) a rod of sealing-wax or ebonite and a glass tube, also some pieces of silk and flannel; (4) a few small gilt pith balls suspended by dry silk threads; (5) a gold-leaf electroscope, and, if possible, a simple form of quadrant electrometer (see Electroscope and Electrometer); (6) some brass balls mounted on the ends of ebonite penholders, and a few tin canisters. With the aid of this apparatus, the principal facts of electrostatics can be experimentally verified, as follows:—

Experiment I.—Place one tea-tray bottom side uppermost upon three warm tumblers as legs. Rub the sheet of ebonite vigorously with warm flannel and lay it rubbed side downwards on the top of the tray. Touch the tray with the finger for an instant, and lift up the ebonite without letting the hand touch the tray a second time. The tray is then found to be electrified. If a suspended gilt pith ball is held near it, the ball will first be attracted and then repelled. If small fragments of paper are scattered on the tray and then the other tray held in the hand over them, they will fly up and down rapidly. If the knuckle is approached to the electrified tray, a small spark will be seen, and afterwards the tray will be found to be discharged or unelectrified. If the electrified tray is touched with the sealing-wax or ebonite rod, it will not be discharged, but if touched with a metal wire, the hand, or a damp thread, it is discharged at once. This shows that some bodies are conductors and others non-conductors or insulators of electricity, and that bodies can be electrified by friction and impart their electric charge to other bodies. A charged conductor supported on a non-conductor retains its charge. It is then said to be insulated.

Experiment II.—Arrange two tea-trays, each on dry tumblers as before. Rub the sheet of ebonite with flannel, lay it face downwards on one tray, touch that tray with the finger for a moment and lift up the ebonite sheet, rub it again, and lay it face downwards on the second tray and leave it there. Then take two suspended gilt pith balls and touch them (a) both against one tray; they will be found to repel each other; (b) touch one against one tray and the other against the other tray, and they will be found to attract each other. This proves the existence of two kinds of electricity, called positive and negative. 241 The first tea-tray is positively electrified, and the second negatively. If an insulated brass ball is touched against the first tray and then against the knob or plate of the electroscope, the gold leaves will diverge. If the ball is discharged and touched against the other tray, and then afterwards against the previously charged electroscope, the leaves will collapse. This shows that the two electricities neutralize each other’s effect when imparted equally to the same conductor.

Experiment III.—Let one tray be insulated as before, and the electrified sheet of ebonite held over it, but not allowed to touch the tray. If the ebonite is withdrawn without touching the tray, the latter will be found to be unelectrified. If whilst holding the ebonite sheet over the tray the latter is also touched with an insulated brass ball, then this ball when removed and tested with the electroscope will be found to be negatively electrified. The sign of the electrification imparted to the electroscope when so charged—that is, whether positive or negative—can be determined by rubbing the sealing-wax rod with flannel and the glass rod with silk, and approaching them gently to the electroscope one at a time. The sealing-wax so treated is electrified negatively or resinously, and the glass with positive or vitreous electricity. Hence if the electrified sealing-wax rod makes the leaves collapse, the electroscopic charge is positive, but if the glass rod does the same, the electroscopic charge is negative. Again, if, whilst holding the electrified ebonite over the tray, we touch the latter for a moment and then withdraw the ebonite sheet, the tray will be found to be positively electrified. The electrified ebonite is said to act by “electrostatic induction” on the tray, and creates on it two induced charges, one of positive and the other of negative electricity. The last goes to earth when the tray is touched, and the first remains when the tray is insulated and the ebonite withdrawn.

Experiment IV.—Place a tin canister on a warm tumbler and connect it by a wire with the gold-leaf electroscope. Charge positively a brass ball held on an ebonite stem, and introduce it, without touching, into the canister. The leaves of the electroscope will diverge with positive electricity. Withdraw the ball and the leaves will collapse. Replace the ball again and touch the outside of the canister; the leaves will collapse. If then the ball be withdrawn, the leaves will diverge a second time with negative electrification. If, before withdrawing the ball, after touching the outside of the canister for a moment the ball is touched against the inside of the canister, then on withdrawing it the ball and canister are found to be discharged. This experiment proves that when a charged body acts by induction on an insulated conductor it causes an electrical separation to take place; electricity of opposite sign is drawn to the side nearest the inducing body, and that of like sign is repelled to the remote side, and these quantities are equal in amount.

Seat of the Electric Charge.—So far we have spoken of electric charge as if it resided on the conductors which are electrified. The work of Benjamin Franklin, Henry Cavendish, Michael Faraday and J. Clerk Maxwell demonstrated, however, that all electric charge or electrification of conductors consists simply in the establishment of a physical state in the surrounding insulator or dielectric, which state is variously called electric strain, electric displacement or electric polarization. Under the action of the same or identical electric forces the intensity of this state in various insulators is determined by a quality of them called their dielectric constant, specific inductive capacity or inductivity. In the next place we must notice that electrification is a measurable magnitude and in electrostatics is estimated in terms of a unit called the electrostatic unit of electric quantity. In the absolute C.G.S. system this unit quantity is defined as follows:—If we consider a very small electrified spherical conductor, experiment shows that it exerts a repulsive force upon another similar and similarly electrified body. Cavendish and C.A. Coulomb proved that this mechanical force varies inversely as the square of the distance between the centres of the spheres. The unit of mechanical force in the “centimetre, gramme, second” (C.G.S.) system of units is the dyne, which is approximately equal to 1/981 part of the weight of one gramme. A very small sphere is said then to possess a charge of one electrostatic unit of quantity, when it repels another similar and similarly electrified body with a force of one dyne, the centres being at a distance of one centimetre, provided that the spheres are in vacuo or immersed in some insulator, the dielectric constant of which is taken as unity. If the two small conducting spheres are placed with centres at a distance d centimetres, and immersed in an insulator of dielectric constant K, and carry charges of Q and Q′ electrostatic units respectively, measured as above described, then the mechanical force between them is equal to QQ′/Kd² dynes. For constant charges and distances the mechanical force is inversely as the dielectric constant.

Electric Force.—If a small conducting body is charged with Q electrostatic units of electricity, and placed in any electric field at a point where the electric force has a value E, it will be subject to a mechanical force equal to QE dynes, tending to move it in the direction of the resultant electric force. This provides us with a definition of a unit of electric force, for it is the strength of an electric field at that point where a small conductor carrying a unit charge is acted upon by unit mechanical force, assuming the dielectric constant of the surrounding medium to be unity. To avoid unnecessary complications we shall assume this latter condition in all the following discussion, which is equivalent simply to assuming that all our electrical measurements are made in air or in vacuo.

Owing to the confusion introduced by the employment of the term force, Maxwell and other writers sometimes use the words electromotive intensity instead of electric force. The reader should, however, notice that what is generally called electric force is the analogue in electricity of the so-called acceleration of gravity in mechanics, whilst electrification or quantity of electricity is analogous to mass. If a mass of M grammes be placed in the earth’s field at a place where the acceleration of gravity has a value g centimetres per second, then the mechanical force acting on it and pulling it downwards is Mg dynes. In the same manner, if an electrified body carries a positive charge Q electrostatic units and is placed in an electric field at a place where the electric force or electromotive intensity has a value E units, it is urged in the direction of the electric force with a mechanical force equal to QE dynes. We must, however, assume that the charge Q is so small that it does not sensibly disturb the original electric field, and that the dielectric constant of the insulator is unity.

Faraday introduced the important and useful conception of lines and tubes of electric force. If we consider a very small conductor charged with a unit of positive electricity to be placed in an electric field, it will move or tend to move under the action of the electric force in a certain direction. The path described by it when removed from the action of gravity and all other physical forces is called a line of electric force. We may otherwise define it by saying that a line of electric force is a line so drawn in a field of electric force that its direction coincides at every point with the resultant electric force at that point. Let any line drawn in an electric field be divided up into small elements of length. We can take the sum of all the products of the length of each element by the resolved part of the electric force in its direction. This sum, or integral, is called the “line integral of electric force” or the electromotive force (E.M.F.) along this line. In some cases the value of this electromotive force between two points or conductors is independent of the precise path selected, and it is then called the potential difference (P.D.) of the two points or conductors. We may define the term potential difference otherwise by saying that it is the work done in carrying a small conductor charged with one unit of electricity from one point to the other in a direction opposite to that in which it would move under the electric forces if left to itself.

Electric Potential.—Suppose then that we have a conductor charged with electricity; we may imagine its surface to be divided up into small unequal areas, each of which carries a unit charge of electricity. If we consider lines of electric force to be drawn from the boundaries of these areas, they will cut up the space round the conductor into tubular surfaces called tubes of electric 242 force, and each tube will spring from an area of the conductor carrying a unit electric charge. Hence the charge on the conductor can be measured by the number of unit electric tubes springing from it. In the next place we may consider the charged body to be surrounded by a number of closed surfaces, such that the potential difference between any point on one surface and the earth is the same. These surfaces are called “equipotential” or “level surfaces,” and we may so locate them that the potential difference between two adjacent surfaces is one unit of potential; that is, it requires one absolute unit of work (1 erg) to move a small body charged with one unit of electricity from one surface to the next. These enclosing surfaces, therefore, cut up the space into shells of potential, and divide up the tubes of force into electric cells. The surface of a charged conductor is an equipotential surface, because when the electric charge is in equilibrium there is no tendency for electricity to move from one part to the other.

We arbitrarily call the potential of the earth zero, since all potential difference is relative and there is no absolute potential any more than absolute level. We call the difference of potential between a charged conductor and the earth the potential of the conductor. Hence when a body is charged positively its potential is raised above that of the earth, and when negatively it is lowered beneath that of the earth. Potential in a certain sense is to electricity as difference of level is to liquids or difference of temperature to heat. It must be noted, however, that potential is a mere mathematical concept, and has no objective existence like difference of level, nor is it capable per se of producing physical changes in bodies, such as those which are brought about by rise of temperature, apart from any question of difference of temperature. There is, however, this similarity between them. Electricity tends to flow from places of high to places of low potential, water to flow down hill, and heat to move from places of high to places of low temperature. Returning to the case of the charged body with the space around it cut up into electric cells by the tubes of force and shells of potential, it is obvious that the number of these cells is represented by the product QV, where Q is the charge and V the potential of the body in electrostatic units. An electrified conductor is a store of energy, and from the definition of potential it is clear that the work done in increasing the charge q of a conductor whose potential is v by a small amount dq, is vdq, and since this added charge increases in turn the potential, it is easy to prove that the work done in charging a conductor with Q units to a potential V units is ½QV units of work. Accordingly the number of electric cells into which the space round is cut up is equal to twice the energy stored up, or each cell contains half a unit of energy. This harmonizes with the fact that the real seat of the energy of electrification is the dielectric or insulator surrounding the charged conductor.1

We have next to notice three important facts in electrostatics and some consequences flowing therefrom.

(i) Electrical Equilibrium and Potential.—If there be any number of charged conductors in a field, the electrification on them being in equilibrium or at rest, the surface of each conductor is an equipotential surface. For since electricity tends to move between points or conductors at different potentials, if the electricity is at rest on them the potential must be everywhere the same. It follows from this that the electric force at the surface of the conductor has no component along the surface, in other words, the electric force at the bounding surface of the conductor and insulator is everywhere at right angles to it.

By the surface density of electrification on a conductor is meant the charge per unit of area, or the number of tubes of electric force which spring from unit area of its surface. Coulomb proved experimentally that the electric force just outside a conductor at any point is proportional to the electric density at that point. It can be shown that the resultant electric force normal to the surface at a point just outside a conductor is equal to 4πσ, where σ is the surface density at that point. This is usually called Coulomb’s Law.2

(ii) Seat of Charge.—The charge on an electrified conductor is wholly on the surface, and there is no electric force in the interior of a closed electrified conducting surface which does not contain any other electrified bodies. Faraday proved this experimentally (see Experimental Researches, series xi. § 1173) by constructing a large chamber or box of paper covered with tinfoil or thin metal. This was insulated and highly electrified. In the interior no trace of electric charge could be found when tested by electroscopes or other means. Cavendish proved it by enclosing a metal sphere in two hemispheres of thin metal held on insulating supports. If the sphere is charged and then the jacketing hemispheres fitted on it and removed, the sphere is found to be perfectly discharged.3 Numerous other demonstrations of this fact were given by Faraday. The thinnest possible spherical shell of metal, such as a sphere of insulator coated with gold-leaf, behaves as a conductor for static charge just as if it were a sphere of solid metal. The fact that there is no electric force in the interior of such a closed electrified shell is one of the most certainly ascertained facts in the science of electrostatics, and it enables us to demonstrate at once that particles of electricity attract and repel each other with a force which is inversely as the square of their distance.

We may give in the first place an elementary proof of the converse proposition by the aid of a simple lemma:—

Lemma.—If particles of matter attract one another according to the law of the inverse square the attraction of all sections of a cone for a particle at the vertex is the same. Definition.—The solid angle subtended by any surface at a point is measured by the quotient of its apparent surface by the square of its distance from that point. Hence the total solid angle round any point is 4π. The solid angles subtended by all normal sections of a cone at the vertex are therefore equal, and since the attractions of these sections on a particle at the vertex are proportional to their distances from the vertex, they are numerically equal to one another and to the solid angle of the cone.

Let us then suppose a spherical shell O to be electrified. Select any point P in the interior and let a line drawn through it sweep out a small double cone (see fig. 1). Each cone cuts out an area on the surface equally inclined to the cone axis. The electric density on the sphere being uniform, the quantities of electricity on these areas are proportional to the areas, and if the electric force varies inversely as the square of the distance, the forces exerted by these two surface charges at the point in question are proportional to the solid angle of the little cone. Hence the forces due to the two areas at opposite ends of the chord are equal and opposed.

Hence we see that if the whole surface of the sphere is divided into pairs of elements by cones described through any interior point, the resultant force at that point must consist of the sum of pairs of equal and opposite forces, and is therefore zero. For the proof of the converse proposition we must refer the reader to the Electrical Researches of the Hon. Henry Cavendish, p. 419, or to Maxwell’s Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 2nd ed., vol. i. p. 76, where Maxwell gives an elegant proof that if the force in the interior of a closed conductor is zero, the law of the force must be that of the inverse square of the distance.4 From this fact it follows that we can shield any conductor entirely from external influence by other charged conductors by enclosing it in a metal case. It is not even necessary that 243 this envelope should be of solid metal; a cage made of fine metal wire gauze which permits objects in its interior to be seen will yet be a perfect electrical screen for them. Electroscopes and electrometers, therefore, standing in proximity to electrified bodies can be perfectly shielded from influence by enclosing them in cylinders of metal gauze.

Even if a charged and insulated conductor, such as an open canister or deep cup, is not perfectly closed, it will be found that a proof-plane consisting of a small disk of gilt paper carried at the end of a rod of gum-lac will not bring away any charge if applied to the deep inside portions. In fact it is curious to note how large an opening may be made in a vessel which yet remains for all electrical purposes “a closed conductor.” Maxwell (Elementary Treatise, &c., p. 15) ingeniously applied this fact to the insulation of conductors. If we desire to insulate a metal ball to make it hold a charge of electricity, it is usual to do so by attaching it to a handle or stem of glass or ebonite. In this case the electric charge exists at the point where the stem is attached, and there leakage by creeping takes place. If, however, we employ a hollow sphere and let the stem pass through a hole in the side larger than itself, and attach the end to the interior of the sphere, then leakage cannot take place.

Another corollary of the fact that there is no electric force in the interior of a charged conductor is that the potential in the interior is constant and equal to that at the surface. For by the definition of potential it follows that the electric force in any direction at any point is measured by the space rate of change of potential in that direction or E = ± dV/dx. Hence if the force is zero the potential V must be constant.

(iii.) Association of Positive and Negative Electricities.—The third leading fact in electrostatics is that positive and negative electricity are always created in equal quantities, and that for every charge, say, of positive electricity on one conductor there must exist on some other bodies an equal total charge of negative electricity. Faraday expressed this fact by saying that no absolute electric charge could be given to matter. If we consider the charge of a conductor to be measured by the number of tubes of electric force which proceed from it, then, since each tube must end on some other conductor, the above statement is equivalent to saying that the charges at each end of a tube of electric force are equal.

The facts may, however, best be understood and demonstrated by considering an experiment due to Faraday, commonly called the ice pail experiment, because he employed for it a pewter ice pail (Exp. Res. vol. ii. p. 279, or Phil. Mag. 1843, 22). On the plate of a gold-leaf electroscope place a metal canister having a loose lid. Let a metal ball be suspended by a silk thread, and the canister lid so fixed to the thread that when the lid is in place the ball hangs in the centre of the canister. Let the ball and lid be removed by the silk, and let a charge, say, of positive electricity (+Q) be given to the ball. Let the canister be touched with the finger to discharge it perfectly. Then let the ball be lowered into the canister. It will be found that as it does so the gold-leaves of the electroscope diverge, but collapse again if the ball is withdrawn. If the ball is lowered until the lid is in place, the leaves take a steady deflection. Next let the canister be touched with the finger, the leaves collapse, but diverge again when the ball is withdrawn. A test will show that in this last case the canister is left negatively electrified. If before the ball is withdrawn, after touching the outside of the canister with the finger, the ball is tilted over to make it touch the inside of the canister, then on withdrawing it the canister and ball are found to be perfectly discharged. The explanation is as follows: the charge (+Q) of positive electricity on the ball creates by induction an equal charge (−Q) on the inside of the canister when placed in it, and repels to the exterior surface of the canister an equal charge (+Q). On touching the canister this last charge goes to earth. Hence when the ball is touched against the inside of the canister before withdrawing it a second time, the fact that the system is found subsequently to be completely discharged proves that the charge − Q induced on the inside of the canister must be exactly equal to the charge +Q on the ball, and also that the inducing action of the charge +Q on the ball created equal quantities of electricity of opposite sign, one drawn to the inside and the other repelled to the outside of the canister.

Electrical Capacity.—We must next consider the quality of a conductor called its electrical capacity. The potential of a conductor has already been defined as the mechanical work which must be done to bring up a very small body charged with a unit of positive electricity from the earth’s surface or other boundary taken as the place of zero potential to the surface of this conductor in question. The mathematical expression for this potential can in some cases be calculated or predetermined.

Dielectric constant.—Since all electric charge consists in a state of strain or polarization of the dielectric, it is evident that the physical state and chemical composition of the insulator must be of great importance in determining electrical phenomena. Cavendish and subsequently Faraday discovered this fact, and the latter gave the name “specific inductive capacity,” or “dielectric constant,” to that quality of an insulator which determines the charge taken by a conductor embedded in it when charged to a given potential. The simplest method of determining it numerically is, therefore, that adopted by Faraday.12 He constructed two equal condensers, each consisting of a metal ball enclosed in a hollow metal sphere, and he provided also certain hemispherical shells of shellac, sulphur, glass, resin, &c., which he could so place in one condenser between the ball and enclosing sphere that it formed a condenser with solid dielectric. He then determined the ratio of the capacities of the two condensers, one with air and the other with the solid dielectric. This gave the dielectric constant K of the material. Taking the dielectric constant of air as unity he obtained the following values, for shellac K = 2.0, glass K = 1.76, and sulphur K = 2.24.

Table I.—Dielectric Constants (K) of Solids (K for Air = 1).

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Since Faraday’s time, by improved methods, but depending essentially upon the same principles, an enormous number of determinations of the dielectric constants of various insulators, solid, liquid and gaseous, have been made (see tables I., II., III. and IV.). There are very considerable differences between the values assigned by different observers, sometimes no doubt due to differences in method, but in most cases unquestionably depending on variations in the quality of the specimens examined. The value of the dielectric constant is greatly affected by the temperature and the frequency of the applied electric force.

Table II.—Dielectric Constant (K) of Liquids.

Table III.—Dielectric Constant of some Bodies at a very low Temperature (−185° C.) (Fleming and Dewar).

The above determinations at low temperature were made with either a steady or a slowly alternating electric force applied a hundred times a second. They show that the dielectric constant of a liquid generally undergoes great reduction in value when the liquid is frozen and reduced to a low temperature.13

The dielectric constants of gases have been determined by L. Boltzmann and I. Klemenčič as follows:—

Table IV.—Dielectric Constants (K) of Gases at 15° C. and 760 mm. Vacuum = 1.

In general the dielectric constant is reduced with decrease of temperature towards a certain limiting value it would attain at the absolute zero. This variation, however, is not always linear. In some cases there is a very sudden drop at or below a certain temperature to a much lower value, and above and below the point the temperature variation is small. There is also a large difference in most cases between the value for a steadily applied electric force and a rapidly reversed or intermittent force—in the last case a decrease with increase of frequency. Maxwell (Elec. and Magn. vol. ii. § 788) showed that the square root of the dielectric constant should be the same number as the refractive index for waves of the same frequency (see Electric Waves). There are very few substances, however, for which the optical refractive index has the same value as K for steady or slowly varying electric force, on account of the great variation of the value of K with frequency.

There is a close analogy between the variation of dielectric constant of an insulator with electric force frequency and that of the rigidity or stiffness of an elastic body with the frequency of applied mechanical stress. Thus pitch is a soft and yielding body under steady stress, but a bar of pitch if struck gives a musical note, which shows that it vibrates and is therefore stiff or elastic for high frequency stress.

Residual Charges in Dielectrics.—In close connexion with this lies the phenomenon of residual charge in dielectrics.14 If a glass Leyden jar is charged and then discharged and allowed to stand awhile, a second discharge can be obtained from it, and in like manner a third, and so on. The reappearance of the residual charge is promoted by tapping the glass. It has been shown that this behaviour of dielectrics can be imitated by a mechanical model consisting of a series of perforated pistons placed in a tube of oil with spiral springs between each piston.15 If the pistons are depressed and then released, and then the upper piston fixed awhile, a second discharge can be obtained from it, and the mechanical stress-strain diagram of the model is closely similar to the discharge curve of a dielectric. R.H.A. Kohlrausch called attention to the close analogy between residual charge and the elastic recovery of strained bodies such as twisted wire or glass threads. If a charged condenser is suddenly discharged and then insulated, the reappearance of a potential difference between its coatings is analogous to the reappearance of a torque in the case of a glass fibre which has been twisted, released suddenly, and then gripped again at the ends.

ELECTROTHERAPEUTICS, a general term for the use of electricity in therapeutics, i.e. in the alleviation and cure of disease. Before the different forms of medical treatment are dealt with, a few points in connexion with the machines and currents, of special interest to the medical reader, must first be given.

Faradism.—For the battery required either for faradism or galvanism, cells of the Leclanché type are the most satisfactory. Being dry they can be carried in any position, are lighter, and there is no trouble from the erosion of wires and binding screws, such as so often results from wet cells. The best method of producing a smooth current in the secondary coil is for the interruptor hammer to vibrate directly against the iron core of the primary coil. For this it is best that the interruptor be made of a piece of steel spring, as a high rate of interruption can then be maintained, with a fairly smooth current in the secondary coil. This form of interruptor necessitates that the iron core be fixed, and variation in the primary induced current is arranged for by slipping a brass tube more or less over the iron core, thus cutting off the magnetic field from the primary coil. The secondary current (that obtained from the secondary coil) can be varied by keeping the secondary coil permanently fixed over the primary and varying the strength of the primary current. Where, as suggested above, the iron core is fixed, the primary and secondary induced currents will be at their strongest when the brass tube is completely withdrawn. As there is no simple means of measuring the strength of the faradic current, it is best to start with a very weak current, testing it on the muscles of one’s own hand until these begin to contract and a definite sensory effect is produced; the current can then be applied to the part, being strengthened only very gradually.

Galvanism.—For treatment by galvanism a large battery is needed, the simplest form being known as a “patient’s battery,” consisting of a variable number of dry cells arranged in series. The cells used are those of Leclanché, with E.M.F. (or voltage) of 1.5 and an internal resistance of .3 ohm. Thus the exact strength of the current is known; the number of cells usually employed is 24, and when new give an E.M.F. of about 36 volts. By using the formula C = E/R, where E is the voltage of the battery, R the total resistance of battery, electrodes and the patient’s skin and tissues, and C the current in amperes, the number of cells required for any particular current can be worked out. The resistance of the patient’s skin must be made as low as possible by thoroughly wetting both skin and electrodes with sodium bicarbonate solution, and keeping the electrodes in very close apposition to the skin. A galvanometer is always fitted to the battery, usually of the d’Arsonval type, with a shunt by means of which, on turning a screw, nine-tenths of the inducing current can be short-circuited away, and the solenoid only influenced by one-tenth of the current which is being used on the patient. In districts where electric power is available the continuous current can be used by means of a switchboard. A current of much value for electrotherapeutic purposes is the sinusoidal current, by which is meant an alternating current whose curve of electromotive force, in both positive and negative phase, varies constantly and smoothly in what is known as the sine curve. In those districts supplied by an alternating current, the sinusoidal current can be obtained from the mains by passing it through various transformers, but where the main supply is the direct or constant current, a motor transformer is needed.

Static Electricity.—For treatment by static electricity the Wimshurst type of machine is the one most generally used. A number of electrodes are required; thus for the application of sparks a brass ball and brass roller electrode, for the “breeze” a single point and a multiple point electrode, and another multiple point electrode in the form of a metal cap that can be placed over the patient’s head. The polarity of the machine must always be tested, as either knob may become positive or negative, though the polarity rarely changes when once the machine is in action. The oldest method of subjecting a patient to electric influence is that in which static electricity is employed. The patient is insulated on a suitable platform and treated by means of charges and discharges from an electrical machine. The effect is to increase the regularity and frequency of the pulse, raise the blood pressure and increase the action of the skin. The nervous system is quieted, sleep being promoted, the patient often becoming drowsy during the application. If while the patient is being treated a point electrode is brought towards him he feels the sensation of a wind blowing from that point; this is an electric breeze or brush discharge. The breeze is negative if the patient is positively charged and vice versa. The “breeze discharge” treatment is especially valuable in subduing pain of the superficial cutaneous nerves, and also in the treatment of chronic indolent ulcers. Quite recently this form of treatment has been applied with much success to various skin lesions—psoriasis, eczema and pruritus. Static electricity is also utilized for medical purposes by means of “sparks,” which are administered with a ball electrode, the result being a sudden muscular contraction at the point of application. The electrode must be rapidly withdrawn before a second spark has time to leap across, as this is a severe form of treatment and must be administered slowly. It is mainly employed for muscular stimulation, and the contractions resulting from spark stimulation can be produced in cases of nerve injury and degeneration, even when the muscles have lost their reaction to faradism. The sensory stimulation of this form of treatment is also strong, and is useful in hysterical anaesthesia and functional paralysis. Where a milder sensory stimulation is required friction can be used, the electrode being in the form of a metal roller which is moved rapidly outside the 250 patient’s clothing over the spine or other part to be treated. The clothing must be dry and of wool, and each additional woollen layer intensifies the effect.

Another method of employing electricity at high potential is by the employment of high frequency currents. There are two methods of application: that in which brush discharges are made use of, with undoubtedly good effects in many of the diseases affecting the surface of the body, and that in which the currents of the solenoid are made to traverse the patient directly. The physiological value of the latter method is not certain, though one point of interest in connexion with it is that whereas statical applications raise the blood pressure, high frequency applications lower it. It has been used in the case of old people with arterio-sclerosis, and the reduction of blood pressure produced is said to have shown considerable permanence.

The Faradic Current.—G.B. Duchenne was the first physician to make use of the induced current for treatment, and the term “faradization” is supposed to be due to him. But in his day the differences between the two currents available, the primary and the secondary, were not worked out, and they were used somewhat indiscriminately. Nowadays it is generally accepted that the primary current should be used for the stimulation of deep-lying organs, as stomach and intestines, &c., while the secondary current is employed for stimulation of the limb muscles and the cutaneous sensory nerves. The faradic current is also used as a means of diagnosis for neuro-muscular conditions. When the interrupted current is used to stimulate the skin over a motor nerve, all the muscles supplied by that nerve are thrown into rapid tetanic contraction, the contraction both beginning and ceasing sharply and suddenly with the current. This is the normal reaction of the nerve to faradism. If the muscle be wasted from disuse or some local cause unconnected with its nerve-supply, the contraction is smaller, and both arises and relaxes more slowly. But if the lesion lies in the nerve itself, as in Bell’s palsy, the muscles no longer show any response when the nerve is stimulated, and this is known as the reaction of degeneration in the nerve. It is usually preceded by a condition of hyperexcitability. These results are applied to distinguish between functional paralysis and that due to some organic lesion, as in the former case the reaction of faradism will be as brisk as usual. Also at the beginning of most cases of infantile paralysis many more groups of muscles appear to be affected than ultimately prove to be, and faradism enables the physician to distinguish between those groups of muscles that are permanently paralysed owing to the destruction of their trophic centre, and those muscles which are only temporarily inhibited from shock, and which with proper treatment will later regain their full power. In the testing of muscles electrically that point on the skin which on stimulation gives the maximum contraction for that muscle is known as the “motor point” for that muscle. It usually corresponds to the entry of the motor nerve. Faradic treatment may be employed in the weakness and emaciation depending on any long illness, rickets, anaemia, &c. For these cases it is best to use the electric bath, the patient being placed in warm water, and the two electrodes, one at the patient’s back and the other at his feet, being connected with the secondary coil. The patient’s general metabolism is stimulated, he eats and sleeps better and soon begins to put on weight. This is especially beneficial in severe cases of rickets. In the weakness and emaciation due to neurasthenia, especially in those cases being treated by the Weir Mitchell method (isolation, absolute confinement to bed, massage and overfeeding), a similar faradic bath is a very helpful adjunct. In tabes dorsalis faradic treatment will often diminish the anaesthesia and numbness in the legs, with resulting benefit to the ataxy. Perhaps the most beneficial use of the faradic current is in the treatment of chronic constipation—especially that so frequently met with in young women and due to deficient muscular power of the intestinal walls. In long-standing cases the large intestine becomes permanently dilated, and its muscular fibres so attenuated as to have no power over the intestinal contents. But faradism causes contraction at the point of stimulation, and the peristaltic wave thus started slowly progresses along the bowel. All that is needed is a special electrode for introduction into the bowel and an ordinary roller electrode. The rectal electrode consists of a 6-inch wire bearing at one end a small metal knob and fitted at the other into a metal cup which screws into the handle of the electrode. The only part exposed is the metallic knob; the rest is coated with some insulating material. The patient reclines on a couch on his back, the rectal electrode is connected, and having been vaselined is passed some three inches into the rectum. A current is started with the secondary coil in such a position as to give only an extremely weak current. The roller electrode is then wetted with hot water and applied to the front of the abdomen. At first the patient should feel nothing, but the current should slowly be increased until a faint response is perceptible from the abdominal muscles. This gives the required strength, and the roller electrode, pressed well into the abdominal wall, should very slowly be moved along the course of the large intestine beginning at the right iliac fossa. Thus a combination of massage and faradic current is obtained, and the results are particularly satisfactory. Treatment should be given on alternate days immediately after breakfast, and should be persevered with for six or eight weeks. The patient can be taught to administer it to himself.

The Galvanic, Continuous or Direct Current.—In using the galvanic or direct current the electrode must be covered with padded webbing or some other absorbent material, the metal of the electrode never being allowed to come in contact with the skin. The padding by retaining moisture helps to make good contact, and also helps to guard against burning the skin. But when a continuous current of 3 am. or more is passed for more than 5 min. the electrodes must be raised periodically and the skin inspected. If the current be too strong or applied for too long a time, small blisters are raised which break and are very troublesome to heal. Nor does the patient always feel much pain when this occurs. Also the electrodes must be remoistened every five or six minutes, as they soon become dry, and the skin will then be burnt. It is best to use a solution of sodium bicarbonate. Again, the danger of burning the skin depends on the density of the current per sq. in. of electrode, so that a strong current through a small electrode will burn the skin, whereas the same current through a larger electrode will produce a beneficial effect. If the patient be immersed up to his neck in an electric bath, much stronger currents can be passed without causing either pain or injury, as in this case the whole area of the skin in contact with the water acts as an electrode. In passing the current it must be remembered that the negative electrode or kathode is the more painful of the two, and its action more stimulating than the positive electrode or anode, which is sedative. If a muscle be stimulated over its motor point, it will contract with a sharp twitch and then become quiescent. With normal muscle the KCC (kathodal closure contraction) is stronger than that produced by the closure of the current at the anode ACC (anodal closure contraction). And if the muscle be normal the opening contraction KOC and AOC are not seen. When a galvanic current is passed along a nerve its excitability is increased at the kathode and diminished at the anode. The increased excitability at the kathode is katelectrotonus, and the lowered excitability at the anode anelectrotonus. But since in a patient the electrode cannot be applied directly to the nerve, the lines of force from the electrode pass into the nerve both in an upward and downward direction, and hence there are two poles produced by each electrode. If the current be suddenly reversed, so that what was the anode becomes the kathode, a stronger contraction is obtained than by simply making and breaking the current. To avoid the four poles on the nerve to be tested, it is found most satisfactory to have one electrode placed at some distance, on the back or chest, not on the same limb.

As explained above, when the nerve supplying a muscle is diseased it no longer responds to the faradic current. On further testing this with the galvanic or continuous current it responds, but the contraction is not brisk but begins slowly and relaxes 251 slowly, though the contraction as a whole may be larger than that of a normal muscle. This excessive contraction is known as hyperexcitability to galvanism. This form of contraction is that obtained when the muscle fibre itself is stimulated. Again, whereas in normal muscle KCC > ACC, when the nerve is degenerated KCC = ACC or ACC > KCC. Also in the more severe forms of nerve injury tetanic contractions may be set up in the paralysed muscles, by closure of the current either at the anode or kathode. These charges are known as the reaction of degeneration or RD, and are of great value in diagnosis. They occur only after sudden or acute damage to the nerve cells of the anterior horn of the spinal cord, or to the motor nerve fibres proceeding from these cells. Thus RD is present in infantile paralysis, acute neuritis, &c., but absent in progressive muscular atrophy where the wasting of nerve and muscle takes place extremely slowly. The reaction of degeneration in the nerve is shown by disappearance of reaction to either kind of current, preceded for some days by hyperexcitability to either current. Where the muscle wasting is due to a lesion in the muscle alone, as in ischaemic myositis (usually due to injury from tight bandaging or badly applied splints), no reaction of degeneration is found; the only change is a loss of power in the contraction. If the damage to the anterior horn cells be only very slight, there may only be partial RD, and the prognosis is given according to the extent of RD. From this account it is clear that the greatest value of the continuous current lies in its use in diagnosis. But it is also applied extremely successfully, in combination with massage, to cases of infantile paralysis. Wrist drop from lead poisoning and lead neuritis of all kinds, reflex muscular atrophy and the muscular wasting of hemiplegia, are all benefited by the continuous current; the severe pain of sciatica, and the inflammation of the nerve sheath in these cases, can be arrested more quickly by galvanic treatment than in any other way. Nearly all forms of neuritis, both of the cranial and other nerves, are best treated by the continuous current. The action in all cases is to stimulate the natural tendency to repair, very largely by improving the circulation through the injured parts.

Another effect of an electric current is electrolysis, and the phenomena of electrolytic conduction involve not merely the ionization of the compounds, but also the setting in motion of the ions towards their respective poles. Solutions which conduct electric currents are called electrolytes, and in the case of the human body the electrolyte is the whole mass of the saline constituents in solution throughout the body. When a current is passed through an electrolyte, dissociation into ions takes place, the ions which are freed round the anode being called anions and those which are freed round the kathode being called kations. The anions carry negative charges and are consequently attracted by the positive electricity of the anode. The kations carry positive charges, hence they are repelled by the anode and attracted by the kathode. But a certain number of molecules do not dissociate, and hence in an electrolytic solution there are neutral molecules, anions and kations. The chemical actions, and thus the antiseptic, remedial or toxic effects of electrolytes, are due to the actions of their ions. The phosphides and phosphates may be taken as examples. Some are extremely toxic, while others are quite harmless. But it is to the phosphorus ion that the toxic or therapeutic effect is due. In the phosphates the phosphorus is part of a complex ion possessing quite different properties to those of the phosphorus ion of the phosphides. The strikingly different effects of the sulphates and sulphides are due to similar conditions, as also of many other compounds. There are certain solvents, as alcohol, chloroform, glycerin and vaseline which do not dissociate electrolytes, and consequently the latter become inert when mixed with these solvents. These solutions do not conduct electricity, and hence ionic effects are extremely slow. A vaseline ointment containing 5% of phenol makes a good dressing for an ulcer of the leg, and produces no irritant effect, but a 5% aqueous solution may be both caustic and toxic. Since the toxic or therapeutic action of a solution is due to its ions, the action must be proportional to the number of ions in a given volume, that is, the action of an electrolyte depends on the degree of dissociation. Thus a strong acid is one that is much dissociated, a weak acid one that has undergone but little dissociation and so on. In 1896-1897 it was shown that the bactericidal action of salts varies with their degree of dissociation and therefore depends on the concentration of the active ions. In the medical application of these facts it must be remembered that when an ion is introduced into the body by electrolysis, it is probably forced into the actual cellular constituents of the body, whereas the drug administered by one of the usual methods though circulating in the blood may perhaps never gain access to the cell itself. Hence the different effects that have been recorded between a drug administered by the mouth or subcutaneously and the same administered by electrolysis. Thus a solution of cocaine injected subcutaneously produces quite different effects to that introduced by electrolysis. By the latter method it produces anaesthesia but does not diffuse, and the anaesthesia remains strictly limited to the surface covered by the electrode. It would appear that the ion is never introduced into the general circulation but into the cell plasma.

In the technical working of medical electrolysis the most minute precautions are required. The solution of the drug must be made with as pure water as possible, recently distilled. The spongy substance forming the electrode must be free from any trace of electrolytic substances. Hence all materials used must be washed in distilled water. Absorbent cotton answers all requirements and is easily procured. The area of introduction can be exactly circumscribed by cutting a hole in a sheet of adhesive plaster which is applied to the skin and on which the electrolytic electrodes are pressed. The great advantage of electrolytic methods is that it enables general treatment to be replaced by a strictly local treatment, and the cells can be saturated exactly to the degree and depth required. Strong antiseptics and materials that coagulate albumen cannot be introduced locally by ordinary methods, as the skin is impermeable to them, but by electrolysis they can be introduced to the exact depth required. The local effects of the ions depend on the dosage; thus a feeble dose of the ions of zinc stimulates the growth of hair, but a stronger dose produces the death of the tissue. Naturally the different ions produce different effects. Thus the ions of the alkalis and magnesium are caustic, those of the alkaline earthy metals produce actual mortification of the tissue and so on. According to the ion chosen the effect may be caustic in various degrees, antiseptic, coagulating, producing vascular or nervous changes, &c., &c. And again electrolysis can also be used for extracting from the body such ions as are injurious, as uric and oxalic acid from a patient suffering from gout.

One of the latest advances is the treatment of ankylosed joints by the electrolytic method, the electrolyte used being chloride of sodium, and the marvellous results being attributed to the introduction of the chlorine ions. This sclerolytic property of the current is applicable to all parts of the body accessible to the current. Old cases of rheumatic scleritis, entirely unaffected by the routine treatment of salicylates and iodide, have often cleared up entirely under electrolytic treatment. Cases of chronic iritis with adhesions and old pleural adhesions are also suited for this method of procedure. Certain menstrual troubles of women and also endometritis yield rapidly to electrolysis with a zinc anode. Before this method of introduction, the zinc salts, though excellent disinfectants, acted only on the surface in consequence of their coagulating action on the albuminoids, but by the electric current, under the influence of a difference of potential, the zinc iron will penetrate to any desired depth. Cases of rodent ulcer unaffected by all other methods of treatment have been cured by electric kataphoresis with zinc ions, and the method is now being applied to the treatment of inoperable malignant tumours. As very strong currents are required for this latter, the patient has first to be anaesthetized by a general anaesthetic. Another direction in which electric ions are being used is that of the induction of local anaesthesia before minor surgical operations. Cocaine is the drug used, the resulting anaesthesia is absolute, and the operation can be made almost bloodless by the admixture of suprarenal extract.

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ELECTROTYPING, an application of the art of electroplating (q.v.) to typography (q.v.). In copying engraved plates for printing purposes, copper may be deposited upon the original plate, the surface of which is first rendered slightly dirty, by means of a weak solution of wax in turpentine or otherwise, to prevent adhesion. The reversed plate thus produced is then stripped from the first and used as cathode in its turn, with the result that even the finest lines of the original are faithfully reproduced. The electrolyte commonly contains about 1½ ℔ of copper sulphate and ½ ℔ of strong sulphuric acid per gallon, and is worked with a current density of about 10 amperes per sq. ft., which should give a thickness of 0.000563 in. of copper per hour. As time is an object, the conditions alluded to in the article on Copper as being favourable to the use of high current densities should be studied, bearing in mind that a tough copper deposit of high quality is essential. Moulds for reproducing plates or art-work are often taken in plaster, beeswax mixed with Venice turpentine, fusible metal, or gutta-percha, and the surface being rendered conductive by powdered black-lead, copper is deposited upon it evenly throughout. For statuary, and “undercut” work generally, an elastic mould—of glue and treacle (80 : 20 parts)—may be used; the mould, when set, is waterproofed by immersion in a solution of potassium bichromate followed by exposure to sunlight, or in some other way. The best results, however, are obtained by taking a wax cast from the elastic mould, and then from this a plaster mould, which may be waterproofed with wax, black-leaded, and used as cathode. In art-work of this nature the principal points to be looked to in depositing are the electrical connexions to the cathode, the shape of the anode (to secure uniformity of deposition), the circulation of the electrolyte, and, in some cases, the means for escape of anode oxygen. Silver electrotyping is occasionally resorted to for special purposes.

ELECTRUM, ELECTRON (Gr. ἤλεκτρον, amber), an alloy of gold and silver in use among the ancients, described by Pliny as containing one part of silver to four of gold. The term is also applied in mineralogy to native argentiferous gold containing from 20 to 50% of silver. In both cases the name is derived from the pale yellow colour of electrum, resembling that of amber.

ELEGIT (Lat. for “he has chosen”), in English law, a judicial writ of execution, given by the Statute of Westminster II. (1285), and so called from the words of the writ, that the plaintiff has chosen (elegit) this mode of satisfaction. Previously to the Statute of Westminster II., a judgment creditor could only have the profits of lands of a debtor in satisfaction of his judgment, but not the possession of the lands themselves. But this statute provided that henceforth it should be in the election of the party having recovered judgment to have a writ of fieri facias (q.v.) unto the sheriff on lands and goods or else all the chattels of the debtor and the one half of his lands until the judgment be satisfied. Since the Bankruptcy Act 1883 the writ of elegit has extended to lands and hereditaments only. (See further Execution.)

ELEGY, a short poem of lamentation or regret, called forth by the decease of a beloved or revered person, or by a general sense of the pathos of mortality. The Greek word ἐλεγεία is of doubtful signification; it is usually interpreted as meaning a mournful or funeral song. But there seems to be no proof that this idea of regret for death entered into the original meaning of ἐλεγεία. The earliest Greek elegies which have come down to us are not funereal, although it is possible that the primitive ἐλεγεία may have been a set of words liturgically used, with music, at a burial. When the elegy appears in surviving Greek literature, we find it dedicated, not to death, but to war and love. Callinus of Ephesus, who flourished in the 7th century, is the earliest elegist of whom we possess fragments. A little later Tyrtaeus was composing his famous elegies in Sparta. Both of these writers were, so far as we know, exclusively warlike and patriotic. On the other hand, the passion of love inspires Mimnermus, whose elegies are the prototypes not only of the later Greek pieces, and of the Latin poems of the school of Tibullus and Propertius, but of a great deal of the formal erotic poetry of modern Europe. In the 6th century B.C., the elegies of Solon were admired; they are mainly lost. But we possess more of the work of Theognis of Megara than of any other archaic elegist, and in it we can observe the characteristics of Greek elegy best. Here the Dorian spirit of chivalry reaches its highest expression, and war is combined with manly love.

The elegy, in its calm movement, seems to have begun to lose currency when the ecstasy of emotion was more successfully interpreted by the various rhythmic and dithyrambic inventions of the Aeolic lyrists. The elegy, however, rose again to the highest level of merit in Alexandrian times. It was reintroduced by Philetas in the 3rd cent. B.C., and was carried to extreme perfection by Callimachus. Other later Greek elegists of high reputation were Asclepiades and Euphorion. But it is curious to notice that all the elegies of these poets were of an amatory nature, and that antiquity styled the funeral dirges of Theocritus, Bion and Moschus—which are to us the types of elegy—not elegies at all, but idylls. When the poets of Rome began their imitative study of Alexandrian models, it was natural that the elegies of writers such as Callimachus should tempt them to immediate imitation. Gallus, whose works are unhappily lost, is known to have produced a great sensation in Rome by publishing his translation of the poems of Euphorion; and he passed on to the composition of erotic elegies of his own, which were the earliest in the Latin language. If we possessed his once-famous Cytheris, we should be able to decide the question of how much Propertius, who is now the leading figure among Roman elegists, owed to the example of Gallus. His brilliantly emotional Cynthia, with its rich and unexampled employment of that alternation of hexameter and pentameter which had now come to be known as the elegiac measure, seems, however, to have settled the type of Latin elegy. Tibullus is always named in conjunction with Propertius, who was his contemporary, although in their style they were violently contrasted. The sweetness of Tibullus was the object of admiration and constant imitation by the Latin poets of the Renaissance, although Propertius has more austerely pleased a later taste. Finally, Ovid wrote elegies of great variety in subject, but all in the same form, and his dexterous easy metre closed the tradition of elegiac poetry among the ancients. What remains in the decline of Latin literature is all founded on a study of those masters of the Golden Age.

When the Renaissance found its way to England, the word “elegy” was introduced by readers of Ovid and Propertius. But from the beginning of the 16th century, it was used in English, as it has been ever since, to describe a funeral song or lament. One of the earliest poems in English which bears the title of elegy is The Complaint of Philomene, which George Gascoigne began in 1562, and printed in 1576. The Daphnaida of Spenser (1591) is an elegy in the strict modern sense, namely a poem of regret pronounced at the obsequies of a particular person. In 1579 Puttenham had defined an elegy as being a song “of long lamentation.” With the opening of the 17th century the composition of elegies became universal on every occasion of public or private grief. Dr Johnson’s definition, “Elegy, a short poem without points or turns,” is singularly inept and careless. By that time (1755) English literature had produced many great elegies, of which the Lycidas of Milton is by far the most illustrious. But even Cowley’s on Crashaw, Tickell’s on Addison, Pope’s on an Unfortunate Lady, those of Quarles, and Dryden, and Donne, should have warned Johnson of his mistake. Since the 18th century the most illustrious examples of elegy in English literature have been the Adonais of Shelley (on Keats), the Thyrsis of Matthew Arnold (on Clough), and the Ave atque Vale of Mr Swinburne (on Baudelaire). It remains for us to mention what is the most celebrated elegy in English, that written by Gray in a Country Churchyard. This, however, belongs to a class apart, as it is not addressed to the memory of any particular person. A writer of small merit, James Hammond (1716-1742), enjoyed a certain success with his Love Elegies in which he endeavoured to introduce the erotic elegy as it was written by Ovid and Tibullus. This experiment took no 253 hold of English literature, but was welcomed in France in the amatory works of Parny (1753-1814), in those of Chênedollé (1769-1833), and of Millevoye (1782-1816). The melancholy and sentimental elegies of the last named are the typical examples of this class of poetry in French literature. Lamartine must be included among the elegists, and his famous “Le Lac” is as eminent an elegy in French as Gray’s “Country Churchyard” is in English. The elegy has flourished in Portugal, partly because it was cultivated with great success by Camoens, the most illustrious of the Portuguese poets. In Italian, Chiabrera and Filicaia are named among the leading national elegists. In German literature, the notion of elegy as a poem of lamentation does not exist. The famous Roman Elegies of Goethe imitate in form and theme those of Ovid; they are not even plaintive in character.

Elegiac Verse has commonly been adopted by German poets for their elegies, but by English poets never. Schiller defines this kind of verse, which consists of a distich of which the first line is a hexameter and the second a pentameter, in the following pretty illustration:—

The word “elegy,” in English, is one which is frequently used very incorrectly; it should be remembered that it must be mournful, meditative and short without being ejaculatory. Thus Tennyson’s In Memoriam is excluded by its length; it may at best be treated as a collection of elegies. Wordsworth’s Lucy, on the other hand, is a dirge; this is too brief a burst of emotion to be styled an elegy. Lycidas and Adonais remain the two unapproachable types of what a personal elegy ought to be in English.

ELEMENT (Lat. elementum), an ultimate component of anything, hence a fundamental principle. Elementum was used in Latin to translate the Greek στοιχεῖον (that which stands in a στοῖχος, or row), and is a word of obscure origin and etymology. The root of Lat. alere, to nourish, has been suggested, thus making it a doublet of alimentum, that which supports life; another explanation is that the word represents LMN., the first three letters of the second part of the alphabet, a parallel use to that of ABC. Apart from its application in chemistry, which is treated below, the word is used of the rudiments or principia of any science or subject, as in Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, or in the “beggarly elements” (τὰπτωχὰ στοιχεῖα, of St Paul in Gal. iv. 9); in mathematics, of a fundamental concept involved in an investigation, as the “elements” of a determinant; and in electricity, of a galvanic (or voltaic) “element” in an electric cell (see Battery: Electric). In astronomy, “element” is used of any one of the numerical or geometrical data by which the course of a varying phenomenon is computed; it is applied especially to orbital motion and eclipses. The “elements of an orbit” are the six data by which the position of a moving body in its orbit at any time may be determined. The “elements of an eclipse” express and determine the motion of the centre of the shadow-axis, and are the data necessary to compute the phenomena of an eclipse during its whole course, as seen at any place. In architecture the term “element” is applied to the outline of the design of a Decorated window, on which the centres for the tracery are found. These centres will all be found to fall on points which, in some way or other, will be equimultiples of parts of the openings.

Chemical Elements.

Like all other scientific concepts, that of an element has changed its meaning many times in many ways during the development of science. Owing to their very small amount of real chemical knowledge, the generalizations Ancient ideas. of the ancients were necessarily rather superficial, and could not stand in the face of the increasing development of practical chemistry. Nevertheless we find the concept of an element as “a substance from which all bodies are made or derived” held at the very beginning of occidental philosophy. Thales regarded “water” as the element of all things; his followers accepted his idea of a primordial substance as the basis of all bodies, but they endeavoured to determine some other general element or elements, like “fire” or “spirit,” or “love” and “hatred,” or “fire,” “water,” “air” and “earth.” We find in this development an exact parallelism to the manner in which scientific ideas generally arise, develop and change. They are created to point out the common part in a variety of observed phenomena, in order to get some leading light in the chaos of events. At first almost any idea will do, if only it promises some comprehensive arrangement of the facts; afterwards, the inconsistencies of the first trial make themselves felt; the first idea is then changed to meet better the new requirements. For a shorter or longer time the facts and ideas may remain in accord, but the uninterrupted increase of empirical knowledge involves sooner or later new fundamental alterations of the general idea, and in this way there is a never-ceasing process of adaptation of the ideas to the facts. As facts are unchangeable by themselves, the adaptation can be only one-sided; the ideas are compelled to change according to the facts. We must therefore educate ourselves to regard the ideas or theories as the changing part of science, and keep ourselves ready to accept even the most fundamental revision of current theories.

The first step in the development of the idea of elements was to recognize that a single principle would not prove sufficient to cover the manifoldness of facts. Empedocles therefore conceived a double or binary elementary principle; and Aristotle developed this idea a stage further, stating two sets of binary antagonistic principles, namely “dry-wet” and “hot-cold.” The Aristotelian or peripatetic elements, which played such a great rôle in the whole medieval philosophy, are the representatives of the several binary combinations of these fundamental properties, “fire” being hot and dry, “air” hot and wet, “water” cold and wet, “earth” cold and dry. According to the amount of these properties found in any body, these elements were regarded as having taken part in forming this body. Concerning the reason why only these properties were regarded as fundamental, we know nothing. They seem to be taken at random rather than carefully selected; they relate only to the sense of touch, and not to vision or any other sense, possibly because deceptions in the sense of touch were regarded as non-existent, while the other senses were apparently not so trustworthy. At any rate, the Aristotelian elements soon proved to be rather inadequate to meet the requirements of the increasing chemical knowledge; other properties had therefore to be selected to represent the general behaviour of chemical substances, and in this case we find them already much more “chemical” in the modern sense.

Among the various substances recognized by the chemists, certain classes or groups readily distinguished themselves. First the metals, by their lustre, their heaviness, and a number of other common properties. According to Elements of the alchemists. the general principle of selecting a single substance as a representative of the group, the metallic properties were represented by “mercury.” The theoreticians of the middle ages were rather careful to point out that common mercury (the liquid metal of to-day) was not at all to be identified with “philosophical” mercury, the last being simply the principle of metallic behaviour. In the same way combustibility was represented by “sulphur,” solubility by “salt,” and occasionally the chemically indifferent or refractory character by “earth.” According to the subsistence and preponderance of these properties in different bodies, these were regarded as containing the corresponding elements; conversely, just as experience teaches the chemist every day that by proper treatment the properties of given bodies may be changed in the most various ways, the observed changes of properties were ascribed to the gain or loss of the corresponding elements. According to this theory, which accounted rather well for a large number of facts, there was no fundamental objection against trying to endow base metals with the properties of the precious ones; to make artificial gold was a task quite similar to the modern problem of, e.g. making artificial quinine. The realization that there is a certain natural law preventing such changes is of much later date. It is therefore 254 quite unjust to consider the work of the alchemists, who tried to make artificial gold, as consummate nonsense. A priori there was no reason why a change from lead to gold should be less possible than a change from iron to rust; indeed there is no a priori reason against it now. But experience has taught us that lead and gold are chemical elements in the modern sense, and that there is a general experimental law that elements are not transformable one into another. So experience taught the alchemists irresistibly that in spite of the manifoldness of chemical changes it is not always possible to change any given substance into another; the possibilities are much more limited, and there is only a certain range of substances to be obtained from a given one. The impossibility of transforming lead or copper into noble metals proved to be only one case out of many, and it was recognized generally that there are certain chemical families whose members are related to one another by their mutual transformability, while it is impossible to bridge the boundaries separating these families.

The man who brought all these experiences and considerations into scientific form was Robert Boyle. He stated as a general principle, that only tangible and ponderable substances should be recognized as elements, an element being Work of Robert Boyle. a substance from which other substances may be made, but which cannot be separated into different substances. He showed that neither the peripatetic nor the alchemistic elements satisfied this definition. But he was more of a critical than of a synthetical turn of mind; although he established the correct principles, he hesitated to point out what substances, among those known at his time, were to be considered as elements. He only paved the way to the goal by laying the foundations of analytical chemistry, i.e. by teaching how to characterize and to distinguish different chemical individuals. Further, by adopting and developing the corpuscular hypothesis of the constitution of the ponderable substances, he foreshadowed, in a way, the law of the conservation of the elements, viz. that no element can be changed into another element; and he considered the compound substances to be made up from small particles or corpuscles of their elements, the latter retaining their essence in all combinations. This hypothesis accounts for the fact that only a limited number of other substances can be made from a given one—namely, only those which contain the elements present in the given substance. But it is characteristic of Boyle’s critical mind that he did not shut his eyes against a serious objection to his hypothesis. If the compound substance is made up of parts of the elements, one would expect that the properties of the compound substance would prove to be the sum of the properties of the elements. But this is not the case, and chemical compounds show properties which generally differ very considerably from those of the compounds. On the one hand, the corpuscular hypothesis of Boyle was developed into the atomic hypothesis of Dalton, which was considered at the beginning of the 19th century as the very best representation of chemical facts, while, on the other hand, the difficulty as to the properties of the compounds remained the same as Boyle found it, and has not yet been removed by an appropriate development of the atomic hypothesis. Thus Boyle considered, e.g. the metals as elements. However, it is interesting to note that he considered the mutual transformation of the metals as not altogether impossible, and he even tells of a case when gold was transformed into base metal. It is a common psychological fact that a reformer does not generally succeed in being wholly consistent in his reforming ideas; there remains invariably some point where he commits exactly the same fault which he set out to abolish. We shall find the same inconsistency also among other chemical reformers. Even earlier than Boyle, Joachim Jung (1587-1657) of Hamburg developed similar ideas. But as he did not distinguish himself, as Boyle did, by experimental work in science, his views exerted only a limited influence amongst his pupils.

In the times following Boyle’s work we find no remarkable outside development of the theory of elements, but a very important inside one. Analytical chemistry, or the art of distinguishing different chemical substances, was rapidly developing, Phlogiston theory. and the necessary foundation for such a theory was thus laid. We find the discussions about the true elements disappearing from the text-books, or removed to an insignificant corner, while the description of observed chemical changes of different ways of preparing the same substance, as identified by the same properties, and of the methods for recognizing and distinguishing the various substances, take their place. The similarity of certain groups of chemical changes, as, for example, combustion, and the inverse process, reduction, was observed, and thus led to an attempt to shape these most general facts into a common theory. In this way the theory of “phlogiston” was developed by G.E. Stahl, phlogiston being (according to the usual way of regarding general properties as being due to a principle or element) the “principle of combustibility,” similar to the “sulphur” of the alchemists. This again must be regarded as quite a legitimate step justified by the knowledge of the time. For experience taught that combustibility could be transferred by chemical action, e.g. from charcoal to litharge, the latter being changed thereby into combustible metallic lead; and according to Boyle’s principle, that only bodies should be recognized as chemical elements, phlogiston was considered as a body. From the fact that all leading chemists in the second half of the 18th century used the phlogiston theory and were not hindered by it in making their great discoveries, it is evident that a sufficient amount of truth and usefulness was embodied in this theory. It states indeed quite correctly the mutual relations between oxidation and reduction, as we now call these very general processes, and was erroneous only in regard to one question, which at that time had not aroused much interest, the question of the change of weight during chemical processes.

It was only after Isaac Newton’s discovery of universal gravitation that weight was considered as a property of paramount interest and importance, and that the question of the changes of weight in chemical reactions became Lavoisier’s reform. one worth asking. When in due time this question was raised, the fact became evident at once, that combustion means not loss but gain of weight. To be sure of this, it was necessary to know first the chemical and physical properties of gases, and it was just at the same time that this knowledge was developed by Priestley, Scheele and others. Lavoisier was the originator and expounder of the necessary reform. Oxygen was just discovered at that time, and Lavoisier gathered evidence from all sides that the theory of phlogiston had to be turned inside out to fit the new facts.

He realized that the sum total of the weights of all substances concerned within a chemical change is not altered by the change. This principle of the “conservation of weight” led at once to a simple and unmistakable definition of a chemical element. As the weight of a compound substance is the sum of the weights of its elements, the compound necessarily weighs more than any of its elements. An element is therefore a substance which, by being changed into another substance, invariably increases its weight, and never gives rise to substances of less weight. By the help of this criterion Lavoisier composed the first table of chemical elements similar to our modern ones. According to the knowledge of his time he regarded the alkalis as elements, although he remarked that they are rather similar to certain oxides, and therefore may possibly contain oxygen; the truth of this was proved at a later date by Humphry Davy. But the inconsistency of the reformer, already referred to, may be observed with Lavoisier. He included “heat and light” in his list of elements, although he knew that neither of them had weight, and that neither fitted his definition of an element; this atavistic survival was subsequently removed from the table of the elements by Berzelius in the beginning of the 19th century. In this way the question of what substances are to be regarded as chemical elements had been settled satisfactorily in a qualitative way, but it is interesting to realize that the last step in this development, the theory of Lavoisier, was based on quantitative considerations. Such considerations became of paramount 255 interest at once, and led to the concept of the combining weights of the elements.

The first discoveries in this field were made in the last quarter of the 18th century by J.B. Richter. The point at issue was a rather commonplace one: it was the fact that when two neutral salt solutions were mixed to undergo mutual J.B. Richter’s work. chemical decomposition and recombination, the resulting liquid was neutral again, i.e. it did not contain any excess of acid or base. In other words, if two salts, A’B’ and A” B”, composed of the acids A’ and A” and the bases B’ and B”, undergo mutual decomposition, the amount of the base B’ left by the first salt, when its acid A’ united with the base B” to form a new salt A’B”, was just enough to make a neutral salt A”B’ with the acid A” left by the second salt. At first sight this looks quite simple and self-evident,—that neutral salts should form neutral ones again and not acid or basic ones,—but if this fact is once stated very serious quantitative inferences may be drawn from it, as Richter showed. For if the symbols A’, A”, B’, B” denote at the same time such quantities of the acids and bases as form neutral salts, then if three of these quantities are determined, the fourth may be calculated from the others. This follows from the fact that by decomposing A’B’ with just the proper amount of the other salt to form A’B”, the remaining quantities B’ and A” exist in exactly the ratio to form a neutral salt A” B’. It is possible, therefore, to ascribe to each acid and base a certain relative weight or “combining weight” by which they will combine one with the other to form neutral salts. The same reasoning may be extended to any number of acids and bases.

It is true that Richter did not find out by himself this simplest statement of the law of neutrality which he discovered, but he expressed the same consequence in a rather clumsy way by a table of the combining weights of different bases related to the unit amount of a certain acid, and doing the same thing for the unit weight of every other acid. Then he observed that the numbers in these different tables are proportionate one to another. The same holds good if the corresponding series of the combining weights of acids for unit weights of different bases were tabulated. It was only a little later that a Berlin physicist, G.E. Fischer, united the whole system of Richter’s numbers simply into a double table of acids and bases, taking as unit an arbitrarily chosen substance, namely sulphuric acid. The following table by Fischer is therefore the first table of combining weights.

It is interesting again to notice how difficult it is for the discoverer of a new truth to find out the most simple and complete statement of his discovery. It looks as if the amount of work needed to get to the top of a new idea is so great that not enough energy remains to clear the very last few steps. It is noteworthy also to observe how difficult it was for the chemists of that time to understand the bearing of Richter’s work. Although a summary of his results was published in Berthollet’s Essai de statique chimique, one of the most renowned chemical books of that time, nobody dared for a long time to take up the scientific treasure laid open for all the world.

At the beginning of the 19th century the same question was taken up from quite another standpoint. John Dalton, in his investigations of the behaviour of gases, and in order to understand more easily what happened when gases John Dalton’s atomic theory. were absorbed by liquids, used the corpuscular hypothesis already mentioned in connexion with Boyle. While he depicted to himself how the corpuscles, or, as he preferred to call them, the “atoms” of the gases, entered the interstices of the atoms of the liquids in which they dissolved, he asked himself: Are the several atoms of the same substance exactly alike, or are there differences as between the grains of sand? Now experience teaches us that it is impossible to separate, for example, a quantity of pure water into two samples of somewhat different properties. When a pure substance is fractionated by partial distillation or partial crystallization or partial change into another substance by chemical means, we find constantly that the residue is not changed in its properties, as it would be if the atoms were slightly different, since in that case e.g. the lighter atoms would distil first and leave behind the heavier ones, &c. Therefore we must conclude that all atoms of the same kind are exactly alike in shape and weight. But, if this be so, then all combinations between different atoms must proceed in certain invariable ratios of the weights of the elements, namely by the ratio of the weights of the atoms. Now it is impossible to weigh the atoms directly; but if we determine the ratio of the weights in which oxygen and hydrogen combine to form water, we determine in this way also the relative weight of their atoms. By a proper number of analyses of simple chemical compounds we may determine the ratios between the weights of all elementary atoms, and, selecting one of them as a standard or unit, we may express the weight of all other atoms in terms of this unit. The following table is Dalton’s (Mem. of the Lit. and Phil. Soc. of Manchester (II.), vol. i. p. 287, 1805).

Table of the Relative Weights of the Ultimate Particles of Gaseous and other Bodies.

Dalton at once drew a peculiar inference from this view. If two elements combine in different ratios, one must conclude that different numbers of atoms unite. There must be, therefore, a simple ratio between the quantities of the one element united to the same quantity of the other. Dalton showed at once that the analysis of carbon monoxide and of carbonic acid satisfied this consequence, the quantity of oxygen in the second compound being double the quantity in the first one. A similar relation holds good between marsh gas and olefiant gas (ethylene). This is the “law of multiple proportions” (see Atom). By these considerations Dalton extended the law of combining weights, which Richter had demonstrated only for neutral salts, to all possible chemical compounds. While the scope of the law was enormously extended, its experimental foundation was even smaller than with Richter. Dalton did not concern himself very much with the experimental verification of his ideas, and the first communication of his theory in a paper on the absorption of gases by liquids (1803) attracted as little notice as Richter’s discoveries. Even when T. Thomson published Dalton’s views in an appendix to his widely read text-book of chemistry, matters did not change very much. It was only by the work of J.J. Berzelius that the enormous importance of Dalton’s views was brought to light.

Berzelius was at that time busy in developing a trustworthy system of chemical analysis, and for this purpose he investigated the composition of the most important salts. He then went over the work of Richter, and realized that by his Work of J.J. Berzelius. law he could check the results of his analyses. He tried it and found the law to hold good in most cases; when it did not, according to his analyses, he found that the error was on his own side and that better analyses fitted Richter’s law. Thus he was prepared to understand the importance of Dalton’s views and he proceeded at once to test its exactness. The result was the best possible. The law of the combining weights of the 256 atoms, or of the atomic weights, proved to hold good in every case in which it was tested. All chemical combinations between the several elements are therefore regulated by weight according to certain numbers, one for each element, and combinations between the elements occur only in ratios given by these weights or by simple multiples thereof. Consequently Berzelius regarded Dalton’s atomic hypothesis as proved by experiment, and became a strong believer in it.

At the same time W.H. Wollaston had discovered independently the law of multiple proportions in the case of neutral and acid salts. He gave up further work when he learned of Dalton’s ideas, but afterwards he pointed out that it was necessary to distinguish the hypothetical part in Dalton’s views from their empirical part. The latter is the law of combining weights, or the law that chemical combination occurs only according to certain numbers characteristic for each element. Besides this purely experimental law there is the hypothetical explanation by the assumption of the existence of atoms. As it is not proved that this explanation is the only one possible, the existence of the law is not a proof of the existence of the atoms. He therefore preferred to call the characteristic combining numbers of the elements not “atomic weights” but “chemical equivalents.”

Although there were at all times chemists who shared Wollaston’s cautious views, the atomic hypothesis found general acceptance because of its ready adaptability to the most diverse chemical facts. In our time it is even rather difficult to separate, as Wollaston did, the empirical part from the hypothetical one, and the concept of the atom penetrates the whole system of chemistry, especially organic chemistry.

If we compare the work of Dalton with that of Richter we find a fundamental difference. Richter’s inference as to the existence of combining weights in salts is based solely on an experimental observation, namely, the persistence of neutrality after double decomposition; Dalton’s theory, on the contrary, is based on the hypothetical concept of the atom. Now, however favourably one may think of the probability of the existence of atoms, this existence is really not an observed fact, and it is necessary therefore to ask: Does there exist some general fact which may lead directly to the inference of the existence of combining weights of the elements, just as the persistence of neutrality leads to the same consequence as to acids and bases? The answer is in the affirmative, although it took a whole century before this question was put and answered. In a series of rather difficult papers (Zeits. f. Phys. Chem. since 1895, and Annalen der Naturphilosophie since 1902), Franz Wald (of Kladno, Bohemia) developed his investigations as to the genesis of this general law. Later, W. Ostwald (Faraday lecture, Trans. Chem. Soc., 1904) simplified Wald’s reasoning and made it more evident.

The general fact upon which the necessary existence of combining weights of the elements may be based is the shifting character of the boundary between elements and compounds. It has already been pointed out that Lavoisier considered the alkalis and the alkaline earths as elements, because in his time they had not been decomposed. As long as the decomposition had not been effected, these compounds could be considered and treated like elements without mistake, their combining weight being the sum of the combining weights of their (subsequently discovered) elements. This means that compounds enter in reaction with other substances as a whole, just as elements do. In particular, if a compound AB combines with another substance (elementary or compound) C to form a ternary compound ABC, it enters this latter as a whole, leaving behind no residue of A or B. Inversely, if a ternary compound ABC be changed into a binary one AB by taking away the element C, there will not be found any excess of A or B, but both elements will exhibit just the same ratio in the binary as in the ternary compound.

Experimentally this important fact was proved first by Berzelius, who showed that by oxidizing lead sulphide, PbS, to lead sulphate, PbSO4, no excess either of sulphur or lead could be found after oxidation; the same held good with barium sulphite, BaSO3, when converted into barium sulphate, BaSO4. On a much larger scale and with very great accuracy the inverse was proved half a century later by J.S. Stas, who reduced silver chlorate, AgClO3, silver bromate, AgBrO3, and silver iodate, AgIO3, to the corresponding binary compounds, AgCl, AgBr and AgI, and searched in the residue of the reaction for any excess of silver or halogen. As the tests for these substances are among the most sensitive in analytical chemistry, the general law underwent a very severe test indeed. But the result was the same as was found by Berzelius—no excess of one of the elements could be discovered. We may infer, therefore, generally that compounds enter ulterior combinations without change of the ratio of their elements, or that the ratio between different elements in their compounds is the same in binary and ternary (or still more complicated) combinations.

This law involves the existence of general combining weights just in the same way as the law of neutrality with double decomposition of salts involves the law of the combining weights of acids and bases. For if the ratio between A and B is determined, this same ratio must obtain in all ternary and more complicated compounds, containing the same elements. The same is true for any other elements, C, D, E, F, &c., as related to A. But by applying the general law to the ternary compound ABC the same conclusion may be drawn as to the ratio A : C in all compounds containing A and C, or B : C in the corresponding compounds. By reasoning further in the same way, we come to the conclusion that only such compounds are possible which contain elements according to certain ratio-numbers, i.e. their combining weight. Any other ratio would violate the law of the integral reaction of compounds.

As to the law of multiple proportions, it may be deduced by a similar reasoning by considering the possible combinations between a compound, e.g. AB, and one of its elements, say B. AB and B can combine only according to their combining weights, and therefore the quantity of B combining with AB is equal to the quantity of AB which has combined with A to form AB. The new combination is therefore to be expressed by AB2. By extending this reasoning in the same way, we get the general conclusion that any compounds must be composed according to the formula AmBnCp..., where m, n, p, &c., are integers.

The bearing of these considerations on the atomic hypothesis is not to disprove it, but rather to show that the existence of the law of combining weights, which has been considered for so long as a proof of the truth of this hypothesis, does not necessarily involve such a consequence. Whether atoms may prove to exist or not, the law of combining weights is independent thereof.

Two problems arose from the discoveries of Dalton and Berzelius. The first was to determine as exactly as possible the correct numbers of the combining weights. The other results from the fact that the same elements may Atomic weight determinations. combine in different ratios. Which of these ratios gives the true ratio of the atomic weights? And which is the multiple one? Both questions have had most ample experimental investigation, and are now answered rather satisfactorily. The first question was a purely technical one; its answer depended upon analytical skill, and Berzelius in his time easily took the lead, his numbers being readily accepted on the continent of Europe. In England there was a certain hesitation at first, owing to Prout’s assumption (see below), but when Turner, at the instigation of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, tested Berzelius’s numbers and found them entirely in accordance with his own measurements, these numbers were universally accepted. But then a rather large error in one of Berzelius’s numbers (for carbon) was discovered in 1841 by Dumas and Stas, and a kind of panic ensued. New determinations of the atomic weights were undertaken from all sides. The result was most satisfactory for Berzelius, for no other important error was discovered, and even Dumas remarked that repeating a determination by Berzelius only meant getting the same result, if one worked properly. In later times more exact measurements, corresponding to the increasing art in analysis, were carried out by various workers, amongst 257 whom J.S. Stas distinguished himself. But even the classical work of Stas proved not to be entirely without error; for every period has its limit in accuracy, which extends slowly as science extends. In recent times American chemists have been especially prominent in work of this kind, and the determinations of E.W. Morley, T.W. Richards and G.P. Baxter rank among the first in this line of investigation.

During this work the question arose naturally: How far does the exactness of the law extend? It is well known that most natural laws are only approximations, owing to disturbing causes. Are there disturbing causes also with atomic weights? The answer is that as far as we know there are none. The law is still an exact one. But we must keep in mind that an absolute answer is never possible. Our exactness is in every case limited, and as long as the possible variations lie behind this limit, we cannot tell anything about them. In recent times H. Landolt has doubted and experimentally investigated the law of the conservation of weight.

Landolt’s experiments were carried out in vessels of the shape of an inverted U, each branch holding one of the substances to react one on the other. Two vessels were prepared as equal as possible and hung on both sides of a most sensitive balance. Then the difference of weight was determined in the usual way by exchanging both the vessels on the balance. After this set of weighings one of the vessels was inverted and the chemical reaction between the contained substances was performed; then the double weighing was repeated. Finally also the second vessel was inverted and a third set of weighings taken. From blank experiments where the vessels were filled with substances which did not react one on the other, the maximum error was determined to 0.03 milligramme. The reactions experimented with were: silver salts with ferrous sulphate; iron on copper sulphate; gold chloride and ferrous chloride; iodic acid and hydriodic acid; iodine and sodium sulphite; uranyl nitrate and potassium hydrate; chloral hydrate and potassium hydrate; electrolysis of cadmium iodide by an alternating current; solution of ammonium chloride, potassium bromide and uranyl nitrate in water, and precipitation of an aqueous solution of copper sulphate by alcohol. In most of these experiments a slight diminution of weight was observed which exceeded the limit of error distinctly in two cases, viz. silver nitrate with ferrous sulphate and iodic acid with hydriodic acid, the loss of weight amounting from 0.068 to 0.199 mg. with the first and 0.047 to 0.177 mg. with the second reaction on about 50 g. of substance. As each of these reactions had been tried in nine independent experiments, Landolt felt certain that there was no error of observation involved. But when the vessels were covered inside with paraffin wax, no appreciable diminution of weight was observed.

These experiments apparently suggested a small decrease of weight as a consequence of chemical processes. On repeating them, however, and making allowance for the different amounts of water absorbed on the surface of the vessel at the beginning and end of the experiment, Landolt found in 1908 (Zeit. physik. Chem. 64, p. 581) that the variations in weight are equally positive and negative, and he concluded that there was no change in weight, at least to the extent of 1 part in 10,000,000.

There is still another question regarding the numerical values of the atomic weights, namely: Are there relations between the numbers belonging to the several elements? Richter had arranged his combining The periodic arrangement. weights according to their magnitude, and endeavoured to prove that they form a certain mathematical series. He also explained the incompleteness of his series by assuming that certain acids or bases requisite to the filling up of the gaps in the series, were not yet known. He even had the satisfaction that in his time a new base was discovered, which fitted rather well into one of his gaps; but when it turned out afterwards that this new base was only calcium phosphate, this way of reasoning fell into discredit and was resumed only at a much later date.

To obtain a correct table of atomic weights the second question already mentioned, viz. how to select the correct value in the case of multiple proportions, had to be answered. Berzelius was constantly on the look-out for means to distinguish the true atomic weights from their multiples or sub-multiples, but he could not find an unmistakable test. The whole question fell into a terrible disorder, until in the middle of the 19th century S. Cannizzaro showed that by taking together all partial evidences one could get a system of atomic weights consistent in itself and fitting the exigencies of chemical systematics. Then a startling discovery was made by the same method which Richter had tried in vain, by arranging all atomic weights in one series according to their numerical values.

The Periodic Law.—The history of this discovery is rather long. As early as 1817 J.W. Döbereiner of Jena drew attention to the fact that the combining weight of strontium lies midway between those of calcium and barium, and some years later he showed that such “triads” occurred in other cases too. L. Gmelin tried to apply this idea to all elements, but he realized that in many cases more than three elements had to be grouped together. While Ernst Lenssen applied the idea of triads to the whole table of chemical elements, but without any important result, the other idea of grouping more than three elements into series according to their combining weights proved more successful. It was the concept of homologous series just developed in organic chemistry which influenced such considerations. First Max von Pettenkofer in 1850 and then J.B.A. Dumas in 1851 undertook to show that such a series of similar elements could be formed, having nearly constant differences between their combining weights. It is true that this idea in all its simplicity did not hold good extensively enough; so J.P. Cooke and Dumas tried more complicated types of numerical series, but only with a temporary success.

The idea of arranging all elements in a single series in the order of the magnitude of their combining weights, the germ of which is to be found already in J.B. Richter’s work, appears first in 1860 in some tables published by Lothar Meyer for his lectures. Independently, A.E.B. de Chancourtois in 1862, J.A.R. Newlands in 1863, and D.I. Mendeléeff in 1869, developed the same idea with the same result, namely, that it is possible to divide this series of all the elements into a certain number of very similar parts. In their papers, which appeared in the same year, 1869, Lothar Meyer and Mendeléeff gave to all these trials the shape now generally adopted. They succeeded in proving beyond all doubt that this series was of a periodic character, and could be cut into shorter pieces of similar construction. Here again gaps were present to be filled up by elements to be discovered, and Mendeléeff, who did this, predicted from the general regularity of his table the properties of such unknown elements. In this case fate was more kind than with Richter, and science had the satisfaction of seeing these predictions turn out to be true.

The following table contains this periodic arrangement of the elements according to their atomic weight. By cutting the whole series into pieces of eight elements (or more in several cases) and arranging these one below another in the alternating way shown in the table, one finds similar elements placed in vertical series whose properties change gradually and with some regularity according to their place in the table. Not only the properties of the uncombined elements obey this rule, but also almost all properties of similar compounds of the elements.

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But upon closer investigation it must be confessed that these regularities can be called only rules, and not laws. In the first line one would expect that the steps in the values of the atomic weights should be regular, but it is not so. There are even cases when it is necessary to invert the order of the atomic weights to satisfy the chemical necessities. Thus argon has a larger number than potassium, but must precede it to fit into its proper place. The same is true of tellurium and iodine. It looks as if the real elements were scattered somewhat haphazard on a regular table, or as if some independent factor were active to disturb an existing regularity. It may be that the new facts mentioned above will lead also to an explanation of these irregularities; at present we must recognize them and not try to explain them away. Such considerations have to be kept in mind especially in regard to the very numerous attempts to express the series of combining weights in a mathematical form. In several cases rather surprising agreements were found, but never without exception. It looks as if some very important factor regulating the whole matter is still unknown, and before this has been elucidated no satisfactory treatment of the matter is possible. It seems therefore premature to enter into the details of these speculations.

In recent times not only our belief in the absolute exactness of the law of the conservation of weight has been shaken, but also our belief in the law of the conservation of the elements. The wonderful substance radium, whose Transmutation of elements. existence has made us to revise quite a number of old and established views, seems to be a fulfilment of the old problem of the alchemists. It is true that by its help lead is not changed into gold, but radium not only changes itself into another element, helium (Ramsay), but seems also to cause other elements to change. Work in this line is of present day origin only and we do not know what new laws will be found to regulate these most unexpected reactions (see Radioactivity). But we realize once more that no law can be regarded as free from criticism and limitation; in the whole realm of exact sciences there is no such thing as the Absolute.

Another question regarding the values of atomic weights was raised very soon after their first establishment. From the somewhat inexact first determinations William Prout concluded that all atomic weights are multiples of the Prout’s assumption. atomic weight of hydrogen, thus suggesting all other elements to be probably made up from condensed hydrogen. Berzelius found his determinations not at all in accordance with this assumption, and strongly opposed the arbitrary rounding off of the numbers practised by the partisans of Prout’s hypothesis. His hypothesis remained alive, although almost every chemist who did exact atomic weight determinations, especially Stas, contradicted it severely. Even in our time it seems to have followers, who hope that in some way the existing experimental differences may disappear. But one of the most important and best-known relations, that between hydrogen and oxygen, is certainly different from the simple ratio 1 : 16, for it has been determined by a large number of different investigators and by different methods to be undoubtedly lower, namely, 1 : 15.87. Therefore, if Prout’s hypothesis contain an element of truth, by the act of condensation of some simpler substance into the present chemical elements a change of weight also must have occurred, such that the weight of the element did not remain exactly the weight of the simpler substance which changed into it. We have already remarked that such phenomena are not yet known with certainty, but they cannot be regarded as utterly impossible.

It may here be mentioned that the internationality of science has shown itself active also in the question of atomic weights. International table of atomic weights. These numbers undergo incessantly small variations because of new work done for their determination. To avoid the uncertainty arising from this inevitable state of affairs, an international committee was formed by the co-operation of the leading chemical societies all over the world, and an international table of the most probable values is issued every year. The following table is that for 1910:—

International Atomic Weights, 1910.

In the long and manifold development of the concept of the element one idea has remained prominent from the very beginning down to our times: it is the idea of a primordial matter. Since the naive statement of Thales that all Concluding remarks. things came from water, chemists could never reconcile themselves to the fact of the conservation of the elements. By an experimental investigation which extended over five centuries and more, the impossibility of transmuting one element into another—for example, lead into gold—was demonstrated in the most extended way, and nevertheless this law has so little entered the consciousness of the chemists that it is seldom explicitly stated even in carefully written text-books. On the other side the attempts to reduce the manifoldness of the actual chemical elements to one single primordial matter have never ceased, and the latest development of science seems to endorse such a view. It is therefore necessary to consider this question from a most general standpoint.

In physical science, the chemical elements may be compared with such concepts as mass, momentum, quantity of electricity, entropy and such like. While mass and entropy are determined univocally by a unit and a number, quantity of electricity has a unit, a number and a sign, for it can be positive as well as negative. Momentum has a unit, a number and a direction in space. Elements do not have a common unit as the former magnitudes, but every element has its own unit, and there is no transition from one to another. All these magnitudes underlie a law of conservation, but to a very different degree. While mass was 259 considered as absolutely invariable in the classical mechanics, the newer theories of the electrical constitution of matter make mass dependent on the velocity of the moving electron. Momentum also is not entirely conservative because it can be changed by light-pressure. Entropy is known as constantly increasing, remaining constant only in an ideal limiting case. With chemical elements we observe the same thing as with momentum; though till recently considered as conservative, there is now experimental evidence that they do not always show this character.

Generally the laws of the conservation of mass, weight and elements are expressed as the “law of the conservation of matter.” But this expression lacks scientific exactness because the term “matter” is generally not defined exactly, and because only the above-named properties of ponderable objects do not change, while all other properties do to a greater or less extent. Considered in the most general way, we may define matter as a complex of gravitational, kinetic and chemical energies, which are found to cling together in the same space. Of these energies the capacity factors, namely, weight, mass and elements, are conservative as described, while the intensity factors, potential, velocity and affinity, may change in wide limits. To explain why we find these energies constantly combined one with another, we only have to think of a mass without gravity or a ponderable body without mass. The first could not remain on earth because every movement would carry it into infinite space, and the second would acquire infinite velocity by the slightest push and would also disappear at once. Therefore only such objects which have both mass and weight can be handled and can be objects of our knowledge. In the same way all other energies come to our knowledge only by being (at least temporarily) associated with this combination of mass and weight. This is the true meaning of the term “matter.”

In this line of ideas matter appears not at all as a primary concept, but as a complex one; there is therefore no reason to consider matter as the last term of scientific analysis of chemical facts, and the idea of a primordial matter appears as a survival from the very first beginning of European natural philosophy. The most general concept science has developed to express the variety of experience is energy, and in terms of energy (combined with number, magnitudes, time and space) all observed and observable experiences are to be described.

ELEMI, an oleo-resin (Manilla elemi) obtained in the Philippine Islands, probably from Canarium commune (nat. ord. Burseraceae), which when fresh and of good quality is a pale yellow granular substance, of honey-like consistency, but which gradually hardens with age. It is soluble in alcohol and ether, and has a spicy taste with a smell like fennel. In the 17th and 18th centuries the term elemi usually denoted an oleo-resin (American or Brazilian elemi) obtained from trees of the genus Icica in Brazil, and still earlier it meant oriental or African elemi, derived from Boswellia Frereana, which flourishes in the neighbourhood of Cape Gardafui. The word, like the older term animi, appears to have been derived from enhaemon (Gr. ἔναιμον), the name of a styptic medicine said by Pliny to contain tears exuded by the olive tree of Arabia.

ELEPHANT, the designation of the two existing representatives of the Proboscidea, a sub-order of ungulate mammals, and also extended to include their more immediate extinct relatives. As the distinctive characteristics of the sub-order, and also of the single existing genus Elephas, are given in the article Proboscidea, it will suffice to point out how the two existing species are distinguished from one another.

The more specialized of the two species is the Indian or Asiatic elephant, Elephas maximus, specially characterized by the extreme complexity of the structure of its molar teeth, which are composed of a great number of tall and thin plates of enamel and dentine, with the intervals filled by cement (see Proboscidea, fig. 1). The average number of plates of the six successive molar teeth may be expressed by the “ridge-formula” 4, 8, 12, 12, 16, 24. The plates are compressed from before backwards, the anterior and posterior surfaces (as seen in the worn grinding face of the tooth) being nearly parallel. Ears of moderate size. Upper margin of the end of the proboscis developed into a distinct finger-like process, much longer than the lower margins, and the whole trunk uniformly tapering and smooth. Five nails on the fore-feet, and four (occasionally five) on the hind-feet.

The Asiatic elephant inhabits the forest-lands of India, Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Cochin China, Ceylon and Sumatra. Elephants from the last-named islands present some variations from those of the mainland, and have been separated under the names of E. zeylonicus and E. sumatranus, but they are not more than local races, and the Ceylon animal, which is generally tuskless, may be the typical E. maximus, in which case the Indian race will be E. maximus indicus. The appearance of the Asiatic elephant is familiar to all. In the wild state it is gregarious, associating in herds of ten, twenty or more individuals, and, though it may under certain circumstances become dangerous, it is generally inoffensive and even timid, fond of shade and solitude and the neighbourhood of water. The height of the male at the shoulder when full grown is usually from 8 to 10 ft., occasionally as much as 11, and possibly even more. The female is somewhat smaller.

The following epitome of the habits of the Asiatic elephants is extracted from Great and Small Game of India and Tibet, by R. Lydekker:—

“The structure of the teeth is sufficient to indicate that the food consists chiefly of grass, leaves, succulent shoots and fruits; and this has been found by observation to be actually the case. In this respect the Asiatic species differs very widely from its African relative, whose nutriment is largely composed of boughs and roots. Another difference between the two animals is to be found in the great intolerance of the direct rays of the sun displayed by the Asiatic species, which never voluntarily exposes itself to their influence. Consequently, during the hot season in Upper India, and at all times except during the rains in the more southern districts, elephants keep much to the denser parts of the forests. In Southern India they delight in hill-forest, where the undergrowth is largely formed of bamboo, the tender shoots of which form a favourite delicacy; but during the rains they venture out to feed on the open grass tracts. Water is everywhere essential to their well-being; and no animals delight more thoroughly in a bath. Nor are they afraid to venture out of their depth, being excellent swimmers, and able, by means of their trunks, to breathe without difficulty when the entire body is submerged. The herds, which are led by females, appear in general to be family parties; and although commonly restricted to from thirty to fifty, may occasionally include as many as one hundred head. The old bulls are very generally solitary for a considerable portion of the year, but return to the herds during the pairing season. Some ‘rogue’ elephants—gunda of the natives—remain, however, permanently separated from the rest of their kind. All such solitary bulls, as their colloquial name indicates, are of a spiteful disposition; and it appears that with the majority the inducement to live apart is due to their partiality for cultivated crops, into which the more timid females are afraid to venture. ‘Must’ elephants are males in a condition of—probably sexual—excitement, when an abundant discharge of dark oily matter exudes from two pores in the forehead. In addition to various sounds produced at other times, an elephant when about to charge gives vent to a shrill loud ‘trumpet’; and on such occasions rushes on its 260 adversary with its trunk safely rolled up out of danger, endeavouring either to pin him to the ground with its tusks (if a male tusker) or to trample him to death beneath its ponderous knees or feet.”

Exact information in regard to the period of gestation of the female is still lacking, the length of the period being given from eighteen to twenty-two months by different authorities. The native idea, which may be true, is that the shorter period occurs in the case of female and the longer in that of male calves. In India elephants seldom breed in captivity, though they do so more frequently in Burma and Siam; the domesticated stock is therefore replenished by fresh captures. Occasionally two calves are produced at a birth, although the normal number is one. Calves suckle with their mouths and not with their trunks. Unlike the African species, the Indian elephant charges with its trunk curled up, and consequently in silence.

As regards their present distribution in India, elephants are found along the foot of the Himalaya as far west as the valley of Dehra-Dun, where the winter temperature falls to a comparatively low point. A favourite haunt used to be the swamp of Azufghur, lying among the sal-forests to the northward of Meerut. In the great tract of forest between the Ganges and Kistna rivers they occur locally as far west as Bilaspur and Mandla; they are met with in the Western Ghats as far north as between latitude 17° and 18°, and are likewise found in the hill-forests of Mysore, as well as still farther south. In this part of the peninsula they ascend the hills to a considerable height, as they do in the Newara Eliya district of Ceylon, where they have been encountered at an elevation of over 7000 ft. There is evidence that about three centuries ago elephants wandered in the forests of Malwa and Nimar, while they survived to a later date in the Chanda district of the Central Provinces. At the comparatively remote epoch when the Deccan was a forest tract, they were probably also met with there, but the swamps of the Bengal Sundarbans appear unsuited to their habits.

Of tusks, the three longest specimens on record respectively measure 8 ft. 9 in., 8 ft. 2 in. and 8 ft.; their respective weights being 81, 80 and 90 ℔. These are, however, by no means the heaviest—one, whose length is 7 ft. 33⁄8 in., weighing 102 ℔; while a second, of which the length is 7 ft. 3¼ in., scaled 97½ ℔. Of the largest pair in the possession of the British Museum, which belonged to an elephant killed in 1866 by Colonel G.M. Payne in Madras, one tusk measures 6 ft. 8 in. in length, and weighs 77¾ ℔, the other being somewhat smaller. It should be added that some of these large tusks came from Ceylon; such tuskers being believed to be descended from mainland animals imported into the island. “White” elephants are partial or complete albinos, and are far from uncommon in Burma and Siam. Young Indian elephants are hairy, thus showing affinity with the mammoth.

The African elephant is a very different animal from its Asiatic cousin, both as regards structure and habits; and were it not for the existence of intermediate extinct species, might well be regarded as the representative of a distinct genus. Among its characteristics the following points are noticeable. The molar teeth are of coarse construction, with fewer and larger plates and thicker enamel; the ridge-formula being 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10; while the plates are not flattened, but thicker in the middle than at the edges, so that their worn grinding-surfaces are lozenge-shaped. Ears very large. The upper and lower margins of the end of the trunk form two nearly equal prehensile lips. Only three toes on the hind-foot. A very important distinction is to be found in the conformation of the trunk, which, as shown in fig. 2, looks as though composed of a number of segments, gradually decreasing in size from base to tip like the joints of a telescope, instead of tapering gradually and evenly from one extremity to the other. The females have relatively large tusks, which are essential in obtaining their food. Except where exterminated by human agency (and this has been accomplished to a deplorable extent), the African elephant is a native of the wooded districts of the whole of Africa south of the Sahara. It is hunted chiefly for the sake of the ivory of its immense tusks, of which it yields the principal source of supply to the European market, and the desire to obtain which is rapidly leading to the extermination of the species. In size the male African elephant often surpasses the Asiatic species, reaching nearly 12 ft. in some cases. The circumference of the fore-foot is half the height at the shoulder, a circumstance which enables sportsmen to estimate approximately the size of their quarry. A tusk in the British Museum measures 10 ft. 2 in. in length, with a basal girth of 24 in. and a weight of 226½ ℔; but a still longer, although lighter, tusk was brought to London in 1905.

Several local races of African elephant have been described, mainly distinguished from one another by the form and size of the ears, shape of the head, &c. The most interesting of these is the pigmy Congo race, E. africanus pumilio, named on the evidence of an immature specimen in the possession of C. Hagenbeck, the well-known animal-dealer of Hamburg, in 1905. According to Hagenbeck’s estimate, this elephant, which came from the French Congo, was about six years old at the time it came under scientific notice. Moreover, in the opinion of the same observer, it is in no wise an abnormally dwarfed or ill-grown representative of the normal type of African elephant, but a well-developed adolescent animal. In height it stood about the same as a young individual of the ordinary African elephant when about a year and a half old, the vertical measurement at the shoulder being only 4 ft., or merely a foot higher than a new-born Indian elephant. Hagenbeck’s estimate of its age was based on the presence of well-developed tusks, and the relative proportion of the fore and hind limbs, which are stated to show considerable differences in the case of the African elephant according to age. Nothing was stated as to the probability of an increase in the stature of the French Congo animal as it grows older; but even if we allow another foot, its height would be considerably less than half that of a large Central African bull of the ordinary elephant.

By Dr Paul Matschie several races of the African elephant have been described, mainly, as already mentioned, on certain differences in the shape of the ear. From the two West African races (E. a. cyclotis and E. a. oxyotis) the dwarf Congo elephant is stated to be distinguished by the shape of its ear; comparison in at least one instance having been made with an immature animal. The relatively small size of the ear is one of the most distinctive characteristics of the dwarf race. Further, the skin is stated to be much less rough, with fewer cracks, while a more important difference occurs in the trunk, which lacks the transverse ridges so distinctive of the ordinary African elephant, and thereby approximates to the Asiatic species.

If the differences in stature and form are constant, there can be no question as to the right of the dwarf Congo elephant to rank as a well-marked local race; the only point for consideration being whether it should not be called a species. The great interest in connexion with a dwarf West African race of elephant is in relation to the fossil pigmy elephants of the limestone 261 fissures and caves of Malta and Cyprus. Although some of these elephants are believed not to have been larger than donkeys, the height of others may be estimated at from 4 to 5 ft., or practically the same as that of the dwarf Congo race. By their describers, the dwarf European elephants were regarded as distinct species, under the names of Elephas melitensis, E. mnaidriensis and E. cypriotes; but since their molar teeth are essentially miniatures of those of the African elephant, it has been suggested by later observers that these animals are nothing more than dwarf races of the latter. This view may receive some support from the occurrence of a dwarf form of the African elephant in the Congo; and if we regard the latter as a subspecies of Elephas africanus, it seems highly probable that a similar position will have to be assigned to the pigmy European fossil elephants. If, on the other hand, the dwarf Congo elephant be regarded as a species, then the Maltese and Cyprian elephants may have to be classed as races of Elephas pumilio; or, rather, E. pumilio will have to rank as a race of the Maltese species. In this connexion it is of interest to note that, both in the Mediterranean islands and in West Africa, dwarf elephants of the African type are accompanied by pigmy species of hippopotamus, although we have not yet evidence to show that in Africa the two animals occupy actually the same area. Still, the close relationship of the existing Liberian pigmy hippopotamus to the fossil Mediterranean species is significant, in relation to the foregoing observations on the elephant.

It may be added that fossil remains of the African elephant have been obtained from Spain, Sicily, Algeria and Egypt, in strata of the Pleistocene age. Some of the main differences in the habits of the African as distinct from those of the Asiatic elephant have been mentioned under the heading of the latter species. The most important of these are the greater tolerance by the African animal of sunlight, and the hard nature of its food, which consists chiefly of boughs and roots. The latter are dug up with the tusks; the left one being generally employed in this service, and thus becoming much more worn than its fellow.

ELEPHANTA ISLE (called by the natives Gharapuri), a small island between Bombay and the mainland of India, situated about 6 m. from Bombay. It is nearly 5 m. in circumference, and the few inhabitants it contains are employed in the cultivation of rice, and in rearing sheep and poultry for the Bombay market. The island, till within recent times, was almost entirely overgrown with wood; it contains several springs of good water. There are also important quarries of building stone. But it owes its chief celebrity to the mythological excavations and sculptures of Hindu superstition which it contains. Opposite to the landing-place was a colossal statue of an elephant, cracked and mutilated, from which the island received from the Portuguese the name it still bears. The statue was removed in 1864, and may now be seen in the Victoria Gardens, Bombay. At a short distance from this spot is a cave, the entrance to which is nearly 60 ft. wide and 18 high, supported by pillars cut out of the rock; the sides are sculptured into numerous compartments, containing representations of the Hindu deities, but many of the figures have been defaced by the zeal of the Mahommedans and Portuguese. In the centre of the excavations is a remarkable Trimurti or bust, formerly thought to represent the Hindu Triad, namely, Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva or Mahadeva the Destroyer, but now held to be a triform representation of Siva alone. The heads are from 4 to 5 ft. in length, and are well cut, and the faces, with the exception of the under lip, are handsome. The head-dresses are curiously ornamented; and one of the figures holds in it’s hand a cobra, while on the cap are, amongst other symbols, a human skull and an infant. On each side of the Trimurti is a pilaster, the front of which is filled up by a human figure leaning on a dwarf, both much defaced. There is a large compartment to the right, hollowed a little, and covered with a great variety of figures, the largest of which is 16 ft. high, representing the double figure of Siva and Parvati, named Viraj, half male and half female. On the right is Brahma, four-faced, on a lotus—one of the very few representations of this god which now exist in India; and on the left is Vishnu. On the other side of the Trimurti is another compartment with various figures of Siva and Parvati, the most remarkable of which is Siva in his vindictive character, eight-handed, with a collet of skulls round his neck. On the right of the entrance to the cave is a square apartment, supported by eight colossal figures, containing a gigantic symbol of Mahadeva or Siva cut out of the rock. In a ravine connected with the great cave are two other caves, also containing sculptures, which, however, have been much defaced owing to the action of damp and the falling of the rocks; and in another hill is a fourth cave. This interesting retreat of Hindu religious art is said to have been dedicated to Siva, but it contains numerous representations of other Hindu deities. It has, however, for long been a place not so much of worship as of archaeological and artistic interest alike to the European and Hindu traveller. It forms a wonderful monument of antiquity, and must have been a work of incredible labour. Archaeological authorities are of opinion that the cave must have been excavated about the 10th century of the Christian era, if not earlier. The island is much frequented by the British residents of Bombay; and during his tour in India in 1875 King Edward VII., then prince of Wales, was entertained there at a banquet.

ELEPHANTIASIS (Barbadoes leg; Boucnemia), is a disease dependent on chronic lymphatic obstruction, and characterized by hypertrophy of the skin and subcutaneous tissue. Two distinct forms are known, (1) elephantiasis arabum, due to the development of living parasites, filaria sanguinis hominis (or filaria Bancrofti), and (2) the non-filarial form due to lymphatic obstruction from any other cause whatsoever, as erysipelas, the deposit of tuberculous or cancerous material in the lymphatic glands, phlegmasia dolens (white leg), long-continued eczema, &c. The enlargement is limited to a particular part of the body, generally one, or in rare cases both of the lower limbs, occasionally the scrotum, one of the labiae or the mammary gland; far more rarely the face. An attack is usually ushered in by febrile disturbance (elephantoid fever), the part attacked becoming rapidly swollen, and the skin tense and red as in erysipelas. The subcutaneous tissues become firm, infiltrated and hard, pitting only on considerable pressure. The skin becomes roughened with a network of dilated lymphatics, and vesicles and bullae may form, discharging a chyle-like fluid when broken (lymphorrhoea). In a later stage still the skin may be coarse and wart-like, and there is a great tendency for varicose ulcers to form. At the end of a variable time enlargement ceases to take place, and the disease enters a quiescent state: but recrudescences occur at irregular intervals, always ushered in by elephantoid fever. At the end of some years the attacks of fever cease, and the affected part remains permanently swollen. The only difference in the history of the two forms of the disease lies in the fact that the non-filarial form progresses steadily, until either the underlying condition is cured, or in the case of cancer, &c., brings about a fatal issue. The elephantiasis due to filaria is spread by the agency of mosquitoes, in whose bodies the intermediate stage is passed. The dead mosquito falls upon the water, which thus becomes infected, and hence the ova reach the human stomach. The young worm develops, bores through the gastric mucous membrane and finally becomes lodged in the lymphatics, usually of one or other of the extremities. A large number of embryonic filariae are produced. Some remain in the lymphatic spaces and cause lymphatic obstruction, while others enter the blood stream by night (filaria nocturna), or by day (filaria diurna). It is supposed that a mosquito, biting an infected person, itself becomes infected with the blood it abstracts, and that so a new generation is developed.

Treatment for this condition is unsatisfactory. Occasionally the dilated lymph trunks can be found, and an operation performed to implant them in some vein (lymphangeioplasty). And in some few other cases artificial lymphatics have been made by introducing sterilized silk thread in the subcutaneous tissues of the affected part, and prolonging it into the normal tissues. This operation has been most successful when performed on 262 elephantoid arms dependent on a late stage of cancerous breast. Elevation of the limb and elastic pressure should always be tried, but often amputation has to be resorted to in the end. The disease is totally different from the so-called elephantiasis graecorum or true leprosy, for which see Leprosy.

ELEPHANT’S-FOOT, the popular name for the plant Testudinaria elephantipes, a native of the Cape of Good Hope. It takes its name from the large tuberous stem, which grows very slowly but often reaches a considerable size, e.g. more than 3 yds. in circumference with a height of nearly 3 ft. above ground. It is rich in starch, whence the name Hottentot bread, and is covered on the outside with thick, hard, corky plates. It develops slender, leafy, climbing shoots which die down each season. It is a member of the monocotyledonous order Dioscoreaceae, climbing plants with slender herbaceous or shrubby shoots, to which belong the yam and the British black bryony, Tamus communis.

ELETS, a town of Russia, in the government of Orel, 122 m. by rail E.S.E. of Orel, on the railway which connects Riga with Tsaritsyn on the lower Volga. Pop. (1883) 36,680; (1900) 38,239. Owing to its advantageous position Elets has grown rapidly. Its merchants buy large quantities of grain, and numerous flour-mills, many of them driven by steam, prepare flour, which is forwarded to Moscow and Riga. The trade in cattle is very important. Elets has the first grain elevator erected in Russia (1887), a railway school, and important tanneries, foundries for cast iron and copper, tallow-melting works, limekilns and brickworks. The cathedral and two monasteries contain venerated historic relics.

Elets is first mentioned in 1147, when it was a fort of Ryazan. The Turkish Polovtsi or Kumans attacked it in the 12th century, and the Mongols destroyed it during their first invasion (1239) and again in 1305. The Tatars plundered it in 1415 and 1450; and it seems to have been completely abandoned in the latter half of the 15th century. Its development dates from the second half of the 17th century, when it became a centre for the trade with south Russia.

ELEUSIS, an ancient Greek city in Attica about 14 m. N.W. of Athens, occupying the eastern part of a rocky ridge close to the shore opposite the island of Salamis. Its fame is due chiefly to its Mysteries, for which see Mystery. Tradition carries back the origin of Eleusis to the highest antiquity. In the earlier period of its history it seems to have been an independent rival of Athens, and it was afterwards reckoned one of the twelve Old Attic cities. A considerable portion of its small territory was occupied by the plains of Thria, noticeable for their fertility, though the hopes of the husbandmen were not unfrequently disappointed by the blight of the south wind. To the west was the Πεδίον Ῥάριον or Rharian Plain, where Demeter is said to have sown the first seeds of corn; and on its confines was the field called Orgas, planted with trees consecrated to Demeter and Persephone. The sacred buildings were destroyed by Alaric in A.D. 396, and it is not certain whether they were restored before the extinction of all pagan rites by Theodosius. The present village on the site is of Albanian origin; it is called Lefsina or Lepsina, officially Ἐλευσίς.

The Site.—Systematic excavations, begun in 1882 by D. Philios for the Greek Archaeological Society, have laid bare the whole of the sacred precinct. It is now possible to trace its boundaries as extended at various periods, and also many successive stages in the history of the Telesterion, or Hall of Initiation. These complete excavations have shown the earlier and partial excavations to have been in some respects deceptive.

In front of the main entrance of the precinct is a large paved area, with the foundations of a temple in it, usually identified as that of Artemis Propylaea; in their present form both area and temple date from Roman times; and on each side of the Great Propylaea are the foundations of a Roman triumphal arch. Just below the steps of the Propylaea, on the left as one enters, there has been discovered, at a lower level than the 263 Roman pavement, the curb surrounding an early well. This is almost certainly the λλίχορον φρέαρ mentioned by Pausanias. The Great Propylaea is a structure of Roman imperial date, in close imitation of the Propylaea on the Athenian Acropolis. It is, however, set in a wall of 6th-century work, though repaired in later times. This wall encloses a sort of outer court, of irregular triangular shape. The Small Propylaea is not set exactly opposite to the Great Propylaea, but at an angle to it; an inscription on the architrave records that it was built by Appius Claudius Pulcher, the contemporary of Cicero. It is also set in a later wall that occupies approximately the same position as two earlier ones, which date from the 6th and 5th centuries respectively, and must have indicated the boundary of the inner precinct. From the Small Propylaea a paved road of Roman date leads to one of the doors of the Telesterion. Above the Small Propylaea, partly set beneath the overhanging rock, is the precinct of Pluto; it has a curious natural cleft approached by rock-cut steps. Several inscriptions and other antiquities were found here, including the famous head, now in Athens, usually called Eubouleus, though the evidence for its identification is far from satisfactory. A little farther on is a rock-cut platform, with a well, approached by a broad flight of steps, which probably served for spectators of the sacred procession. Beyond this, close to the side of the Telesterion, are the foundations of a temple on higher ground; it has been conjectured that this was the temple of Demeter, but there is no evidence that such a building existed in historic times, apart from the Telesterion.

The Telesterion, or Hall of Initiation, was a large covered building, about 170 ft. square. It was surrounded on all sides by steps, which must have served as seats for the mystae, while the sacred dramas and processions took place on the floor of the hall: these seats were partly built up, partly cut in the solid rock; in later times they appear to have been cased with marble. There were two doors on each side of the hall, except the north-west, where it is cut out of the solid rock, and a rock terrace at a higher level adjoins it; this terrace may have been the station of those who were not yet admitted to the full initiation. The roof of the hall was carried by rows of columns, which were more than once renewed.

The architectural history of the hall has been traced by Professor W. Dörpfeld with the help of the various foundations that have been brought to light. The earliest building on the site is a small rectangular structure, with walls of polygonal masonry, built of the rock quarried on the spot. This was succeeded by a square hall, almost of the same plan as the later Telesterion, but about a quarter of the size; its eastern corner coincides with that of the later building, and it appears to have had a portico in front like that which, in the later hall, was a later addition. Its roof was carried by columns, of which the bases can still be seen. This building has with great probability been assigned to the time of Peisistratus; it was destroyed by the Persians. Between this event and the erection of the present hall, which must be substantially the one designed by Ictinus in the time of Pericles, there must have been a restoration, of which we may see the remains in a set of round sinkings to carry columns, which occur only in the north-east part of the hall; a set of bases arranged on a different system occur in the south-west part, and it is difficult to see how these two systems could be reconciled unless there were some sort of partition between the two parts of the hall. Both sets were removed to make way for the later columns, of which the bases and some of the drums still remain. These later columns are shown, by inscriptions and other fragments built into their bases, to belong to later Roman times. At the eastern and southern corners of the hall of Ictinus are projecting masses of masonry, which may be the foundation for a portico that was to be added; but perhaps they were only buttresses, intended to resist the thrust of the roof of this huge structure, which rested at its northern and western corners against the solid rock of the hill. On the south-east side the hall is faced with a portico, extending its whole width; the marble pavement of this portico is a most conspicuous feature of Eleusis at the present day. The portico was added to the hall by the architect Philo, under Demetrius of Phalerum, about the end of the 4th century B.C. It was never completed, for the fluting of its columns still remains unfinished.

The Telesterion took up the greater part of the sacred precinct, which seems merely to have served to keep the profane away from the temple. The massive walls and towers of the time of Pericles, which resemble those of a fortress, are quite close in on the south and east; later, probably in the 4th century B.C., the precinct was extended farther to the south, and at its end was erected a building of considerable extent, including a curious apsidal chamber, for which a similar but larger curved structure was substituted in Roman times. This was probably the Bouleuterion. The precinct was full of altars, dedications and inscriptions; and many fragments of sculptures, pottery and other antiquities, from the earliest to the latest days of Greece, have been discovered. It is to be noted that the subterranean passages which some earlier explorers imagined to be connected with the celebration of the mysteries, have proved to be nothing but cisterns or watercourses.

ELEUTHERIUS, pope from about 175 to 189. Allusions to him are found in the letters of the martyrs of Lyons, cited by Eusebius, and in other documents of the time. The Liber Pontificalis, at the beginning of the 6th century, says that he had relations with a British king, Lucius, who was desirous of being converted to Christianity. This tradition—Roman, not British—is an enigma to critics, and, apparently, has no historical foundation.

ELEUTHEROPOLIS (Gr. Ἐλευθέρα πόλις, “free city”), an ancient city of Palestine, 25 m. from Jerusalem on the road to Gaza, identified by E. Robinson with the modern Beit Jibrīn. This identification is confirmed by Roman milestones in the neighbourhood. It represents the Biblical Mareshah, the ruins of which exist at Tell Sandahannah close by. As Betogabra it is mentioned by Ptolemy; the name Eleutheropolis dates from the Syrian visit of Septimius Severus (A.D. 202). Eusebius in his Onomasticon uses it as a central point from which the distances of other towns are measured. It was destroyed in 796, rebuilt by the crusaders in 1134 (their fortress and chapel remain, much ruined). It was finally captured by Bibars, 1244. Beit Jibrīn is in the centre of a district of great archaeological interest. Besides the crusader and other remains in the village itself, the surrounding country possesses many tells (mounds) covering the sites of ancient cities. The famous caves of Beit Jibrīn honeycomb the hills all round. These are immense artificial excavations of unknown date. Roman milestones and aqueducts also are found, and close by the now famous tomb of Apollophanes, with wall-paintings of animals and other ornamentation, was discovered in 1902; a description of it will be found in Thiersch and Peters, The Marissa Tombs, published by the Palestine Exploration Fund.

ELEVATORS, Lifts or Hoists, machines for raising or lowering loads, whether of people or material, from one level to another. They are operated by steam, hydraulic or electric power, or, when small and light, by hand. Their construction varies with the magnitude of the work to be performed and the character of the motive power. In private houses, where only small weights, as coal, food, &c., have to be transferred from one floor to another, they usually consist simply of a small counter-balanced platform suspended from the roof or an upper floor by a tackle, the running part of which hangs from top to bottom and can be reached and operated at any level. In buildings where great weights and numbers of people have to be lifted, or a high speed of elevation is demanded, some form of motor is necessary. This is usually, directly or indirectly, a steam-engine or occasionally a gas-engine; sometimes a water-pressure engine is adopted, and it is becoming more and more common to employ an electric motor deriving its energy from 264 the general distribution of the city. Large establishments, hotels or business houses, commonly have their own source of energy, an electric or other power “plant,” on the premises.

The hydraulic elevator is the simplest in construction of elevators proper, sometimes consisting merely of a long pipe set deeply in the ground under the cage and containing a correspondingly long plunger, which rises and falls Construction of elevators. as required and carries the elevator-cage on its upper end (fig. 1). The “stroke” is thus necessarily equal to the height traversed by the cage, with some surplus to keep the plunger steady within its guiding-pipe. The pipe or pump chamber has a length exceeding the maximum rise and fall of the plunger, and must be strong enough to sustain safely the heavy hydraulic pressures needed to raise plunger and cage with load. The power is usually supplied by a steam pump (occasionally by a hydraulic motor), which forces water into the chamber of the great pipe as the elevator rises, a waste-cock drawing off the liquid in the process of lowering the cage. A single handle within the cage generally serves to apply the pressure when raising, and to reduce it when lowering the load. The most common form of hydraulic elevator, for important work and under usual conditions of operation, as in cities, consists of a suspended cage, carried by a tackle, the running part of which 265 is connected with a set of pulleys at each end of a frame (fig. 2). The rope is made fast at one end, and its intermediate part is carried round first one pulley at the farther end of the frame and then round another at the nearer end, and so on as often as is found advisable in the particular case. The two pulley shafts carrying these two sets of pulleys are made to traverse the frame in such a way as, by their separation, to haul in on the running part, or, by their approximation, to permit the weight of the cage to haul out the rope. By this alternate hauling and “rendering” of the rope the cage is raised and lowered. The use of a number of parallel and independent sets of pulleys and tackles assures safety in case of the breakage of any one, each being strong enough alone to hold the load. The movement of the pair of pulley shafts is effected by a water-pressure engine, actuating the plunger of a pump which is similar to that used in the preceding apparatus, but being relatively of short stroke and large diameter, is more satisfactory in design and construction as well as in operation. Electricity may be applied to elevators of this type by attaching the travelling sheaves to a nut in which works a screwed shaft driven by an electric motor. In other electric lifts the cables which support the cage are wound on a drum which is turned by a motor, the drum being connected to the motor-shaft either by a series of pinions or by a worm-gear. The drum may also be worked by a steam or gas engine. Where the traffic is not very heavy, a form of elevator that requires no attendant is convenient. In this any one wishing to use the lift has merely to press a button placed by the side of the lift-gate on the floor on which he happens to be standing, when the car will come to him; and having entered it he can cause it to travel to any floor he desires by pressing another button inside the car. The motive power in such cases may be either electric or hydraulic, but the control of the switches or valves that govern the action of the apparatus is electric.

The history of the elevator is chronologically extensive, but only since 1850 has rapid or important progress been effected. In that year George H. Fox & Co. built an elevator operated by the motion of a vertical screw, the nut on which carried the cage. This device was used in a number of instances, especially in hotels in the large cities, during the succeeding twenty years, and was then generally supplanted by the hydraulic lift of the kind already described as the plunger-lift. With the increased demand for power, speed, safety, convenience of manipulation, and comfort in operation, the inventive ability of the engineer developed the various systems more and more perfectly, and experience gradually showed to what service each type was best adapted and the best construction of each for its peculiar work. Whatever the class, the following are the essentials of design, Essentials of design, &c. construction and operation: the elevator must be safe, comfortable, speedy and convenient, must not be too expensive in either first cost or maintenance, and must be absolutely trustworthy. It must not be liable to fracture of any element of the hoisting gear that will permit either the fall of the cage or its projection by an overweighted balance upwards against the top of its shaft. It must be possible to stop it, whether in regular working or in emergency, or when accident occurs, with sufficient promptness, yet without endangering life or property, or even very seriously inconveniencing the passengers. Acceleration and retardation in starting and stopping must be smooth and easy, the stop must be capable of being made precisely where and when intended, and no danger must be incurred by the passengers from contact with running parts of the mechanism or with the walls and doors of the elevator shaft.

These requirements have been fully met in the later forms of elevator commonly employed for passenger service. Usual sizes range from loads of 1000 to 5000 ℔ with speeds of from 80 to 250 ft. a minute unloaded, and 75 to 200 ft. loaded, and a height of travel of from 50 to 200 ft. In some very tall buildings, as the Singer and Metropolitan buildings in New York, elevators have been installed having a maximum speed of 600 ft. a minute, with a rise of over 500 ft. Where electric motors are employed, their speed ranges from 600 and 700 revolutions per minute in the larger to 1000 and 1200 in the smaller sizes, corresponding to from 20 down to 4 or 5 h.p. Two or more counter-weights are employed, and from four to six suspension cables ensure as nearly as possible absolute safety. The electric elevators of the Central London railway are guaranteed to raise 17,000 ℔ 65 ft. in some of its shafts, in 30 secs. from start to stop. Over 100,000 ft. of 7⁄8 in. and 17,000 ft. of ¾ in. steel rope are required for its 24 shafts, and each rope can carry from 16 to 22 tons without breaking. The steel used in the cables, of which there are four to six for each car and counter-weight, has a tenacity of 85 to 90 tons per sq. in. of section of wire. The maximum pull on each set of rope is assumed to be not over 9500 ℔, the remainder of the load being taken by the counterbalance. Oil “dash-pots” or buffers, into which enter plungers attached to the bottom of the cage, prevent too sudden a stop in case of accident, and safety-clutches with friction adjustments of ample power and fully tested before use give ample insurance against a fall even if all the cables should yield at once—an almost inconceivable contingency. The efficiency, i.e. the ratio of work performed to power expended in the same time, was in these elevators found by test to be between 70 and 75%.

Safety devices constitute perhaps the most important of the later improvements in elevator construction where passengers are carried. The simplest and, where practicable, most certain of them is the “air-cushion”, a chamber Safety devices. into which the cage drops if detached or from any cause allowed to fall too rapidly to the bottom, compression of the air bringing it to rest without shock (fig. 3). This chamber must be perfectly air-tight, except in so far as a purposely arranged clearance around the sides, diminishing downwards and in well-established proportion, is adjusted to permit a “dash-pot” action and to prevent rebound. The air-cushion should be about one-tenth the depth of the elevator shaft; in high buildings it may be a well 20 or 30 ft. deep. The Empire building, in New York, is twenty storeys in height, the total travel of the cage is 287 ft., and the air-cushion is 50 ft. deep, extending from the floor of the third storey to the bottom of the shaft. Sliding doors of great strength, and automatic in action, at the first and second floors, are the only openings. The shaft is tapered for some distance below the third floor, and then carried straight to the bottom. An inlet valve admits air freely as the cage rises, and an adjusted safety-valve provides against excess pressure. A “car,” falling freely from the twentieth storey, was checked by this arrangement without injury to a basket of eggs placed on its floor. Other safety devices consist of catches under the floor of the cage, so arranged that they are held out of engagement by the pull on the cables. But if the strain is suddenly relieved, as by breakage of a cable or accident to the engine or motor, they instantly fly into place and, engaging strong side-struts in the shaft, hold the car until it can be once more lifted by its cables. These operate well when the cables part at or near the car, but they are apt to fail if the break occurs on the opposite side of the carrying sheaves at the top of the shaft, since the friction and inertia of the mass of the cables may in that case be sufficient to hold the pawls out of gear either entirely or until the headway is so great as to cause the smashing of all resistances when they do engage.

Another principle employed in safety arrangements is the 266 action of inertia of parts properly formed and attached. Any dangerous acceleration of the cage causes the inertia of these parts to produce a retardation relative to the car which throws into action a brake or a catch, and thus controls the motion within safe limits or breaks the fall. The hydraulic brake has been used in this apparatus, as have mechanical and pneumatic apparatus. This control of the speed of fall is most commonly secured by the employment of a centrifugal or other governor or regulator. The governor may be on the top of the cage and driven by a stationary rope fixed between the top and bottom of the shafts, or it may be placed at the top of the shaft and driven by a rope travelling with the car. Its action is usually to trip into service a set of spring grips or friction clutches, which, as a rule, grasp the guides of the cage and by their immense pressure and great resultant friction bring the cage to rest within a safe limit of speed, time and distance. A coefficient of friction of about 15% is assumed in their design, and this estimate is confirmed by their operation. Pressures of 10 tons or more are sometimes provided in these grips to ensure the friction required. There are many different forms of safety device of these various classes, each maker having his own. The importance of absolute safety against a fall is so great that the best builders are not satisfied with any one form or principle, but combine provisions against every known danger, and often duplicate such precautions against the most common accidents.

The “travelling staircase,” which may be classed among the passenger elevators, usually consists of a staircase so constructed that while the passenger is ascending it the whole structure is also ascending at a predetermined rate, so that the progress made is the sum of the two rates of motion. The system of “treads and risers” is carried on a long endless band of chain sustained by guides holding it in its desired line, and rendering at either end over cylinders or sprockets. The junctions between the stairway and the upper or lower floors are ingeniously arranged so as to avoid danger of injury to the passengers.

Freight elevators have the same general forms as the passenger elevators, but are often vastly larger and more powerful, and are not as a rule fitted up for such heights of lift, or constructed with such elaborate provision for safety or with any special finish. Elevators raising grain, coal, earth and similar materials, such as can be taken up by scooping into a bucket, or can be run into and out of the bucket by gravity, constitute a class by themselves, and are described in the article Conveyors.

The term “grain elevator” is often used to include buildings as well as machinery, and it is not unusual in Europe to hear a flour-mill, with its system of motor machinery, mills, elevator and storage departments, spoken of as an “American elevator” (see Granaries).

ELF (O. Eng. aelf; cf. Ger. Alp, nightmare), a diminutive supernatural being of Teutonic mythology, usually of a more or less mischievous and malignant character, causing diseases and evil dreams, stealing children and substituting changelings, and thus somewhat different from the Romanic fairy, which usually has less sinister associations. The prehistoric arrow-heads and other flint implements were in England early known as “elf-bolts” or “elf-arrows,” and were looked on as the weapons of the elves, with which they injured cattle. So too a tangle in the hair was called an “elf-lock,” as being caused by the mischief of the elves.

ELGAR, SIR EDWARD (1857-  ), English musical composer, son of W.H. Elgar, who was for many years organist in the Roman Catholic church of St George at Worcester, was born there on the 2nd of June 1857. His father’s connexion with music at Worcester, with the Glee Club and with the Three Choirs Festivals, supplied him with varied opportunities for a musical education, and he learnt to play several instruments. In 1879 he became bandmaster at the county lunatic asylum, and held that post till 1884. He was also a member of an orchestra at Birmingham, and in 1883 an intermezzo by him was played there at a concert. In 1882 he became conductor of the Worcester Amateur Instrumental Society; and in 1885 he succeeded his father as organist at St George’s, Worcester. There he wrote a certain amount of church music. In 1889 he moved to London, but finding no encouragement retired to Malvern in 1891; in 1904 he went to live at Hereford, and in 1905 was made professor of music at Birmingham University. To the public generally he was hardly known till his oratorio The Dream of Gerontius was performed at Birmingham in 1900, but this was at once received as a new revelation in English music, both at home and by Richard Strauss in Germany, and the composer was made a Mus. Doc. at Cambridge. His experience in writing church music for a Roman Catholic service cannot be overlooked in regard to this and other works by Elgar, who came to be regarded as the representative of a Catholic or neo-Catholic style of religious music, for which an appreciative public was ready in England at the moment, owing to the recent developments in the more artistic and sensuous side of the religious movement. And the same interest attached to his later oratorios, The Apostles (1903) and The Kingdom (1906). But Elgar’s sudden rise into popularity, confirmed by his being knighted in 1904, drew attention to his other productions. In 1896 his Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf was recognized by musicians as a fine work, and in the same year his Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands and Lux Christi were performed; and apart from other important compositions, his song-cycle Sea-Pictures was sung at Norwich in 1899 by Clara Butt, and his orchestral Variations on an original theme were given at a Richter concert in the same year. In 1901 his popular march “Pomp and Circumstance” was played at a promenade concert, the stirring melody of his song “Land of Hope and Glory” being effectually utilized. It is impossible here to enumerate all Sir Edward Elgar’s works, which have excited a good deal of criticism in musical circles without impairing his general recognition as one of the few front-rank English composers of his day; but his most important later production, his first orchestral symphony, produced in 1908 with immediate success, raised his reputation as a composer to an even higher place, as a work of marked power and beauty, developing the symphonic form with the originality of a real master of his art. In 1908 he resigned his professorship at Birmingham University.

ELGIN, a city of Kane county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the N. part of the state, 36 m. N.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1880) 8787; (1890) 17,823; (1900) 22,433, of whom 5419 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 25,976. Elgin is served by the Chicago & North-Western and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways, and by interurban electric railways to Chicago, Aurora and Belvidere. The city is the seat of the Northern Illinois hospital for the insane, of the Elgin Academy (chartered 1839; opened 1856), and of St Mary’s Academy (Roman Catholic); and has the Gail Borden public library, with 35,000 volumes in 1908. The city has six public parks, Lord’s Park containing 112, and Wing Park 121 acres. The city is in a fine dairying region and is an important market for butter. Among Elgin’s manufactures are watches and watch-cases, butter and other dairy products, cooperage (especially butter tubs), canned corn, shirts, foundry and machine-shop products, pipe-organs, and caskets and casket trimmings; in 1905 Elgin’s total factory product was valued at $9,349,274. The Elgin National Watch factory, and the Borden milk-condensing works, are famous throughout the United States and beyond. The publishing office of the Dunkers, or German Brethren, is at Elgin; and several popular weeklies with large circulations are published here. A permanent settlement was made as early as 1835, and Elgin was chartered as a city in 1854 and was rechartered in 1880.

ELGIN, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and county town of Elginshire, Scotland, situated on the Lossie, 5 m. S. of Lossiemouth its port, on the Moray Firth, and 71¼ m. N.W. of Aberdeen, with stations on the Great North of Scotland and Highland railways. Pop. (1901) 8460. It is a place of very considerable antiquity, was created a royal burgh by Alexander I., and received its charter from Alexander II. in 1234. Edward I. stayed at the castle in 1296 and 1303, and it was to blot out the memory of his visit that the building was destroyed immediately after national independence had been reasserted. 267 The hill on which it stood was renamed the Ladyhill, and on the scanty ruins of the castle now stands a monument to the 5th duke of Gordon, consisting of a column surmounted by a statue.

The burgh has suffered periodically from fire, notably in 1452, when half of it was burnt by the earl of Huntly. Montrose plundered it twice in 1645. In 1746 Prince Charles Edward spent a few days in Thunderton House. His hostess, Mrs Anderson, an ardent Jacobite, kept the sheets in which he slept, and was buried in them on her death, twenty-five years afterwards. For fifty years after this date the place retained the character and traditions of a sleepy cathedral city, but with the approach of the 19th century it was touched by a more modern spirit. As the result much that was picturesque disappeared, but the prosperity of Elgin was increased, so that now, owing to its pleasant situation in “the Garden of Scotland,” its healthy climate, cheap living, and excellent educational facilities, it has become a flourishing community. The centre of interest is the cathedral of Moray, which was founded in 1224, when the church of the Holy Trinity was converted to this use. It was partially burned in 1270 and almost destroyed in 1390 by Alexander Stewart, the Wolf of Badenoch, natural son of Robert II., who had incurred the censure of the Church. In 1402 Alexander, lord of the Isles, set fire to the town, but spared the cathedral for a consideration, in memory of which mercy the Little Cross (so named to distinguish it from the Muckle or Market Cross, restored in 1888) was erected. After these outrages it was practically rebuilt on a scale of grandeur that made it the most magnificent example of church architecture in the north. Its design was that of a Jerusalem cross, with two flanking towers at the east end, two at the west end, and one in the centre, at the intersection of the roofs of the nave and transepts. It measured 282 ft. long from east to west by 120 ft. across the transepts, and consisted of the choir, the gable of which was pierced by two tiers of five lancet windows and the Omega rose window; the north transept, in which the Dunbars were buried, and the south transept, the doorway of which is interesting for its dog’s-tooth ornamentation; and the nave of five aisles. The grand entrance was by the richly carved west door, above which was the Alpha window. The central steeple fell in 1506, but was rebuilt, the new tower with its spire reaching a height of 198 ft. By 1538 the edifice was complete in every part. Though the Reformation left it unscathed, it suffered wanton violence from time to time. By order of the privy council the lead was stripped off the roofs in 1567 and sold to Holland to pay the troops; but the ship conveying the spoils foundered in the North Sea. In 1637 the roof-tree of the choir perished during a gale, and three years later the rich timber screen was demolished. The central tower again collapsed in 1711, after which the edifice was allowed to go to ruin. Its stones were carted away, and the churchyard, overgrown with weeds, became the dumping-ground for rubbish. It lay thus scandalously neglected until 1824, when John Shanks, a “drouthy” cobbler, was appointed keeper. By a species of inspiration this man, hitherto a ne’er-do-well, conceived the notion of restoring the place to order. Undismayed, he attacked the mass of litter and with his own hands removed 3000 barrow-loads. When he died in 1841 he had cleared away all the rubbish, disclosed the original plan, and collected a quantity of fragments. A tablet, let into the wall, contains an epitaph by Lord Cockburn, recording Shanks’s services to the venerable pile, which has since been entrusted to the custody of the commissioners of woods and forests. The chapter-house, to the north-east of the main structure, suffered least of all the buildings, and contains a ’Prentice pillar, of which a similar story is told to that of the ornate column in Roslin chapel. In the lavatory, or vestibule connecting the chapter-house with the choir, Marjory Anderson, a poor half-crazy creature, a soldier’s widow, took up her quarters in 1748. She cradled her son in the piscina and lived on charity. In the course of time the lad joined the army and went to India, where he rose to the rank of major-general and amassed a fortune of £70,000 with which he endowed the Elgin Institution (commonly known as the Anderson Institution) at the east end of High Street, for the education of youth and the support of old age. Within the precincts of the cathedral grounds stood the bishop’s palace (now in ruins), the houses of the dean and archdeacon (now North and South Colleges), and the manses of the canons. Other ecclesiastical buildings were the monasteries of Blackfriars (1230) and Greyfriars (1410) and the preceptory of Maisondieu (1240). They also were permitted to fall into decay, but the 3rd marquess of Bute undertook the restoration of the Greyfriars’ chapel. The parish church, in the Greek style, was built in 1828. Gray’s hospital, at the west end of High Street, was endowed by Dr Alexander Gray (1751-1808), and at the east end stands the Institution, already mentioned, founded by General Andrew Anderson (1746-1822). Other public buildings include the assembly rooms, the town-hall, the museum (in which the antiquities and natural history of the shire are abundantly illustrated), the district asylum, the academy, the county buildings and the court house, the market buildings, the Victoria school of science and art, and Lady Gordon-Cumming’s children’s home. In 1903 Mr G.A. Cooper presented his native town with a public park of 42 acres, containing lakes representing on a miniature scale the British Isles. Grant Lodge, an old mansion of the Grant family, occupying the south-west corner of the park, was converted into the public library. From the top of Ladyhill the view commands the links of the Lossie and the surrounding country, and a recreation ground is laid out on Lossie Green.

The industries include distilling and brewing, nursery gardening, tanning, saw and flour mills, iron-foundries and manufactures of woollens, tweeds and plaiding, and the quarrying of sandstone. Elgin combines with Banff, Cullen, Inverurie, Kintore and Peterhead to return one member to parliament, and the town is controlled by a council with provost and bailies.

Two miles and a half S. by W. of Elgin stands the church of Birnie, with the exception of the church at Mortlach in Banffshire probably the oldest place of public worship in Scotland still in use. It is not later than 1150 and, with its predecessor, was the cathedral of Moray during the rule of the first four bishops; the fourth bishop, Simon de Toeny, an Englishman, was buried in its precincts in 1184. In the church is preserved an old Celtic altar-bell of hammered iron, known as the “Ronnell bell.” Such is the odour of sanctity of this venerable church that there is an old local saying that “to be thrice prayed for in the kirk of Birnie will either mend or end ye.” Six miles to the S.W. of Elgin, charmingly situated in a secluded valley encircled by fir-clad heights, lie the picturesque remains of Pluscarden Priory, a Cistercian house founded by Alexander II. in 1230. The ruins, consisting of tower, choir, chapter-house, refectory and other apartments, are nearly hidden from view by their dense coating of ivy and the fine old trees, including many beautiful examples of copper beech, by which they are surrounded. Its last prior, Alexander Dunbar, died in 1560. The Liber Pluscardensis, a valuable authority on early Scots history, was compiled in the priory by Maurice Buchanan in 1461. The chronicle comes down to the death of James I. The 3rd marquess of Bute acquired the ruins in 1897.

ELGIN AND KINCARDINE, EARLS OF. Thomas Bruce, 7th earl of Elgin (1766-1841), British diplomatist and art collector, was born on the 20th of July 1766, and in 1771 succeeded his brother in the Scottish peerage as the 7th earl of Elgin (cr. 1633), and 11th of Kincardine (cr. 1647). He was educated at Harrow and Westminster, and, after studying for some time at the university of St Andrews, proceeded to the continent, where he studied international law at Paris, and military science in Germany. When his education was completed he entered the army, in which he rose to the rank of general. His chief attention was, however, devoted to diplomacy. In 1792 he was appointed envoy at Brussels, and in 1795 envoy extraordinary at Berlin; and from 1799 to 1802 he was envoy extraordinary at the Porte. It was during his stay at Constantinople that he formed the purpose of removing from Athens the celebrated sculptures now known as the Elgin Marbles. His doing so was censured by some as vandalism, and doubts were also expressed as to the artistic value of many of the marbles; but he vindicated himself 268 in a pamphlet published in 1810, and entitled Memorandum on the Subject of the Earl of Elgin’s Pursuits in Greece. In 1816 the collection was purchased by the nation for £36,000, and placed in the British Museum, the outlay incurred by Lord Elgin having been more than £50,000. Lord Elgin was a Scottish representative peer for fifty years. He died at Paris on the 14th of November 1841.

James Bruce, 8th earl of Elgin (1811-1863), British statesman, eldest son of the 7th earl by his second marriage, was born in 1811, and succeeded to the peerage as 8th earl of Elgin and 12th of Kincardine in 1841. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he had as companions and rivals his younger predecessors in the office of governor-general of India, Dalhousie and Canning. He began his official career in 1842 at the age of thirty, as governor of Jamaica. During an administration of four years he succeeded in winning the respect of all classes. He improved the condition of the negroes and conciliated the planters by working through them. In 1846 Lord Grey appointed him governor-general of Canada. Son-in-law of the popular earl of Durham, he was well received by the colonists, and he set himself deliberately to carry out the Durham policy. In this his frank and genial manners aided him powerfully. His assent to the local measure for indemnifying those who had suffered in the troubles of 1837 led the mob of Montreal to pelt his carriage for the rewarding of rebels for rebellion, as Mr Gladstone described it. But long before his eight years’ term of service expired he was the most popular man in Canada. His relations with the United States, his hearty support of the self-government and defence of the colony, and his settlement of the free-trade and fishery questions, led to his being raised in 1849 to the British peerage as Baron Elgin.

Soon after his return to England in 1854, Lord Palmerston offered him a seat in the cabinet as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, which he declined. But when, in 1856 the seizure of the “Arrow” by Commissioner Yeh plunged England into war with China, he at once accepted the appointment of special envoy with the expedition. On reaching Point de Galle he was met by a force summoned from Bombay to Calcutta by the news of the sepoy mutiny at Meerut on the 11th of May. His first idea, that the somewhat meagre intelligence would justify most energetic action in China, was at once changed when urgent letters from Lord Canning reached him at Singapore, the next port, on the 3rd of June. H.M.S. “Shannon” was at once sent on to Calcutta with the troops destined for China, and Lord Elgin himself followed it, when gloomier letters from India reached him. The arrival of the “Shannon” gave new life to the handful of white men fighting for civilization against fearful odds, and before the reinforcements from England arrived the back of the mutiny had been broken. Nor was the position in China seriously affected by the want of the troops. Lord Elgin sent in his ultimatum to Commissioner Yeh at Canton on the same day, the 12th of December, that he learned the relief of Lucknow, and he soon after sent Yeh a prisoner to Calcutta. By July 1858, after months of Chinese deception, he was able to leave the Gulf of Pechili with the emperor’s assent to the Treaty of Tientsin. Subsequently he visited Japan, and obtained less considerable concessions from its government in the Treaty of Yeddo. It is true that the negotiations were confined to the really subordinate Tycoon or Shogun, but that visit proved the beginning of British influence in the most progressive country of Asia. Unfortunately, the Chinese difficulty was not yet at an end. After tedious disputes with the tariff commissioners as to the opium duty, and a visit to the upper waters of the Yang-tzse, Lord Elgin had reached England in May 1859. But when his brother and the allied forces attempted to proceed to Peking with the ratified treaty, they were fired on from the Taku forts at the mouth of the Peiho. The Chinese had resolved to try the fortune of war once more, and Lord Russell again sent out Lord Elgin as ambassador extraordinary to demand an apology for the attack, the execution of the treaty, and an indemnity for the military and naval expenditure. Sir Robert Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala) and Sir Hope Grant, with the French, so effectually routed the Tatar troops and sacked the Summer Palace that by the 24th of October 1860 a convention was concluded which was “entirely satisfactory to Her Majesty’s government.” Lord Elgin had not been a month at home when Lord Palmerston selected him to be viceroy and governor-general of India. He had now attained the object of his honourable ambition, after the office had been filled in most critical times by his juniors and old college companions, the marquis of Dalhousie and Earl Canning. He succeeded a statesman who had done much to reorganize the whole administration of India, shattered as it had been by the mutiny. But, as the first viceroy directly appointed by the Crown, and as subject to the secretary of state for India, Lord Elgin at once gave up all Lord Canning had fought for, in the co-ordinate independence, or rather the stimulating responsibility, of the governor-general, which had prevailed from the days of Clive and Warren Hastings. On the other hand, he loyally carried out the wise and equitable policy of his predecessor towards our feudatories with a firmness and a dignity that in the case of Holkar and Udaipur had a good effect. He did his best to check the aggression of the Dutch in Sumatra, which was contrary to treaty, and he supported Dost Mahommed in Kabul until that aged warrior entered the then neutral and disputed territory of Herat. Determined to maintain inviolate the integrity of our own north-west frontier, Lord Elgin assembled a camp of exercise at Lahore, and marched a force to the Peshawar border to punish those branches of the Yusufzai tribe who had violated the engagements of 1858.

It was in the midst of this “little war” that he died. Soon after his arrival at Calcutta, he had projected the usual tour to Simla, to be followed by an inspection of the Punjab and its warlike ring-fence of Pathans. He even contemplated the summoning of the central legislative council at Lahore. After passing the summer of 1863 in the cool retreat of Peterhoff, Simla, Lord Elgin began a march across the hills from Simla to Sialkot by the upper valleys of the Beas, the Ravi and the Chenab, chiefly to decide the two allied questions of tea cultivation and trade routes to Kashgar and Tibet. The climbing up to the Rotung Pass (13,000 ft.) which separates the Beas valley from that of the Chenab, and the crossing of the frail twig bridge across the Chundra torrent, prostrated him by the time he had descended into the smiling English-like Kangra valley. Thence he wrote his last letter to Sir Charles Wood, still full of hope and not free from anxiety as to the Sittana expedition. At the lovely hill station of Dharmsala, “the place of piety,” he died of fatty degeneration of heart on the 20th of November 1863.

For his whole career see Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin, edited by Walrond, but corrected by his brother-in-law, Dean Stanley; for the China missions see Narrative of the Earl of Elgin’s Mission to China and Japan, by Laurence Oliphant, his private secretary; for the brief Indian administration see the Friend of India for 1862-1863.

Victor Alexander Bruce, 9th earl of Elgin (1849-  ), British statesman, was born on the 16th of May 1849, the son of the 8th earl, and was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1863 he succeeded as 9th earl of Elgin and 13th of Kincardine. A Liberal in politics, he became first commissioner of works (1886), and subsequently viceroy of India (1894-1899). His administration in India was chiefly notable for the frontier risings of 1897-1898. The Afridis broke out into a fanatical revolt and through hesitation on the part of the government were allowed to seize the Khyber Pass, necessitating the Tirah Expedition. After his return to England he was nominated chairman of the royal commission to investigate the conduct of the South African War; and on the formation of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s ministry in December 1905, he became a member of the cabinet as secretary of state for the colonies. In this capacity, though he showed many statesmanlike qualities, he was somewhat overshadowed by his brilliant under-secretary in the Commons, Mr Winston Churchill, whose speeches on colonial affairs were as aggressive as Lord Elgin’s were cautious; and when in April 1908, Mr Asquith became prime minister, Lord Elgin retired from the cabinet.

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ELGINSHIRE, or Moray (Gaelic “among the seaboard men”), a northern county of Scotland, bounded N. by the Moray Firth, E. and S.E. by Banffshire, S. and S.W. by Inverness and W. by Nairnshire. It comprises only the eastern portion of the ancient province of Moray, which extended from the Spey to the Beauly and from the Grampians to the sea, embracing an area of about 3900 sq. m. The area of the county is 305,119 acres, or 477 sq. m.

Elginshire is naturally divided into two sections, the level and fertile coast and its hinterland—“the Laigh o’ Moray,” a tract 30 m. long by from 5 to 12 m. broad—and the hilly country in the south. There are, however, no high mountains. Carn Ruigh (1784 ft.), Larig Hill (1783) and Carn Kitty (1711) are the chief eminences in the south-central district until the ridge of the Cromdale Hills is reached on the Banffshire border, where the highest point is 2329 ft. above the sea. The two most important rivers, the Spey (q.v.) and the Findhorn, both have their sources in Inverness-shire. About 50 m. of the course of the Spey are in Elginshire, to which it may be roughly said to serve as the boundary line on the south-east and east. The Findhorn rises in the Monadliadh Mountains which form the watershed for several miles between it and the Spey. Of its total course of nearly 70 m. only the last 12 are in the county, where it separates the woods of Altyre from the Forest of Darnaway, before entering the Moray Firth in a bay on the north-eastern shore to which it has given its name. During the first 7 m. of its flow in Elginshire the stream passes through some of the finest scenery in Scotland. It is liable to sudden risings, and in the memorable Moray floods of August 1829 wrought the greatest havoc. Of other rivers the Lossie rises in the small lakes on the flanks of Carn Kitty and pursues a very winding course of 34 m. till it reaches the Moray Firth; Ballintomb Burn, Rothes Burn and Tulchan Burn are left-hand affluents of the Spey; the Dorbock and Divie, uniting their forces near Dunphail House, join the Findhorn at Relugas; and Muckle Water, a left-hand tributary of the Findhorn, comes from Nairnshire. The Spey and Findhorn are famous for salmon, but some of the smaller streams, too, afford good sport. The lochs are few and unimportant, among them being Loch Spynie, 2½ m. N., and Loch-na-Bo, 4 m. S.E. of Elgin; Loch of Blairs, 2½ m. S. of Forres; Loch Romach, 3 m. S. of Rafford; Loch Dallas, about 4 m. S.W. of Dallas, and Lochindorb in the S.W., 6 m. N.N.W. of Grantown. Loch Spynie was once a lake extending from the Firth to within 2½ m. of Elgin and covering an area of over 2000 acres. Its shores were the haunt of a great variety of birds, and its waters were full of salmon, sea-trout and pike. But early in the 19th century it was resolved to reclaim the land, and the drainage works then undertaken reduced the beautiful loch to a swamp of some 120 acres.

Lochindorb is now the largest lake, being 2 m. in length and fully ½ m. wide. In the upper end, on an island believed to be artificial, stand the ruins of Lochindorb Castle, in the 14th century the stronghold of the Wolf of Badenoch, and afterwards successively the property of the earl of Moray, the Campbells of Cawdor and the earl of Seafield. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder saw at Cawdor Castle a massive iron gate which, according to tradition, Sir Donald Campbell of Cawdor carried on his back from Lochindorb to Cawdor, a distance of 13 m. In the southern half of the county, amongst the hills, are several glens, among them the Glen of Rothes, Glen Lossie, Glen Gheallaidh, Glen Tulchan and Glen Beag. Strathspey, though more of a valley than a glen, is remarkable for its extent and beauty.

Climate and Agriculture.—The climate of the coast is equable and mild, even exotic fruits ripening readily in the open. The uplands are colder and damp. The average temperature in January is 38° F. and in July 58.5°, while for the year the mean is 47° F. The rainfall for the year averages 26 in. Considering its latitude and the extent of its arable land the standard of farming in Elginshire is high. The rich soil of the lowlands is well adapted for wheat, barley and oats. The acreage confined 270 to the glens and straths under barley approximates that under oats. In the uplands, oats is the principal cereal. The breeding of live-stock is profitable, and some of the finest specimens of shorthorned and polled cattle and of crosses between the two are bred. On the larger farms in the Laigh Leicester sheep are kept all the year round, but in the uplands the Blackfaced take their place. Large numbers of horses and pigs are also raised.

Other Industries.—Whisky is the chief product, and the numerous distilleries are usually busy. There are woollen mills at Elgin and elsewhere and chemical works at Forres and Burghead. Owing to the absence of coal what little mineral wealth there is (iron and lead) cannot be remuneratively worked. The sandstone quarries, yielding a building-stone of superior quality, are practically inexhaustible. The plantations mainly consist of larch and fir and, to a smaller extent, of oak. Much timber was once floated down the Spey and other rivers, but, since the increased facilities of carriage afforded by the railways, trees have been felled on a wider scale. Boat-building is carried on at Burghead, Lossiemouth and Kingston—so-called from the fact that a firm from Kingston-on-Hull laid down a yard there in 1784—while at Garmouth the fishing fleet lies up during the winter and is also repaired there. The Firth fisheries are of considerable value. The boats go out from Findhorn, Burghead, Hopeman and Lossiemouth, which are all furnished with safe harbours. Findhorn has been twice visited by calamities. The first village was overwhelmed by the drifting sands of Culbin, and the second was buried beneath the waves in 1701. Kingston harbour is tidal, exposed, and liable to interruption from a shifting bar. The deep sea fisheries comprise haddock, cod, ling and herring, and the Spey, Findhorn and Lossie yield large quantities of salmon.

The Great North of Scotland railway enters the shire in the S.E. from Craigellachie, whence a branch runs up the Spey to Boat of Garten in Inverness-shire, and in the N.E. from Port Gordon, running in both cases to Elgin, from which a branch line extends to Lossiemouth. The Highland railway traverses the western limits of the shire running almost due north to Forres, whence it turns westward to Nairn and eastward to Elgin. From the county town it runs to Aberdeen via Orbliston and Keith, with a branch to Fochabers from Orbliston.

Population and Government.—The population was 43,471 in 1891 and 44,800 in 1901, when 1865 persons spoke both Gaelic and English, and 2 spoke Gaelic only. The chief towns are Elgin (pop. in 1901, 8460), Forres (4313) and Lossiemouth (3904), to which may be added Rothes (1621), Grantown (1568) and Burghead (1531). In conjunction with Nairnshire the county returns one member to parliament. Elgin and Forres are royal burghs; the municipal and police burghs include Burghead, Elgin, Forres, Grantown, Lossiemouth, and Rothes. Elginshire is included in one sheriffdom with Inverness and Nairn, and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Elgin. The county is under school-board jurisdiction, several of the schools earning grants for higher education. There are academies at Elgin and Fochabers and science and art and technical schools at Elgin and Grantown. The bulk of the “residue” grant is spent in subsidizing the agricultural department of Aberdeen University and the science schools and art and technical classes in the county.

History.—Moray, in the wider sense, was first peopled by Picts of the Gaelic branch of Celts, of whom relics are found in the stone circle at Viewfield and at many places in Nairnshire. Christianity, introduced under the auspices of Columba (from whose time the site of Burghead church has probably been so occupied), flourished for a period until the Columban church was expelled in 717 by King Nectan. Thereafter the district was given over to internecine strife between the northern and southern Picts, which was ended by the crushing victory of Kenneth MacAlpine in 831, as one result of which the kingdom of Pictavia was superseded by the principality of Moravia. Still, settled order had not yet been secured, for the Norsemen raided the country first under Thorstein and then under two Sigurds. It was in the time of the second Sigurd that the Firth was fixed as the northern boundary of Moray. In spite of such interruptions as the battle of Torfness (Burghead) on the 14th of August 1040, in which Thorfinn, earl of Orkney and Shetland, overthrew a strong force of Scots under King Duncan, the consolidation of the kingdom was being gradually accomplished. After Macbeth ascended the throne the Scandinavians held their hands. Though Macbeth and his fainéant successor, “daft” Lulach, were the only kings whom Moray gave to Scotland, the province never lacked for able, if headstrong, men, and it continued to enjoy home rule under its own marmaer, or great steward (the equivalent of earl, the title that replaced it), until the dawn of the 12th century, when as an entity it ceased to exist. With a view to breaking up the power of the marmaers David I. and his successors colonized the seaboard with settlers from other parts of the kingdom. Nevertheless, from time to time the clansmen and their chiefs descended from their fastnesses and plundered the Laigh, keeping the people for generations in a state of panic. Meanwhile, the Church had become a civilizing force. In 1107 Alexander had founded the see of Moray and the churches of Birnie, Kinneddar and Spynie were in turn the cathedral of the early bishops, until in 1224 under the episcopate of Andrew of Moray (de Moravia), the church of the Holy Trinity in Elgin was chosen for the cathedral. Another factor that drew men together was the struggle for independence. In his effort to stamp out Scottish nationality Edward I. came as far north as Elgin, where he stayed for four days in July 1296, and whence he issued his writ for the parliament at Berwick. Wallace, however, had no doughtier supporter than Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, and Bruce recognized the assistance he had received from the men of the north by erecting Moray into an earldom on the morrow of Bannockburn and bestowing it upon Thomas Randolph (see Moray, Thomas Randolph, earl of). Henceforward the history of the county resolved itself in the main into matters affecting the power of the Church and the ambitions of the Moray dynasties. The Church accepted the Reformation peacefully if not with gratitude. But there was strife between Covenanters and the adherents of Episcopacy until, prelacy itself being abolished in 1689, the bishopric of Moray came to an end after an existence of 581 years. (For the subsequent history of the earldom, which was successively held by the Randolphs, the Dunbars, the Douglases, the royal Stewarts and an illegitimate branch of the Stewarts, see Murray or Moray, earls of.) Other celebrated Moray families who played a more or less strenuous part in local politics were the Gordons, the Grants and the Duffs. Still, national affairs occasionally evoked interest in Moray. In the civil war Montrose ravaged the villages which stood for the Covenanters, but most of the great lairds shifted in their allegiance, and the mass of the people were quite indifferent to the declining fortunes of the Stewarts. Charles II. landed at Garmouth on the 3rd of July 1650 on his return from his first exile in Holland, but hurried southwards to try the yoke of Presbytery. The fight at Cromdale (May day, 1690) shattered the Jacobite cause, for the efforts in 1715 and 1745 were too spasmodic and half-hearted to affect the loyalty of the district to Hanoverian rule. A few weeks before Culloden Prince Charles Edward stayed in Elgin for some days, and a month afterwards the duke of Cumberland passed through the town at the top of his speed and administered the coup de grâce to the Young Pretender on Drummossie Moor.

Twice Elginshire has been the scene of catastrophes without parallel in Scotland. In 1694 the barony of Culbin—a fine estate, with a rent roll in money and kind of £6000 a year, belonging to the Kinnairds, comprising 3600 acres of land, so fertile that it was called the Granary of Moray, a handsome mansion, a church and several houses—was buried under a mass of sand in a storm of extraordinary severity. The sandy waste measures 3 m. in length and 2 in breadth, and the sand, exceedingly fine and light, is constantly shifting and, at rare intervals, exposing traces of the vanished demesne. This wilderness of dome-shaped dunes divided by a loftier ridge lies to the north-west of Forres. The other calamity was the Moray floods of the 2nd and 3rd of 271 August 1829. The Findhorn rose 50 ft. above the ordinary level, inundating an area of 20 sq. m.; the Divie rose 40 ft., and the Lossie flooded all the low ground around Elgin. The floods tore down bridges and buildings, and obliterated farms and homesteads.

ELGON, also known as Masawa, an extinct volcano in British East Africa, cut by 1° N. and 34½° E., forming a vast isolated mass over 40 m. in diameter. The outer slopes are in great measure precipitous on the north, west and south, but fall more gradually to the east. The southern cliffs are remarkable for extensive caves, which have the appearance of water-worn caves on a coast line and have for ages served as habitations for the natives. The higher parts slope gradually upwards to the rim of an old crater, lying somewhat north of the centre of the mass, and measuring some 8 m. in diameter. The highest point of the rim is about 14,100 ft. above the sea. Steep spurs separated by narrow ravines run out from the mountain, affording the most picturesque scenery. The ravines are traversed by a great number of streams, which flow north-west and west to the Nile (through Lake Choga), south and south-east to Victoria Nyanza, and north-east to Lake Rudolf by the Turkwell, the head-stream of which rises within the crater, breaking through a deep cleft in its rim. To the north-west of the mountain a grassy plain, swampy in the rains, falls towards the chain of lakes ending in Choga; towards the north-east the country becomes more arid, while towards the south it is well wooded. The outer slopes are clothed in their upper regions with dense forest formed in part of bamboos, especially towards the south and west, in which directions the rainfall is greater than elsewhere. The lower slopes are exceptionally fertile on the west, and produce bananas in abundance. On the north-west and north the region between 6000 and 7000 ft. possesses a delightful climate, and is well watered by streams of ice-cold water. The district of Save on the north is a halting-place for Arab and Swahili caravans going north. On the west the slopes are densely inhabited by small Bantu-Negro tribes, who style their country Masawa (whence the alternative name for the mountain); but on the south and north there are tribes which seem akin to the Gallas. Of these, the best known are the El-gonyi, from whom the name Elgon has been derived. They formerly lived almost entirely in the caves, but many of them have descended to villages at the foot of the mountain. Elgon was first visited in 1883 by Joseph Thomson, who brought to light the cave-dwellings on the southern face. It was crossed from north to south, and its crater reached, in 1890 by F.J. Jackson and Ernest Gedge, while the first journey round it was made by C.W. Hobley in 1896.

ELI (Hebrew for “high”? 1 Sam. chaps, i.-iv.), a member of the ancient priesthood founded in Egypt (1 Sam. ii. 27), priest of the temple of Shiloh, the sanctuary of the ark, and also “judge” over Israel. This was an unusual combination of offices, when it is considered that in the history preserved to us he appears in the weakness of extreme old age, unable to control the petulance and rapacity of his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who disgraced the sanctuary and disgusted the people. While the central authority was thus weakened, the Philistines advanced against Israel, and gained a complete victory in the great battle of Ebenezer, where the ark was taken, and Hophni and Phinehas slain. On hearing the news Eli fell from his seat and died. In a passage not unlike the account of the birth of Benjamin (Gen. xxxv. 16 sqq.), it is added that the wife of Phinehas, overwhelmed at the loss of the ark and of her husband, died in child-birth, naming the babe Ichabod (1 Sam. iv. 19 sqq.). This name, which popular etymology explained by the words “the glory is removed (or, stronger, ‘banished’) from Israel” (cf. Hos. x. 5), should perhaps be altered from I-kābōd (as though “not glory”) to Jōchebed (Yōkebed, a slight change in the original), the name which tradition also gave to the mother of Moses (q.v.). After these events the sanctuary of Shiloh appears to have been destroyed (cf. Jer. vii. 12, xxvi. 6, 9), and the descendants of Eli with the whole of their clan or “father’s house” subsequently appear as settled at Nob (1 Sam. xxi. 1, xxii. 11 sqq., cp. xiv. 3), perhaps in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem (Is. x. 32). In the massacre of the clan by Saul, and the subsequent substitution of the survivor Abiathar by Zadok (1 Kings ii. 27, 35), later writers saw the fulfilment of the prophecies of judgment which was said to have been uttered in the days of Eli against his corrupt house (1 Sam. ii. 27 sqq., iii. 11 sqq.).1

ELIAS, of Cortona (c. 1180-1253), disciple of St Francis of Assisi, was born near Assisi, about 1180, of the working class, but became schoolmaster at Assisi and then notary at Bologna. In 1217 he was the head of the Franciscan mission to the Holy Land, and in 1219 St Francis made him first provincial minister of Syria. When St Francis was recalled from the East in 1220 he brought Elias with him. Elias played a leading part in the early history of the Franciscan order (see Franciscans); Francis made him his vicar general in 1221; and he was the practical acting superior of the order till Francis’ death in 1226, and the real superior till the general chapter of 1227. This chapter did not elect him minister general, but that of 1232 did; at the chapter of 1239 he was deposed. During these years he erected the basilica and monastery at Assisi which were entirely his creation—he collected the funds and carried the work through, being himself the builder and even the architect. Elias was a man of extraordinary ability, the friend both of Gregory IX. and of his opponent Frederick II. After his deposition Elias joined the party of the emperor and so incurred excommunication. Frederick sent him as ambassador to Constantinople. He dressed and lived as a Franciscan throughout and a small number of friars adhered to him; for these he built a church and monastery at Cortona. Unavailing efforts were made to bring about his reconciliation with the order and the Church; at last on his death-bed he made his submission to the pope and died in 1253, having received the Sacraments.

ELIAS, JOHN (1774-1841), Welsh Nonconformist preacher and reformer, was born on the 2nd of May 1774, in the parish of Abererch, Carnarvonshire. In his youth he came under the influence of the Calvinistic Methodist revival and became a preacher at nineteen. In 1799 he married and settled at Llanfechell in Anglesey, giving up his trade as a weaver to become a small shopkeeper. His fame as a preacher increased, and under the direction of Thomas Charles of Bala he established numerous Sunday schools, and gave and secured considerable Welsh support to the founding of the London Missionary Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Religious Tract Society. On Charles’s death in 1814 he became the recognized leader of the Calvinistic Methodist Church, and the story of his life is simply a record of marvellously successful preaching tours. He died on the 8th of June 1841; ten thousand people attended his funeral.

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His eloquence was so remarkable that he was known as “the Welsh Demosthenes.” His strength lay in his intense conviction of an intimate connexion between sin and punishment and in his power of dramatic presentation. As an ecclesiastic he was not so successful; he helped to compile his church’s Confession of Faith in 1823, and laid great stress on a clause which limited the scope of the atonement to the elect. He was a stout Tory in politics and had many friends among the Anglican clergy; he opposed the movement for Roman Catholic emancipation. Several of his sermons were published in Welsh.

ELIAS LEVITA (1469-1549), Jewish grammarian, was born at Neustadt on the Aisch, a place in Bavaria lying between Nuremberg and Würzburg. He preferred to call himself “Ashkenazi,” the German, and bore also the nickname of “Bachur,” the youth or student, which latter he gave as title to his Hebrew grammar. Before the end of the 15th century he went to Italy, which thenceforth remained his home. He lived first at Padua, went in 1509, after the capture of this town by the army of the League of Cambrai, to Venice, and finally in 1513 to Rome, where he found a patron in the learned general of the Augustinian Order, the future cardinal Egidio di Viterbo, whom he helped in his study of the Kabbalah, while he himself was inspired by him to literary work. The storming of Rome by the army of the Constable de Bourbon in 1527 compelled Elias to go to Venice, where he was employed as corrector in the printing-house of Daniel Bomberg. In the years 1541 and 1542 he lived at Isny, in Southern Württemberg, where he published several of his writings in the printing-house of the learned pastor Paul Fagius. The last years of his life he spent at Venice, continuously active in spite of ill-health and the weakness of old age. His monument in the graveyard of the Jewish community at Venice boasts of him that “he illuminated the darkness of grammar and turned it into light.” The importance of Levita rests both in his numerous writings and in his personal activity. In the remarkable period which saw the rise of the Reformation and gave to the study of the Hebrew Bible and to its language an importance in the history of the world, it was Levita who furthered in an extraordinary manner the study of Hebrew in Christian circles by his activity as a teacher and by his writings. To his pupils especially belong Sebastian Minoter, who translated Levita’s grammatical works into Latin, also George de Selve, bishop of Lavaur, the French ambassador in Venice (1536), who was instrumental in obtaining for Levita an invitation from Francis I. to come to Paris, which invitation, however, Levita did not accept. Levita’s writings on Hebrew grammar (Bachur, a text-book, 1518; Harkaba, an explanation, alphabetically arranged, of irregular word-forms; a Table of Paradigms; Pirke Elijahu, a description—partly metrical—of phonetics, and other chapters of the grammar, 1520; his earliest work, a Commentary on Moses Kimḥi’s Hebrew Grammar, 1508) were by reason of their methodical exposition, their clear articulation, their avoidance of prolixity, especially suited as an introduction to the study of the Hebrew language. Amongst Levita’s other writings is the first dictionary of the Targumim (Meturgeman, 1541) and the first attempt at a lexicon in which much of the treasure of late Hebrew language was explained (Tishbi, explanation of 712 new Hebrew vocables, as a supplement to the dictionaries of David Kimḥi and Nathan b. Yeḥiel, 1542). Scientifically most valuable, and of original importance, are the works of Levita on the Massora; his Concordance to the Massora (Sefer Zikhronot completed in the second revision 1536), of which hitherto only a small part has been published, and especially his most celebrated book Massoreth Hamasoreth (1538), published with English translation by Chr. D. Ginsburg, London, 1867. This was the first attempt to give a systematic account of the contents and history of the Massora. By his criticism of the Massora, and especially by proving that the punctuation of the books of the Hebrew Bible is of late origin, Levita exercised an epoch-making influence. Of his other writings may be mentioned his running commentary on David Kimḥi’s Grammar and Dictionary (in the Bomberg editions 1545, 1546), his German translation of the Psalms (1545) and the Baba-Buch (more properly Buovobuch, a German recension of the Italian novel Historia di Buovo d’ Antona, 1508).

ELIE, a village and watering-place of Fifeshire, Scotland, on the shore of the Firth of Forth. Pop. 687. It is 10 m. due S. of St Andrews, but 20 m. distant by the North British railway, which makes a great bend by following the coast. Though it retains some old houses, and the parish church dates from 1639, Elie is, as a whole, quite modern and is one of the most popular resorts in the county on account of its fine golf links and excellent bathing. The royal burgh of Earlsferry (pop. 317) is situated in the parish of Elie, which it adjoins on the west. Its charter, granted by Malcolm Canmore, having been burned, it was renewed by James VI. The chief structure is the town hall, which is modern but has an ancient steeple. The place derived its name from its use by the earls of Fife as a ferry to the opposite shore of Haddington, 8 m. distant. Macduff’s cave near Kincraig Point is believed traditionally to have been that in which the thane took refuge from Macbeth. Two and a half miles north is Balcarres House, belonging to the earl of Crawford, where Lady Anne Barnard (1750-1825) was born.

ÉLIE DE BEAUMONT, JEAN BAPTISTE ARMAND LOUIS LÉONCE (1798-1874), French geologist, was born at Canon, in Calvados, on the 25th of September 1798. He was educated at the Lycée Henri IV. where he took the first prize in mathematics and physics; at the École Polytechnique, where he stood first at the exit examination in 1819; and at the École des Mines (1819-1822), where he began to show a decided preference for the science with which his name is associated. In 1823 he was selected along with Dufrénoy by Brochant de Villiers, the professor of geology in the École des Mines, to accompany him on a scientific tour to England and Scotland, in order to inspect the mining and metallurgical establishments of the country, and to study the principles on which Greenough’s geological map of England (1820) had been prepared, with a view to the construction of a similar map of France. In 1835 he was appointed professor of geology at the École des Mines, in succession to Brochant de Villiers, whose assistant he had been in the duties of the chair since 1827. He held the office of engineer-in-chief of mines in France from 1833 until 1847, when he was appointed inspector-general; and in 1861 he became vice-president of the Conseil-Général des Mines and a grand officer of the Legion of Honour. His growing scientific reputation secured his election to the membership of the Academy of Berlin, of the Academy of Sciences of France and of the Royal Society of London. By a decree of the president he was made a senator of France in 1852, and on the death of Arago (1853) he was chosen perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences. Élie de Beaumont’s name is widely known to geologists in connexion with his theory of the origin of mountain ranges, first propounded in a paper read to the Academy of Sciences in 1829, and afterwards elaborated in his Notice sur le système des montagnes (3 vols., 1852). According to his view, all mountain ranges parallel to the same great circle of the earth are of strictly contemporaneous origin, and between the great circles a relation of symmetry exists in the form of a pentagonal réseau. An elaborate statement and criticism of the theory was given in his anniversary address to the Geological Society of London in 1853 by William Hopkins (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.). The theory has not found general acceptance, but it proved of great value to geological science, owing to the extensive additions to the knowledge of the structure of mountain ranges which its author made in endeavouring to find facts to support it. Probably, however, the best service Élie de Beaumont rendered to science was in connexion with the geological map of France, in the preparation of which he had the leading share. During this period Élie de Beaumont published many important memoirs on the geology of the country. After his superannuation at the École des Mines he continued to superintend the issue of the detailed maps almost until his death, 273 which occurred at Canon on the 21st of September 1874. His academic lectures for 1843-1844 were published in 2 vols., 1845-1849, under the title Leçons de géologie pratique.

ELIJAH (a Hebrew name meaning “Yah[weh] is God”), in the Bible, the greatest and sternest of the Hebrew prophets, makes his appearance in the narrative of the Old Testament with an abruptness not out of keeping with his character and work (1 Kings xvii. 1).1 The first and most important part of his career lay in the reign of Ahab, i.e. during the first half of the 9th century B.C. He is introduced as predicting the drought2 God was to send upon Israel as a punishment for the apostasy into which Ahab had been led by his heathen wife Jezebel. During the first portion of this period Elijah found a refuge by the brook Cherith, “before the Jordan.” This description leaves it uncertain whether the brook was to the east of Jordan in Elijah’s native Gilead, or—less probably—to the west in Samaria. Here he drank of the brook and was fed by ravens, who night and morning brought him bread and flesh.3 When this had dried up, the prophet betook himself to Zarephath, a Phoenician town near Sidon. At the gate of the town he met the widow to whom he had been sent, gathering sticks for the preparation of what she believed was to be her last meal. She received the prophet with hospitality, sharing with him her all but exhausted store, in faith of his promise in the name of the God of Israel that the supply would not fail so long as the drought lasted. During this period her son died and was miraculously restored to life in answer to the prayers of the prophet (1 Kings xvii. 8-24).

Elijah emerged from his retirement in the third year, when, the famine having reached its worst, Ahab and his minister Obadiah had themselves to search the land for provender for the royal stables. To the latter Elijah suddenly appeared, and announced his intention of showing himself to Ahab. The king met Elijah with the reproach that he was “the troubler of Israel,” which the prophet boldly flung back upon him who had forsaken the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baalim.4 The retort was accompanied by a challenge—or rather a command—to the king to assemble on Mount Carmel “all Israel” and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal. (The four hundred prophets of Asherah have been added later.) From the allusion to an “altar of Jehovah that was broken down” (1 Kings xviii. 30) it has been inferred that Carmel was an ancient sacred place. (On Mount Carmel and Elijah’s connexion with it in history and tradition see Carmel.)

The scene on Carmel is perhaps the grandest in the life of Elijah, or indeed in the whole of the Old Testament. As a typical embodiment for all time of the conflict between superstition and true religion, it is lifted out of the range of mere individual biography into that of spiritual symbolism, and it has accordingly furnished at once a fruitful theme for the religious teacher and a lofty inspiration for the artist. The false prophets were allowed to invoke their god in whatever manner they pleased. The only interruption came in the mocking encouragement of Elijah (1 Kings xviii. 27), a rare instance of grim sarcastic humour occurring in the Bible. Its effect upon the false prophets was to increase their frenzy. The evening came,5 and the god had made no sign. Elijah now stepped forward with the quiet confidence and dignity that became the prophet and representative of the true God. All Israel is represented symbolically in the twelve stones with which he built the altar; and the water which he poured upon the sacrifice and into the surrounding trench was apparently designed to prevent the suspicion of fraud! In striking contrast to the “vain repetitions” of the false prophets are the simple words with which Elijah makes his prayer to Yahweh. Once only, with the calm assurance of one who knew that his prayer would be answered, he invokes the God of his fathers. The answer comes at once: “The fire of the Lord (Gen. xix. 24, Lev. x. 2) fell and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.” So convincing a sign was irresistible; all the people fell on their faces and acknowledged Yahweh as the true God. This was immediately followed by the destruction of the false prophets, slain by Elijah beside the brook Kishon (xviii. 40). The deed, though not without parallel in the Old Testament history, stamps the peculiarly vindictive character of Elijah’s prophetic mission.6

On the evening of the day that had witnessed the decisive contest, Elijah proceeded once more to the top of Carmel, and there, with “his face between his knees” (possibly engaged in the prayer referred to in James v. 17 sq.), waited for the long-looked-for blessing. His servant, sent repeatedly to search the sky for signs, returned the seventh time reporting a little cloud arising out of the sea “like a man’s hand.” The sky was speedily full of clouds and a great rain was falling when Ahab, to escape the storm, set out in his chariot for Jezreel. As a proof of Elijah’s supernatural power, it is stated that the prophet, for some unknown object, ran before the chariot to the entrance of Jezreel, a distance of at least 16 m. On being told what had taken place, Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah with a vow that ere another day had passed his life would be even as the lives of the prophets of Baal, and the threat was enough to cause him to take to instant flight (xix. 1-3; cp. LXX. in v. 2). The first stage of the journey was to Beersheba, on the southern limits of Judah. Here he left his servant (according to old Jewish tradition, the widow’s son of Zarephath, afterwards the prophet Jonah), and proceeded a day’s journey into the wilderness. Resting under a solitary broom bush (a kind of genista), he gave vent to his disappointment in a prayer for death. By another of those many miraculous interpositions which occur in his history he was twice supplied with food and drink, in the strength of which he journeyed forty days and forty nights until he came to Horeb, where he lodged in a cave.7 A hole “just large enough for a man’s body” (Stanley), immediately below the summit of Jebel Mūsa, is still pointed out by tradition as the cave of Elijah.

If the scene on Carmel is the grandest, that on Horeb is spiritually the most profound in the story of Elijah (xix. 9 sqq.). Not in the strong wind that brake the rocks in pieces, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the still small voice that followed the Lord made himself known. A threefold commission was laid upon him: he was to return to Damascus and anoint Hazael king of Syria; he was to anoint Jehu, the son of Nimshi, 274 as king of Israel in place of Ahab; and as his own successor in the prophetic office he was to anoint Elisha (xix. 15-18).8

Leaving Horeb and proceeding northwards along the desert route to Damascus, Elijah met Elisha engaged at the plough probably near his native place, Abel-meholah, in the valley of the Jordan, and by the symbolical act of casting his mantle upon him, consecrated him to the prophetic office. This was the only command of the three which he fulfilled in person; the other two were carried out by his successor.9 After the call of Elisha the narrative contains no notice of Elijah for several years, although the LXX., by placing 1 Kings xxi. before ch. xx., proceeds at once to the tragic story of Naboth’s vineyard (see Jezebel). He is now the champion of freedom and purity of life, like Nathan when he confronted David for the murder of Uriah. Without any indication of whence or how he came, he again appeared, as usual with startling abruptness, in the vineyard when Ahab entered to take possession of it, and pronounced upon the king and his house that awful doom (1 Kings xxi. 17-24) which, though deferred for a time, was ultimately fulfilled to the letter (see Jehu).

With one more denunciation of the house of Ahab, Elijah’s function as a messenger of wrath was fully discharged (2 Kings i.). When Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, having injured himself by falling through a lattice, sent to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether he should recover, the prophet was commanded to appear to the messengers and tell them that, for this resort to a false god, the king should die. The effect of his appearance was such that they turned back without attempting to fulfil their errand. Ahaziah despatched a captain with a band of fifty to arrest him. They came upon Elijah seated on “the mount,”—probably Carmel. The imperious terms in which he was summoned to come down were punished by fire from heaven, which descended at the bidding of Elijah and consumed the whole land. A second captain and fifty were despatched, behaved in a similar way, and met the same fate. The leader of a third troop took a humbler tone, sued for mercy, and obtained it. Elijah then went with them to the king, but only to repeat before his face the doom he had already made known to his messengers, which was almost immediately afterwards fulfilled. The spirit, even the style of this narrative, points unmistakably to its being of late origin. It shocks the moral sense with its sanguinary character more than, perhaps, any other Old Testament story.

The only mention of Elijah’s name in the book of Chronicles (2 Chronicles xxi. 12-15) is where he is represented as sending a letter of rebuke and denunciation to Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. The chronological difficulties which are involved suggest that the floating traditions of this great personality were easily attached to well-known names whether strictly contemporary or not. It was before the death of Jehoshaphat that the last grand scene in Elijah’s life occurred (2 Kings ii., see iii. 1). He had taken up his residence with Elisha at one of the prophetic guilds at Gilgal. His approaching end seems to have been known to the guilds at Bethel and Jericho, both of which they visited in their last journey. At the Jordan, Elijah, wrapping his prophet’s mantle together, smote the water with it, and so by a last miracle passed over on dry ground. When they had crossed the master desired the disciple to ask some parting blessing. The request for a double portion (i.e. probably a first-born’s portion, Deut. xxi. 17)10 of the prophet’s spirit Elijah characterized as a hard thing; but he promised to grant it if Elisha should see him when he was taken away. The end is told in words of simple sublimity: “And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, which parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings ii. 11). It is scarcely necessary to point out, however, that through the figure the narrative evidently means to convey as fact that Elijah passed from earth, not by the gates of death, but by miraculous translation. Such a supernatural close is in perfect harmony with a career into every stage of which the supernatural enters as an essential feature. For whatever explanation may be offered of the miraculous element in Elijah’s life, it must obviously be one that accounts not for a few miraculous incidents only, which might be mere excrescences, but for a series of miraculous events so closely connected and so continuous as to form the main thread of the history.

ELIJAH WILNA, or Elijah ben Solomon, best known as the Gaon Elijah of Wilna (1720-1797), a noted Talmudist who hovered between the new and the old schools of thought. Orthodox in practice and feeling, his critical treatment of the rabbinic literature prepared the way for the scientific investigations of the 19th century. As a teacher he was one of the first to discriminate between the various strata in rabbinic records; to him was due the revival of interest in the older Midrash (q.v.) and in the Palestinian Talmud (q.v.), interest in which had been weak for some centuries before his time. He was an ascetic, and was a keen opponent of the emotional mysticism which was known as the new Hassidism.

ELIOT, CHARLES WILLIAM (1834-  ), American educationalist, the son of Samuel Atkins Eliot (1798-1862), mayor of Boston, representative in Congress, and in 1842-1853 treasurer of Harvard, was born in Boston on the 20th of March 1834. He graduated in 1853 at Harvard College, where he was successively tutor (1854-1858) and assistant professor of chemistry (1858-1863). He studied chemistry and foreign educational methods in Europe in 1863-1865, was professor of analytical chemistry in the newly established Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1865-1869), although absent fourteen months in Europe in 1867-1868; and in 1869 was elected president of Harvard University, a choice remarkable at once for his youth and his being a layman and scientist. With Johns Hopkins University, Harvard, in his presidency, led in the work of efficient graduate schools. Its elective system, which has spread far, although not originated by President Eliot, was thoroughly established by him, and is only one of many radical changes which he championed with great success. The raising of entrance requirements, which led to a corresponding raising of the standards of secondary schools, and the introduction of an 275 element of choice in these entrance requirements, which allowed a limited election of studies to secondary pupils, became national tendencies primarily through President Eliot’s potent influence. As chairman of a national Committee of Ten (1890) on secondary school studies, he urged the abandonment of brief disconnected “information” courses, the correlation of subjects taught, the equal rank in college requirements of subjects in which equal time, consecutiveness and concentration were demanded, and a more thorough study of English composition; and to a large degree he secured national sanction for these reforms and their working out by experts into a practicable and applicable system. He laboured to unify the entire educational system, minimize prescription, cast out monotony, and introduce freedom and enthusiasm; and he emphasized the need of special training for special work. He was first to suggest (1894) co-operation by colleges in holding common entrance examinations throughout the country, and it was largely through his efforts that standards were so approximated that this became possible. He contended that secondary schools maintained by public funds should shape their courses for the benefit of students whose education goes no further than such high schools, and not be mere training schools for the universities. His success as administrator and man of affairs and as an educational reformer made him one of the great figures of his time, in whose opinions on any topic the deepest interest was felt throughout the country. In November 1908 he resigned the presidency of Harvard, and retired from the position early in 1909, when he was succeeded by Professor Abbott Lawrence Lowell. In December 1908 he was elected president of the National Civil Service Reform League.

His writings include The Happy Life (1896); Five American Contributions to Civilization, and Other Essays and Addresses (1897); Educational Reform, Essays and Addresses 1869-1897 (1898); More Money for the Public Schools (1903); Four American Leaders (1906), chapters on Franklin, Washington, Channing and Emerson; University Administration (1908); and with F.H. Storer, a Compendious Manual of Qualitative Chemical Analysis (Boston, 1869; many times reissued and revised). His annual reports as President of Harvard were notable contributions to the literature of education in America, and he delivered numerous public addresses, many of which have been reprinted.

His son, Charles Eliot (1859-1897), graduated at Harvard in 1882, studied landscape architecture at the Bussey Institution of Harvard and in Europe, successfully urged the incorporation of the Massachusetts Trustees of Public Reservations (1891) and of the Metropolitan Park Commission (1892) of Boston, became landscape architect to the Metropolitan Park Commission in 1892, and in 1893, with F.L. Olmsted and J.C. Olmsted, formed the firm of Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot, which was employed by the Metropolitan Commission. His life was written by his father, Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect (Boston, 1902).

ELIOT, GEORGE, the pen-name of the famous English writer, née Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans (1819-1880), afterwards Mrs J.W. Cross, born at Arbury Farm, in Warwickshire, on the 22nd of November 1819. Her father, Robert Evans, was the agent of Mr Francis Newdigate, and the first twenty-one years of the great novelist’s life were spent on the Arbury estate. She received an ordinary education at respectable schools till the age of seventeen, when her mother’s death, and the marriage of her elder sister, called her home in the character of housekeeper. This, though it must have sharpened her sense, already too acute, of responsibility, was an immense advantage to her mind, and, later, to her career, for, delivered from the tiresome routine of lessons and class-work, she was able to work without pedantic interruptions at German, Italian and music, and to follow her unusually good taste in reading. The life, inasmuch as she was a girl still in her teens, was no doubt monotonous, even unhappy. Just as Cardinal Newman felt, with such different results, the sadness and chain of evangelical influences from his boyhood till the end of his days, so Marian Evans was subdued all through her youth by a severe religious training which, while it pinched her mind and crushed her spirit, attracted her idealism by the very hardness of its perfect counsels. It is not surprising to find, therefore, that when Mr Evans moved to Coventry in 1841, and so enlarged the circle of their acquaintance, she became much interested in some new friends, Mr and Mrs Charles Bray and Mr Charles Hennell. Mr Bray had literary taste and wrote works on the Education of the Feelings, the Philosophy of Necessity, and the like. Mr Hennell had published in 1838 An Enquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity. Miss Evans, then twenty-two, absorbed immediately these unexpected, and, at that time, daring habits of thought. So compelling was the atmosphere that it led to a complete change in her opinions. Kind in her affection, she was relentless in argument. She refused to go to church (for some time, at least), wrote painful letters to a former governess—the pious Miss Lewis—and barely avoided an irremediable quarrel with her father, a churchman of the old school. Here was rebellion indeed. But rebels come, for the most part, from the provinces where petty tyranny, exercised by small souls, show the scheme of the universe on the meanest possible scale. George Eliot was never orthodox again; she abandoned, with fierce determination, every creed, and although she passed, later, through various phases, she remained incessantly a rationalist in matters of faith and in all other matters. It is nevertheless true that she wrote admirably about religion and religious persons. She had learnt the evangelical point of view; she knew—none better—the strength of religious motives; vulgar doubts of this fact were as distasteful to her as they were to another eminent writer, to whom she refers in one of her letters (dated 1853) as “a Mr Huxley, who was the centre of interest” at some “agreeable evening.” Her books abound in tributes to Christian virtue, and one of her own favourite characters was Dinah Morris in Adam Bede.

She undertook, about the beginning of 1844, the translation of Strauss’s Leben Jesu. This work, published in 1846, was considered scholarly, but it met, in the nature of things, with no popular success. On the death of Mr Evans in 1849, she went abroad for some time, and we hear of no more literary ventures till 1851, when she accepted the assistant-editorship of the Westminster Review. For a while she had lodgings at the offices of that publication in the Strand, London. She wrote several notable papers, and became acquainted with many distinguished authors of that period—among them Herbert Spencer, Carlyle, Harriet Martineau, Francis Newman and George Henry Lewes. Her friendship with the last-named led to a closer relationship which she regarded as a marriage. Among the many criticisms passed upon this step (in view of the fact, among other considerations, that Lewes had a wife living at the time), no one has denied her courage in defying the law, or questioned the quality of her tact in a singularly false position. That she felt the deepest affection for Lewes is evident; that we owe the development of her genius to his influence and constant sympathy is all but certain. Yet it is also sure that what she gained from his intimate companionship was heavily paid for in the unceasing consciousness that most people thought her guilty of a grave mistake, and found her written words, with their endorsement of traditional morality, wholly at variance with the circumstances of her private life. Doubts of her suffering in this respect will be at once dismissed after a study of her journal and letters. Stilted and unnatural as these are to a tragic degree, one can read well enough between the lines, and also in the elaborate dedication of each manuscript to “my husband” (in terms of the strongest love), that self-repression, coupled with audacity, does not make for peace. Her sensitiveness to criticism was extreme; a flippant paragraph or an illiterate review with regard to her work actually affected her for days. The whole history of her union with Lewes is a complete illustration of the force of sheer will—in that case partly her own and not inconsiderably his—over a nature essentially unfitted for a bold stand against attacks. At first she and the man whom she had described “as a sort of miniature 276 Mirabeau in appearance,” went abroad to Weimar and Berlin, but they returned to England the same year and settled, after several moves, in lodgings at East Sheen.

In 1854 she published The Essence of Christianity, a translation from Feuerbach, a philosopher to whom she had been introduced by Charles Bray. During 1855 she translated Spinoza’s Ethics, wrote articles for the Leader, the Westminster Review, and the Saturday Review—then a new thing. It was not until the following year that she attempted the writing of fiction, and produced The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton—the first of the Scenes of Clerical Life. These, published in Blackwood’s Magazine, were issued in two volumes in 1858. The press in general extended a languid welcome to this work, and although the author received much encouragement from private sources, notably from Charles Dickens, the critics were mostly non-committal, and it was not until the publication of Adam Bede in 1859 that enthusiasm was attracted to the quality of the earlier production. Adam Bede, in the judgment of many George Eliot’s masterpiece, met with a success (in her own words) “triumphantly beyond anything she had dreamed of.” In 1860 appeared The Mill on the Floss. After the sensational good fortune of Adam Bede, the criticism applied to the new novel seems to have been disappointing. We find Miss Evans telling her publisher that “she does not wish to see any newspaper articles.” But the book made its way, and prepared an ever-growing army of readers for Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862-1863), and Felix Holt (1866).

Silas Marner shows a reversion to her early manner—the manner of Scenes of Clerical Life. Romola, which is what is called an historical novel, owes its vitality not to the portraits of Savonarola or of the heroine, or to its vigorous pictures of Florentine life in the 15th century, but to its superb presentment of the treacherous, handsome Tito Melema, who belongs not to any one period but to every generation. Felix Holt, a novel dealing with political questions, is strained by a painfulness too severe for any reader’s pleasure. Where other eminent authors have produced mechanical books, or books which were mere repetitions of their most popular effort, she erred only on the side of the ponderous and the distressing. Felix Holt is both, and it is the only one of her novels which lacks an unforgettable human note. The Spanish Gypsy (1868), a drama in blank verse, received more public response than most compositions of the kind executed by those connected with the drama or with poetry only; and she published in 1874 another volume of verses, The Legend of Jubal and other Poems.

Any depression which the author may have felt with regard to the faults found with some of the last-named books was completely cured by the praise bestowed on Middlemarch (1872). This profound study of certain types of English character was supreme at the time of its writing, and it remains supreme, of its school, in European literature. Thackeray is brilliant; Tolstoi is vivid to a point where life-likeness overwhelms any consideration of art; Balzac created a whole world; George Eliot did not create, but her exposition of the upper and middle class minds of her day is a masterpiece of scientific psychology. Daniel Deronda (1876), a production on the same lines, was less satisfactory. It exhibited the same human insight, the passionate earnestness, the insinuated special pleading for hard cases, the same intellectual strength, but the subject was unwieldy, almost forbidding, and, as a result, the novel, in spite of its distinction, has never been thoroughly liked. The death of Mr Lewes in 1878 was also the death-blow to her artistic vitality. She corrected the proofs of Theophrastus Such (a collection of essays), but she wrote no more. About two years later, however, she married Mr J.W. Cross, a gentleman whose friendship was especially congenial to a temperament so abnormally dependent on affectionate understanding as George Eliot’s. But she never really recovered from her shock at the loss of George Lewes, and died at 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, on the 22nd of December 1880.

No right estimate of her, whether as a woman, an artist or a philosopher, can be formed without a steady recollection of her infinite capacity for mental suffering, and her need of human support. The statement that there is no sex in genius, is on the face of it, absurd. George Sand, certainly the most independent and dazzling of all women authors, neither felt, nor wrote, nor thought as a man. Saint Teresa, another great writer on a totally different plane, was pre-eminently feminine in every word and idea. George Eliot, less reckless, less romantic than the Frenchwoman, less spiritual than the Spanish saint, was more masculine in style than either; but her outlook was not, for a moment, the man’s outlook; her sincerity, with its odd reserves, was not quite the same as a man’s sincerity, nor was her humour that genial, broad, unequivocal humour which is peculiarly virile. Hers approximated, curiously enough, to the satire of Jane Austen, both for its irony and its application to little everyday affairs. Men’s humour, in its classic manifestations, is on the heroic rather than on the average scale: it is for the uncommon situations, not for the daily tea-table.

Her method of attacking a subject shows the influence of Jane Austen, especially in parts of Middlemarch; one can detect also the stronger influence of Mrs Gaskell, of Charlotte Brontë, and of Miss Edgeworth. It was, however, but an influence, and no more than a man writer, anxious to acquire a knowledge of the feminine point of view, might have absorbed from a study of these women novelists. One often hears that she is not artistic; that her characterization is less distinct than Jane Austen’s; that she tells more than should be known of her heroes and heroines. But it should be remembered that Jane Austen dealt with familiar domestic types, whereas George Eliot excelled in the presentation of extraordinary souls. One woman drew members of polite society with correct notions, while the other woman depicted social rebels with ideas and ideals. In every one of George Eliot’s books, the protagonists, tortured by dreams of perfection, are in revolt against the prudent compromises of the worldly. All through her stories, one hears the clash of “the heroic for earth too high,” and the desperate philosophy, disguised it is true, of Omar Khayyam. In her day, Epicureanism had not reached the life of the people, nor passed into the education of the mob. Few dared to confess that the pursuit of pleasure, whether real or imagined, was the aim of mankind. The charm of Jane Austen is the charm of the untroubled and well-to-do materialist, who sees in a rich marriage, a comfortable house, carriages and an assured income the best to strive for; and in a fickle lover of either sex or the loss of money the severest calamities which can befall the human spirit. Jane Austen despised the greater number of her characters: George Eliot suffered with each of hers. Here, perhaps, we find the reason why she is accused of being inartistic. She could not be impersonal.

Again, George Eliot was a little scornful to those of both sexes who had neither special missions nor the consciousness of this deprivation. Men are seldom in favour of missions in any field. She demanded, too strenuously from the very beginning, an aim, more or less altruistic, from every individual; and as she advanced in life this claim became the more imperative, till at last it overpowered her art, and transformed a great delineator of humanity into an eloquent observer with far too many personal prejudices. But she was altogether free from cynicism, bitterness, or the least tendency to pride of intellect. She suffered from bodily weakness the greater part of her life, and, but for an extraordinary mental health—inherited from the fine yeoman stock from which she sprang—it is impossible that she could have retained, at all times, so sane a view of human conduct, or been the least sentimental among women writers of the first rank—the one wholly without morbidity in any disguise. The accumulation of mere book knowledge, as opposed to the friction of a life spent among all sorts and conditions of men, drove George Eliot at last to write as a specialist for specialists: joy was lost in the consuming desire for strict accuracy: her genius became more and more speculative, less and less emotional. The highly trained brain suppressed the impulsive heart,—the heart described with such candour and pathos as Maggie Tulliver’s in The Mill on the Floss. For this reason—chiefly because philosophy is popularly associated with inactive depression, 277 whereas human nature is held to be eternally exhilarating—her later works have not received so much praise as her earlier productions. But one has only to compare Romola or Daniel Deronda with the compositions of any author except herself to realize the greatness of her designs, and the astonishing gifts brought to their final accomplishment.

ELIOT, SIR JOHN (1592-1632), English statesman, son of Richard Eliot, a member of an old Devonshire family lately settled in Cornwall, was born at his father’s seat at Port Eliot in Cornwall in 1592. He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, on the 4th of December 1607, and leaving the university after a residence of three years he studied law at one of the inns of court. He also spent some months travelling in France, Spain and Italy, in company, for part of the time, with young George Villiers, afterwards duke of Buckingham. He was only twenty-two when he began his parliamentary career as member for St Germans in the “addled parliament” of 1614. In 1618 he was knighted, and next year through the patronage of Buckingham he obtained the appointment of vice-admiral of Devon, with large powers for the defence and control of the commerce of the county. It was not long before the characteristic energy with which he performed the duties in his office involved him in difficulties. After many attempts, in 1623 he succeeded by a clever but dangerous manœuvre in entrapping the famous pirate John Nutt, who had for years infested the southern coast, inflicting immense damage upon English commerce. The issue is noteworthy. The pirate, having a powerful protector at court in Sir George Calvert, the secretary of state, was pardoned; while the vice-admiral, upon charges which could not be substantiated, was flung into the Marshalsea, and detained there nearly four months.

A few weeks after his release Eliot was elected member of parliament for Newport (February 1624). On the 27th of February he delivered his first speech, in which he at once revealed his great powers as an orator, demanding boldly that the liberties and privileges of parliament, repudiated by James I. in the former parliament, should be secured. In the first parliament of Charles I., in 1625, he urged the enforcement of the laws against the Roman Catholics. Meanwhile he had continued the friend and supporter of Buckingham and greatly approved of the war with Spain. Buckingham’s incompetence, however, and the bad faith with which both he and the king continued to treat the parliament, alienated Eliot completely from the administration. Distrust of his former friend quickly grew in Eliot’s excitable mind to a certainty of his criminal ambition and treason to his country. Returned to the parliament of 1626 as member for St Germans, he found himself, in the absence of other chiefs of the opposition whom the king had secured by nominating them sheriffs, the leader of the House. He immediately demanded an inquiry into the recent disaster at Cadiz. On the 27th of March he made an open and daring attack upon Buckingham and his evil administration. He was not intimidated by the king’s threatening intervention on the 29th, and persuaded the House to defer the actual grant of the subsidies and to present a remonstrance to the king, declaring its right to examine the conduct of ministers. On the 8th of May he was one of the managers who carried Buckingham’s impeachment to the Lords, and on the 10th he delivered the charges against him, comparing him in the course of his speech to Sejanus. Next day Eliot was sent to the Tower. On the Commons declining to proceed with business as long as Eliot and Sir Dudley Digges (who had been imprisoned with him) were in confinement, they were released, and parliament was dissolved on the 15th of June. Eliot was immediately dismissed from his office of vice-admiral of Devon, and in 1627 he was again imprisoned for refusing to pay a forced loan, but liberated shortly before the assembling of the parliament of 1628, to which he was returned as member for Cornwall. He joined in the resistance now organized to arbitrary taxation, was foremost in the promotion of the Petition of Right, continued his outspoken censure of Buckingham, and after the latter’s assassination in August, led the attack in the session of 1629 on the ritualists and Arminians.

In February the great question of the right of the king to levy tonnage and poundage came up for discussion; and on the king ordering an adjournment of parliament, the speaker, Sir John Finch, was held down in the chair while Eliot’s resolutions against illegal taxation and innovations in religion were read to the House by Holles (q.v.). In consequence, Eliot, with eight other members, was imprisoned on the 4th of March in the Tower. He refused to answer in his examination, relying on his privilege of parliament, and on the 29th of October was removed to the Marshalsea. On the 26th of January he appeared at the bar of the king’s bench, with Holles and Valentine, to answer a charge of conspiracy to resist the king’s order, and refusing to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court he was fined £2000 and ordered to be imprisoned during the king’s pleasure and till he had made submission. This he steadfastly refused. While some of the prisoners appear to have had certain liberty allowed to them, Eliot’s confinement in the Tower was made exceptionally severe. Charles’s anger had been from the first directed chiefly against him, not only as his own political antagonist but as the prosecutor and bitter enemy of Buckingham; “an outlawed man,” he described him, “desperate in mind and fortune.”

Eliot languished in prison for some time, during which he wrote several works, his Negotium posterorum, an account of the parliament in 1625; The Monarchie of Man, a political treatise; De jure majestatis, a Political Treatise of Government; and An Apology for Socrates, his own defence. In the spring of 1632 he fell into a decline. In October he petitioned Charles for permission to go into the country, but leave could only be obtained at the price of submission, and was finally refused. He died on the 27th of November 1632. When his son requested permission to move the body to Port Eliot, Charles, whose resentment still survived, returned the curt refusal: “Let Sir John Eliot be buried in the church of that parish where he died.” The manner of Eliot’s death, not without suspicion of foul play, and as the result of the king’s implacability and the severe treatment to which he had been subjected, had more effect, probably, than any other single incident in embittering and precipitating the dispute between king and parliament; and the tragic sacrifice of a man so gifted and patriotic, and actuated originally by no antagonistic feeling against the monarchy or the church, is the surest condemnation of the king’s policy and administration. Eliot was essentially a great orator, inspired by enthusiasm and high ideals, which he was able to communicate to his hearers by his eloquence, but, like Chatham afterwards, he had not only the gifts but the failings of the orator, was incapable of well-reasoned and balanced judgment, and, though one of the greatest personalities of the time, was inferior to Pym both as a party leader and as a statesman.

Eliot married Rhadagund, daughter of Richard Gedie of Trebursye in Cornwall, by whom he had five sons, from the youngest of whom Nicholas the present earl of St Germans is descended, and four daughters.

ELIOT, JOHN (1604-1690), American colonial clergyman, known as the “Apostle to the Indians,” was born probably at Widford, Hertfordshire, England, where he was baptized on the 5th of August 1604. He was the son of Bennett Eliot, a middle-class farmer. Little is known of his boyhood and early manhood except that he took his degree of B.A. at Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1622. It seems probable that he entered the ministry of the Established Church, but there is nothing definitely known of him until 1629-1630, when he became an usher or assistant at the school of the Rev. Thomas Hooker, at Little Baddow, near Chelmsford. The influence of Hooker apparently determined 278 him to become a Puritan, but his connexion with the school ceased in 1630, when Laud’s persecutions drove Hooker into exile. The realization of the difficulties in the way of a non-conforming clergyman in England undoubtedly determined Eliot to emigrate to America in the autumn of 1631, where he settled first at Boston, assisting for a time at the First Church. In November 1632 he became “teacher” to the church at Roxbury, with which his connexion lasted until his death. There he married Hannah Mulford, who had been betrothed to him in England, and who became his constant helper. In the care of the Roxbury church he was associated with Thomas Welde from 1632 to 1641, with Samuel Danforth (1626-1674) from 1649 to 1674, and with Nehemiah Walter (1663-1750) from 1688 to 1690.

Inspired with the idea of converting the Indians, his first step was to perfect himself in their dialects, which he did by the assistance of a young Indian whom he received into his home. With his aid he translated the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer. He first successfully preached to the Indians in their own tongue at Nonantum (Newton) in October 1646. At the third meeting several Indians declared themselves converted, and were soon followed by many others. Eliot induced the Massachusetts General Court to set aside land for their residence, the same body also voting him £10 to prosecute the work, and directing that two clergymen be annually elected by the clergy as preachers to the Indians. As soon as the success of Eliot’s endeavours became known, the necessary funds flowed in upon him from private sources in both Old and New England. In July 1649 parliament incorporated the “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England,” which henceforth supported and directed the work inaugurated by Eliot. The first appeal for aid brought contributions of £11,000. In 1651 the Christian Indian town founded by Eliot was removed from Nonantum to Natick, where residences, a meeting-house, and a school-house were erected, and where Eliot preached, when able, once in every two weeks as long as he lived. To this community Eliot applied a plan of government by means of tens, fifties and hundreds, which he subsequently advocated as suitable for all England. Eliot’s missionary labours encouraged others to follow in his footsteps. A second town under his direction was established at Ponkapog (Stoughton) in 1654, in which he had the assistance of Daniel Gookin (c. 1612-1687). His success was duplicated in Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket by the Mayhews, and by 1674 the unofficial census of the “praying Indians” numbered 4000. King Philip’s War (1675-76) was a staggering blow to all missionary enterprise; and although few of the converted Indians proved disloyal, it was some years before adequate support could again be enlisted. Yet at Eliot’s death, which occurred at Roxbury on the 21st of May 1690, the missions were at the height of their prosperity, and that the results of his labours were not permanent was due only to the racial traits of the New England tribes.

Of wider influence and more lasting value than his personal labours as a missionary was Eliot’s work as a translator of the Bible and various religious works into the Massachusetts dialect of the Algonquian language. The first work completed was the Catechism, published in 1653 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, the first book to be printed in the Indian tongue. Several years elapsed before Eliot completed his task of translating the Bible. The New Testament was at last issued in 1661, and the Old Testament followed two years later. The New Testament was bound with it, and thus the whole Bible was completed. To it were added a Catechism and a metrical version of the Psalms. The title of this Bible, now a great rarity, is Mamussee Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God naneeswe Nukkone Testament kah wonk Wusku Testament-Ne quoshkinnumuk nashpe Wuttinneumoh Christ noh assoowesit John Eliot; literally translated, “The Whole Holy His-Bible God, both Old Testament and also New Testament. This turned by the-servant-of-Christ, who is called John Eliot.”

Besides his Bible, Eliot published at Cambridge in 1664 a translation of Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted, and in 1665 an abridged translation of Bishop Bayly’s Practice of Piety. With the assistance of his sons he completed (1664) his well-known Indian Grammar Begun, printed at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1666. It was reprinted in vol. ix. of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The Indian Primer, comprising an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer and a translation of the Larger Catechism, was published at Cambridge in 1669, and was reprinted under the editorial superintendence of Mr John Small of the university of Edinburgh in 1877. In 1671 Eliot printed in English a little volume entitled Indian Dialogues, followed in 1672 by his Logick Primer, both of which were intended for the instruction of the Indians in English. His last translation was Thomas Shepard’s Sincere Convert, completed and published by Grindal Rawson in 1689. Eliot’s literary activity, however, extended into other fields than that of Indian instruction. He was, with Richard Mather, one of the editors of the Bay Psalm Book (1640). Several tracts written wholly or in part by him in the nature of reports to the society which supported his missions were published at various times in England. In 1660 he published a curious treatise on government entitled The Christian Commonwealth, in which he found the ideal of government in the ancient Jewish state, and proposed the reorganization of the English government on the basis of a numerical subdivision of the inhabitants. His Harmony of the Gospels (1678) was a life of Jesus Christ.

ELIS, or Eleia, an ancient district of southern Greece, bounded on the N. by Achaea, E. by Arcadia, S. by Messenia, and W. by the Ionian Sea. The local form of the name was Valis, or Valeia, and its meaning, in all probability, “the lowland.” In its physical constitution Elis is practically one with Achaea and Arcadia; its mountains are mere offshoots of the Arcadian highlands, and its principal rivers are fed by Arcadian springs. From Erymanthus in the north, Skollis (now known as Mavri and Santameri in different parts of its length) stretches toward the west, and Pholoe along the eastern frontier; in the south a prolongation of Mount Lycaeon bore in ancient times the names of Minthe and Lapithus, which have given place respectively to Alvena and to Kaiapha and Smerna. These mountains are well clothed with vegetation, and present a soft and pleasing appearance in contrast to the picturesque wildness of the parent ranges. They gradually sink towards the west and die off into what was one of the richest alluvial tracts in the Peloponnesus. Except where it is broken by the rocky promontories of Chelonatas (now Chlemutzi) and Ichthys (now Katakolo), the coast lies low, with stretches of sand in the north and lagoons and marshes towards the south. During the summer months communication with the sea being established by means of canals, these lagoons yield a rich harvest of fish to the inhabitants, who at the same time, however, are almost driven from the coast by the swarms of gnats. The district for administrative purposes forms part of the nome of Elis and Achaea (see Greece).

Elis was divided into three districts—Hollow or Lowland Elis (ἡ κοίλη Ἦλις), Pisatis, or the territory of Pisa, and Triphylia, or the country of the three tribes. (1) Hollow Elis, the largest and most northern of the three, was watered by the Peneus and its tributary the Ladon, whose united stream forms the modern Gastouni. It included not only the champaign country originally designated by its name, but also the mountainous region of Acrorea, occupied by the offshoots of Erymanthus. Besides the capital city of Elis, it contained Cyllene, an Arcadian settlement 279 on the sea-coast, whose inhabitants worshipped Hermes under the phallic symbol; Pylus, at the junction of the Peneus and the Ladon, which, like so many other places of the same name, claimed to be the city of Nestor, and the fortified frontier town of Lasion, the ruins of which are still visible at Kuti, near the village of Kumani. The district was famous in antiquity for its cattle and horses; and its byssus, supposed to have been introduced by the Phoenicians, was inferior only to that of Palestine. (2) Pisatis extended south from Hollow Elis to the right bank of the Alpheus, and was divided into eight departments called after as many towns. Of these Salmone, Heraclea, Cicysion, Dyspontium and Harpina are known—the last being the reputed burial-place of Marmax, the suitor of Hippodamia. From the time of the early investigators it has been disputed whether Pisa, which gave its name to the district, has ever been a city, or was only a fountain or a hill. By far the most important spot in Pisatis was the scene of the great Olympic games, on the northern bank of the Alpheus (see Olympia). (3) Triphylia stretches south from the Alpheus to the Neda, which forms the boundary towards Messenia. Of the nine towns mentioned by Polybius, only two attained to any considerable influence—Lepreum and Macistus, which gave the names of Lepreatis and Macistia to the southern and northern halves of Triphylia. The former was the seat of a strongly independent population, and continued to take every opportunity of resisting the supremacy of the Eleans. In the time of Pausanias it was in a very decadent condition, and possessed only a poor brick-built temple of Demeter; but considerable remains of its outer walls are still in existence near the village of Strovitzi, on a part of the Minthe range.

The original inhabitants of Elis were called Caucones and Paroreatae. They are mentioned for the first time in Greek history under the title of Epeians, as setting out for the Trojan War, and they are described by Homer as living in a state of constant hostility with their neighbours the Pylians. At the close of the 11th century B.C. the Dorians invaded the Peloponnesus, and Elis fell to the share of Oxylus and the Aetolians. These people, amalgamating with the Epeians, formed a powerful kingdom in the north of Elis. After this many changes took place in the political distribution of the country, till at length it came to acknowledge only three tribes, each independent of the others. These tribes were the Epeians, Minyae and Eleans. Before the end of the 8th century B.C., however, the Eleans had vanquished both their rivals, and established their supremacy over the whole country. Among the other advantages which they thus gained was the right of celebrating the Olympic games, which had formerly been the prerogative of the Pisatans. The attempts which this people made to recover their lost privilege, during a period of nearly two hundred years, ended at length in the total destruction of their city by the Eleans. From the time of this event (572 B.C.) till the Peloponnesian War, the peace of Elis remained undisturbed. In that great contest Elis sided at first with Sparta; but that power, jealous of the increasing prosperity of its ally, availed itself of the first pretext to pick a quarrel. At the battle of Mantinea (418 B.C.) the Eleans fought against the Spartans, who, as soon as the war came to a close, took vengeance upon them by depriving them of Triphylia and the towns of the Acrorea. The Eleans made no attempt to re-establish their authority over these places, till the star of Thebes rose in the ascendant after the battle of Leuctra (371 B.C.). It is not unlikely that they would have effected their purpose had not the Arcadian confederacy come to the assistance of the Triphylians. In 366 B.C. hostilities broke out between them, and though the Eleans were at first successful, they were soon overpowered, and their capital very nearly fell into the hands of the enemy. Unable to make head against their opponents, they applied for assistance to the Spartans, who invaded Arcadia, and forced the Arcadians to recall their troops from Elis. The general result of this war was the restoration of their territory to the Eleans, who were also again invested with the right of holding the Olympic games. During the Macedonian supremacy in Greece they sided with the victors, but refused to fight against their countrymen. After the death of Alexander they renounced the Macedonian alliance. At a subsequent period they joined the Aetolian League, but persistently refused to identify themselves with the Achaeans. When the whole of Greece fell under the Roman yoke, the sanctity of Olympia secured for the Eleans a certain amount of indulgence. The games still continued to attract to the country large numbers of strangers, until they were finally put down by Theodosius in 394, two years previous to the utter destruction of the country by the Gothic invasion under Alaric. In later times Elis fell successively into the hands of the Franks and the Venetians, under whose rule it recovered to some extent its ancient prosperity. By the latter people the province of Belvedere on the Peneus was called, in consequence of its fertility, “the milch cow of the Morea.”

ELIS, the chief city of the ancient Greek district of Elis, was situated on the river Peneus, just where it passes from the mountainous district of Acrorea into the champaign below. According to native tradition, it was originally founded by Oxylus, the leader of the Aetolians, whose statue stood in the market-place. In 471 B.C. it received a great extension by the incorporation (synoecism) of various small hamlets, whose inhabitants took up their abode in the city. Up to this date it only occupied the ridge of the hill now called Kalaskopi, to the south of the Peneus, but afterwards it spread out in several suburbs, and even to the other side of the stream. As all the athletes who intended to take part in the Olympic games were obliged to undergo a month’s training in the city, its gymnasiums were among its principal institutions. They were three in number—the “Xystos,” with its avenues of plane-trees, its plethrion or wrestling-place, its altars to Heracles, to Eros and Anteros, to Demeter and Kore (Cora), and its cenotaph of Achilles; the “Tetragonon,” appropriated to boxing exercises; and the “Maltho,” in the interior of which was a hall or council chamber called Lalichmion after its founder. The market-place was of the old-fashioned type, with porticoes at intervals and paths leading between them. It was called the Hippodrome because it was commonly used for exercising horses. Among the other objects of interest were the temple of Artemis Philomirax; the Hellanodicaeon, or office of the Hellanodicae; the Corcyrean Hall, a building in the Dorian style with two façades, built of spoils from Corcyra; a temple of Apollo Acesius; a temple of Silenus; an ancient structure supported on oaken pillars and reputed to be the burial-place of Oxylus; the building where the sixteen women of Elis were wont to weave a robe for the statue of Hera at Olympia; the temple of Aphrodite, with a statue of the goddess by Pheidias as Urania with a tortoise beneath her foot, and by Scopas as Pandemos, riding on a goat; and the shrine of Dionysus, whose festival, the Thyia, was yearly celebrated in the neighbourhood. On the acropolis was a temple of Athena, with a gold and ivory statue by Pheidias. The history of the town is closely identified with that of the country. In 399 B.C. it was occupied by Agis, king of Sparta. The acropolis was fortified in 312 by Telesphorus, the admiral of Antigonus, but it was shortly afterwards dismantled by Philemon, another of his generals. A view of the site is given by Stanhope. It is now called Palaeopolis. No traces of any buildings can be identified, the only remains visible dating from Roman times.

ELIS, PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOL OF. This school was founded by Phaedo, a pupil of Socrates. It existed for a very short time and was then transferred by Menedemus to Eretria, where it became known as the Eretrian school. Its chief members, beside Phaedo, were Anchipylus, Moschus and Pleistanus (see Phaedo and Menedemus).

ELISAVETGRAD, a fortress and town of Russia, in the government of Kherson, 296 m. by rail N.E. of Odessa on the Balta-Kremenchug railway, and on the Ingul river, in 48° 31’ N. and 32° 10′ E. The population increased from 23,725 in 1860 to 280 66,182 in 1900. The town is regularly built, with wide streets, some of them lined with trees, and is a wealthy town, which has become an industrial centre for the region especially on account of its steam flour-mills, in which it is second only to Odessa, its distilleries, mechanical workshops, tobacco and tallow factories and brickworks. It is an important centre for trade in cereals and flour for export, and in sheep, cattle, wool, leather and timber. Five fairs are held annually. It has a military school, a first-class meteorological station and a botanical garden. The town was founded in 1754 and named after the empress Elizabeth. The fortifications are now decayed.

ELISAVETPOL, a government of Russia, Transcaucasia, having the governments of Tiflis and Daghestan on the N., Baku on the E., and Erivan and Tiflis on the W. and Persia on the S. Area, 16,721 sq. m. It includes: (a) the southern slope of the main Caucasus range in the north-east, where Bazardyuzi (14,770 ft.) and other peaks rise above the snow-line; (b) the arid and unproductive steppes beside the Kura, reaching 1000 ft. of altitude in the west and sinking to 100-200 ft. in the east, where irrigation is necessary; and (c) the northern slopes of the Transcaucasian escarpment and portions of the Armenian plateau, which is intersected towards its western boundary, near Lake Gok-cha, by chains of mountains consisting of trachytes and various crystalline rocks, and reaching 12,845 ft. in Mount Kapujikh. Elsewhere the country has the character of a plateau, 7000 to 8000 ft. high, deeply trenched by tributaries of the Aras. All varieties of climate are found from that of the snowclad peaks, Alpine meadows, and stony deserts of the high levels, to that of the hill slopes, clothed with gardens and vineyards, and of the arid Caspian steppes. Thus, at Shusha, on the plateau, at an altitude of 3680 ft., the average temperatures are: year 48°, January 26°, July 66°; annual rainfall, 26.4; while at Elisavetpol, in the valley of the Kura, they are: year 55°, January 32°.2, July 77° and rainfall only 10.3 in. Nearly one-fifth of the surface is under forests.

The population which was 885,379 in 1897 (only 392,124 women; 84,130 urban), and was estimated at 953,300 in 1906, consists chiefly of Tatars (56%) and Armenians (33%). The remainder are Kurds (4.7%), Russians and a few Germans, Jews, Kurins, Udins and Tates. Peasants form the great bulk of the population. Some of the Tatars and the Kurds are nomadic. Wheat, maize, barley, oats and rye are grown, also rice. Cultivation of cotton has begun, but the rearing of silkworms is of old standing, especially at Nukha (1650 tons of cocoons on the average are obtained every year). Nearly 8000 acres are under vines, the yield of wine averaging 82½ million gallons annually. Gardening reaches a high standard of perfection. Liquorice root is obtained to the extent of about 35,000 tons annually. The rearing of live-stock is largely carried on on the steppes. Copper, magnetic iron ore, cobalt and a small quantity of naphtha are extracted, and nearly 10,000 persons are employed in manufacturing industry—copper works and silk-mills. Carpet-weaving is widely spread. Owing to the Transcaucasian railway, which crosses the government, trade, both in the interior and with Persia, is very brisk. The government is divided into eight districts, Elisavetpol, Aresh, Jebrail, Jevanshir, Kazakh, Nukha, Shusha and Zangezur. The only towns, besides the capital, are Nukha (24,811 inhabitants in 1897) and Shusha (25,656).

ELISAVETPOL (formerly Ganja, alternative names being Kenjeh and Kanga), a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, 118 m. by rail S.E. of Tiflis and 3½ m. from the railway, at an altitude of 1446 ft. Pop. (1873) 15,439; (1897) 33,090. It is a very old town, which changed hands between Persians, Khazars and Arabs even in the 7th century, and later fell into the possession of Mongols, Georgians, Persians and Turks successively, until the Russians took it in 1804, when the change of name was made. It is a badly built place, with narrow streets and low-roofed, windowless houses, and is situated in a very unhealthy locality, but has been much improved, a new European quarter having been built on the site of the old fortress (erected by the Turks in 1712-1724). The inhabitants are chiefly Tatars and Armenians, famed for their excellent gardening, and also for silkworm breeding. It has a beautiful mosque, built by Shah Abbas of Persia in 1620; and a renowned “Green Mosque” amidst the ruins of old Ganja, 4 m. distant. The Persian poet, Shah Nizam (Nizam-ed-Din), was born here in 1141, and is said to have been buried (1203) close to the town. The Persians were defeated by the Russians under Paskevich outside this town in 1826.

ELISHA (a Hebrew name meaning “God is deliverance”), in the Bible, the disciple and successor of Elijah, was the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah in the valley of the Jordan. He was symbolically elected to the prophetic office by Elijah some time during the reign of Ahab (1 Kings xix. 19-21), and he survived until the reign of Joash. His career thus appears to have extended over a period of nearly sixty years. The relation between Elijah and Elisha was of a particularly close kind, but the difference between them is much more striking than the resemblance. Elijah is the prophet of the wilderness, wandering, rugged and austere; Elisha is the prophet of civilized life, of the city and the court, with the dress, manners and appearance of ordinary “grave citizens.” Elijah is the messenger of vengeance—sudden, fierce and overwhelming; Elisha is the messenger of mercy and restoration. Elijah’s miracles, with few exceptions, are works of wrath and destruction; Elisha’s miracles, with but one notable exception, are works of beneficence and healing. Elijah is the “prophet as fire” (Ecclus, xlviii. 1), an abnormal agent working for exceptional ends; Elisha is the “holy man of God which passeth by us continually” (2 Kings iv. 9), mixing in the common life of the people.

It is impossible to draw up a detailed chronology of his life. In most of the events narrated no further indication of time is given than by the words “the king of Israel,” the name not being specified. There are some instances in which the order of time is obviously the reverse of the order of narrative, and there are other grounds for concluding that the narrative as we now have it is confused and incomplete. This may serve not only to explain the chronological difficulties, but also to throw some light on the altogether exceptional character of the miraculous element in Elisha’s history. On the literary questions, see further Kings.

Not only are Elisha’s miracles very numerous, even more so than those of Elijah, but they stand in a peculiar relation to the man and his work. With all the other prophets the primary function is spiritual teaching; miracles, even though numerous and many of them symbolical like Elisha’s, are only accessory. With Elisha, on the other hand, miracles seem the principal function, and the teaching is altogether subsidiary. An explanation of the superabundance of miracles in Elisha’s life is suggested by the fact that several of them were merely repetitions or doubles of those of his predecessor. Such were: his first miracle, when, returning across the Jordan, he made a dry path for himself in the same manner as Elijah (2 Kings ii. 14); the increase of the widow’s pot of oil (iv. 1-7); and the restoration of the son of the woman of Shunem to life (iv. 18-37). The theory that stories from the earlier life have been imported by mistake into the later, even if tenable, applies only to three of the miracles, and leaves unexplained a much larger number which are not only not repetitions of those of Elijah, but have an entirely opposite character. The healing of the water of Jericho by putting salt in it (ii. 19-22), the provision of water for the army of Jehoshaphat in the arid desert (iii. 6-20), the neutralizing by meal of the poison in the pottage of the famine-stricken sons of the prophets at Jericho (iv. 38-41), the healing of Naaman the Syrian (v. 1-19), and the recovery of the iron axehead that had sunk in the water (vi. 1-7), are all instances of the beneficence which was the general characteristic of Elisha’s wonder-working activity in contrast to that of Elijah. Another miracle of the same class, the feeding of a hundred men with twenty loaves so that something was left over (iv. 42-44), deserves mention as the most striking though not the only instance of a resemblance between the work of Elisha and that of Jesus (Matt. xiv. 13-21). The one distinct exception to the general beneficence of Elisha’s activity—the 281 destruction of the forty-two children who mocked him as he was going up to Bethel (2 Kings ii. 23-25)—presents an ethical difficulty which is scarcely removed by the suggestion that the narrative has lost some particulars which would have shown the real enormity of the children’s offence. We may prefer to imagine that among the homely stories told of him was one which had for its main object the inculcation of respect for one’s elders.1 The leprosy brought upon Gehazi (v. 20-27), though a miracle of judgment, scarcely belongs to the same class as the other; and it will be observed that Gehazi’s subsequent relations with the court (viii. 1-6) ignore the disease, a fatal hindrance to intercourse. Further, the healing of Naaman (alluded to in Luke iv. 27) presupposes peaceful relations between Israel and the Syrians, with which, however, contrast ch. vi. The wonder-working power of Elisha is represented as continuing even after his death. As the feeding of the hundred men and the cure of leprosy connect his work with that of Jesus, so the story that a dead man who was cast into his sepulchre was brought to life by the mere contact with his bones (2 Kings xiii. 21, cf. Ecclus. xlviii. 12-14) is the most striking instance of an analogy between his miracles and those recorded of medieval saints. Stanley (Jewish Church, 4th ed., ii. 276) in reference to this has remarked that in the life of Elisha alone “in the sacred history the gulf between biblical and ecclesiastical miracles almost disappears.”

The place which Elisha filled in contemporary history was one of great influence and importance, and several narratives testify to his great reputation in Israel. On one occasion, when he delivered the army that had been brought out against Moab from a threatened dearth of water (2 Kings iii.),2 he plainly intimates that, but for his regard to Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, who was in alliance with Israel, he would not have interfered. Whether he was with the army or was supposed to be living in the desert is left obscure. An interesting touch is the influence of music upon the prophetic mind (v. 15). His next signal interference was during the incursions of the Syrians, when he disclosed the plans of the invaders to the “king of Israel” with such effect that they were again and again baffled. When the “king of Syria” was informed that “Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bed-chamber,” he at once sent an army to take him captive in Dothan. At Elisha’s prayer his terrified servant beheld an army of horses and chariots of fire surrounding the prophet. At a second prayer the invaders were struck blind, and in this state they were led by Elisha to Samaria, where their sight was restored. Their lives were spared at the command of the prophet, and they returned home so impressed that their incursions thenceforward ceased (vi. 8-23). This is immediately followed by the siege of Samaria by Benhadad which caused a famine of the severest kind. The calamity was imputed by the “king of Israel” to the influence of Elisha, and he ordered the prophet to be immediately put to death. Forewarned of the danger, Elisha ordered the messenger who had been sent to slay him to be detained at the door, and, when, immediately afterwards, the king himself came (“messenger” in vi. 33 should rather be king), predicted a great plenty within twenty-four hours. This was fulfilled by the flight of the Syrian army under the circumstances stated in ch. vii. After the episode with regard to the woman of Shunem (viii. 1-6), which is out of its chronological order, Elisha is represented as at Damascus (viii. 7-15). The reverence with which the foreign monarch Benhadad addressed Elisha deserves to be noted as showing the extent of the prophet’s influence. In sending to know the issue of his illness, the king caused himself to be styled “thy son Benhadad.” Equally remarkable is the very ambiguous nature of Elisha’s reply (viii. 10).3 The most important interference of Elisha in the history of his country constituted the fulfilment of the third of the commands laid upon Elijah. The work of anointing Jehu to be king over Israel was performed by deputy (ix. 1-3). During the forty-five years which the chronological scheme allows for the reigns of Jehu and Jehoahaz the narratives contain no notice of Elisha, but from the circumstances of his death (xiii. 14-21) it is clear that he had continued to enjoy the esteem of the dynasty which he had helped to found. Joash, the grandson of Jehu, waited on him on his death-bed, and addressed him in the words which he himself had used to Elijah: “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof” (cf. ii. 12). By the result of a symbolic discharge of arrows he informed the king of his coming success against Syria, and immediately thereafter he died. The explicit statement that he was buried completes the contrast between him and his greater predecessor.

ELISHA BEN ABUYAH (c. A.D. 100), a unique figure among the Palestinian Jews of the first Christian century. He was born before the destruction of the Temple (which occurred in A.D. 70) and survived into the 2nd century. It is not easy to decide as to his exact attitude towards Judaism. That he refused to accept the current rabbinical views is certain, though the Talmud cites his legal decisions. Most authorities believe that he was a Gnostic; but while it is certain that he was not a Christian, it is possible that he was simply a Sadducee, and thus an opponent not of Judaism but of Pharisaism. His disciple, the famous Pharisee Meir, remained his steadfast friend, and his efforts to reclaim his former master are among the most pathetic incidents in the Talmud. In later ages Elisha (aḥer “the other,” as he was named) was regarded as the type of a heretic whose pride of intellect betrayed him into infidelity to law and morals. Without much appropriateness Elisha has been sometimes described as the “Faust of the Talmud.”

ELIXIR (from the Arabic al-iksir, probably an adaptation of the Gr. ξήριον, a powder used for drying wounds, from ξηρός, dry), in alchemy, the medium which would effect the transmutation of base metals into gold; it probably included all such substances—vapours, liquids, &c.—and had a wider meaning than “philosopher’s stone.” The same term, more fully elixir 282 vitae, elixir of life, was given to the substance which would indefinitely prolong life; it was considered to be closely related to, or even identical with, the substance for transmuting metals. In pharmacy the word was formerly given to a strong extract or tincture, but it is only used now for an aromatic sweet preparation, containing one or more drugs, and in such expressions as “elixir of vitriol,” a mixture of sulphuric acid, cinnamon, ginger and alcohol.

ELIZABETH (1533-1603), queen of England and Ireland, born on Sunday the 7th of September 1533, and, like all the Tudors except Henry VII., at Greenwich Palace, was the only surviving child of Henry VIII. by his second queen, Anne Boleyn. With such a mother and with Cranmer as her godfather she represented from her birth the principle of revolt from Rome, but the opponents of that movement attached little importance to her advent into the world. Charles V.’s ambassador, Chapuys, hardly deigned to mention the fact that the king’s amie had given birth to a daughter, and both her parents were bitterly disappointed with her sex. She was, however, given precedence over Mary, her elder sister by sixteen years, and Mary never forgave the infant’s offence. Even this dubious advantage only lasted three years until her mother was beheaded, and by a much more serious freak on Henry’s part “divorced.” Elizabeth has been censured for having made no effort in later years to clear her mother’s memory; but no vindication of Anne’s character could have rehabilitated Elizabeth’s legitimacy. Her mother was not “divorced” for her alleged adultery, because that crime was no ground for divorce by Roman or English canon law. The marriage was declared invalid ab initio either on the ground of Anne’s precontract with Lord Percy or more probably on the ground of the affinity established between Henry and Anne by Henry’s previous relations with Mary Boleyn.

Elizabeth thus lost all hereditary title to the throne, and her early years of childhood can hardly have been happier than Mary’s. Nor was her legitimacy ever legally established; but after Jane Seymour’s death, when Henry seemed likely to have no further issue, she was by act of parliament placed next in order of the succession after Edward and Mary and their issue; and this statutory arrangement was confirmed by the will which Henry VIII. was empowered by statute to make. Queen Catherine Parr introduced some humanity into Henry’s household, and Edward and Elizabeth were well and happily educated together, principally at old Hatfield House, which is now the marquess of Salisbury’s stables. They were there when Henry’s death called Edward VI. away to greater dignities, and Elizabeth was left in the care of Catherine Parr, who married in indecent haste Thomas, Lord Seymour, brother of the protector Somerset. This unprincipled adventurer, even before Catherine’s death in September 1548, paid indelicate attentions to Elizabeth. Any attempt to marry her without the council’s leave would have been treason on his part and would have deprived Elizabeth of her contingent right to the succession. Accordingly, when Seymour’s other misbehaviour led to his arrest, his relations with Elizabeth were made the subject of a very trying investigation, which gave Elizabeth her first lessons in the feminine arts of self-defence. She proved equal to the occasion, partly because she was in all probability innocent of anything worse than a qualified acquiescence in Seymour’s improprieties and a girlish admiration for his handsome face. He or his tragic fate may have touched a deeper chord, but it was carefully concealed; and although in later years Elizabeth seems to have cherished his memory, and certainly showed no love for his brother’s children, at the time she only showed resentment at the indignities inflicted on herself.

For the rest of Edward’s reign Elizabeth’s life was less tempestuous. She hardly rivalled Lady Jane Grey as the ideal Puritan maiden, but she swam with the stream, and was regarded as a foil to her stubborn Catholic sister. She thus avoided the enmity and the still more dangerous favour of Northumberland; and some unknown history lies behind the duke’s preference of the Lady Jane to Elizabeth as his son’s wife and his own puppet for the throne. She thus escaped shipwreck in his crazy vessel, and rode by Mary’s side in triumph into London on the failure of the plot. For a time she was safe enough; she would not renounce her Protestantism until Catholicism had been made the law of the land, but she followed Gardiner’s advice to her father when he said it was better that he should make the law his will than try to make his will the law. As a presumptive ruler of England she was, like Cecil, and for that matter the future archbishop Parker also, too shrewd to commit herself to passive or active resistance to the law; and they merely anticipated Hobbes in holding that the individual committed no sin in subordinating his conscience to the will of the state, for the responsibility for the law was not his but the state’s. Their position was well enough understood in those days; it was known that they were heretics at heart, and that when their turn came they would once more overthrow Catholicism and expect a similar submission from the Catholics.

It was not so much Elizabeth’s religion as her nearness to the throne and the circumstances of her birth that endangered her life in Mary’s reign. While Mary was popular Elizabeth was safe; but as soon as the Spanish marriage project had turned away English hearts Elizabeth inevitably became the centre of plots and the hope of the plotters. Had not Lady Jane still been alive to take off the edge of Mary’s indignation and suspicion Elizabeth might have paid forfeit for Wyat’s rebellion with her life instead of imprisonment. She may have had interviews with French agents who helped to foment the insurrection; but she was strong and wary enough to avoid Henry II.’s, as she had avoided Northumberland’s, toils; for even in case of success she would have been the French king’s puppet, placed on the throne, if at all, merely to keep it warm for Henry’s prospective daughter-in-law, Mary Stuart. This did not make Mary Tudor any more friendly, and, although the story that Elizabeth favoured Courtenay and that Mary was jealous is a ridiculous fiction, the Spaniards cried loud and long for Elizabeth’s execution. She was sent to the Tower in March 1554, but few Englishmen were fanatic enough to want a Tudor beheaded. The great nobles, the Howards, and Gardiner would not hear of such a proposal; and all the efforts of the court throughout Mary’s reign failed to induce parliament to listen to the suggestion that Elizabeth should be deprived of her legal right to the succession. After two months in the Tower she was transferred to Sir Henry Bedingfield’s charge at Woodstock, and at Christmas, when the realm had been reconciled to Rome and Mary was expecting issue, Elizabeth was once more received at court. In the autumn of 1555 she went down to Hatfield, where she spent most of the rest of Mary’s reign, enjoying the lessons of Ascham and Baldassare Castiglione, and planting trees which still survive.

She had only to bide her time while Mary made straight her successor’s path by uprooting whatever affection the English people had for the Catholic faith, Roman jurisdiction and Spanish control. The Protestant martyrs and Calais between them removed all the alternatives to an insular national English policy in church and in state; and no sovereign was better qualified to lead such a cause than the queen who ascended the throne amid universal, and the Spaniards thought indecent, rejoicings at Mary’s death on the 17th of November 1558. “Mere English” she boasted of being, and after Englishmen’s recent experience there was no surer title to popular favour. No sovereign since Harold had been so purely English in blood; her nearest foreign ancestor was Catherine of France, the widow of Henry V., and no English king or queen was more superbly insular in character or in policy. She was the unmistakable child of the age so far as Englishmen shared in its characteristics, for with her English aims she combined some Italian methods and ideas. “An Englishman Italianate,” ran the current jingle, “is a devil incarnate,” and Elizabeth was well versed in Italian scholarship and statecraft. Italians, especially Bernardino Ochino, had given her religious instruction, and the Italians who rejected Catholicism usually adopted far more advanced forms of heresy than Lutheranism, Zwinglianism, or even Calvinism. Elizabeth herself patronized Giacomo Acontio, who thought dogma a “stratagema Satanae,” and her last favourite, Essex 283 was accused of being the ringleader of “a damnable crew of atheists.” A Spanish ambassador early in the reign thought that Elizabeth’s own religion was equally negative, though she told him she agreed with nearly everything in the Augsburg Confession. She was probably not at liberty to say what she really thought, but she made up by saying a great many things which she did not mean. It is clear enough that, although, like her father, she was fond of ritual, she was absolutely devoid of the religious temperament, and that her ecclesiastical preferences were dictated by political considerations. She was sincere enough in her dislike of Roman jurisdiction and of Calvinism; a daughter of Anne Boleyn could have little affection for a system which made her a bastard, and all monarchs agreed at heart with James I.’s aphorism about “no bishop, no king.” It was convenient, too, to profess Lutheran sympathies, for Lutheranism was now an established, monarchical and comparatively respectable religion, very different from the Calvinism against which monarchs directed the Counter-reformation from political motives. Lutheran dogma, however, had few adherents in England, though its political theory coincided with that of Anglicanism in the 16th century. The compromise that resulted from these conflicting forces suited Elizabeth very well; she had little dislike of Catholics who repudiated the papacy, but she was forced to rely mainly on Protestants, and had little respect for any form of ecclesiastical self-government. She valued uniformity in religion, not as a safeguard against heresy, but as a guarantee of the unity of the state. She respected the bishops only as supporters of her throne; and, although the well-known letter beginning “Proud Prelate” is an 18th-century forgery, it is hardly a travesty of Elizabeth’s attitude.

The outlines of her foreign policy are sketched elsewhere (see English History), and her courtships were diplomatic. Contemporary gossip, which was probably justified, said that she was debarred from matrimony by a physical defect; and her cry when she heard that Mary queen of Scots had given birth to a son is the most womanly thing recorded of Elizabeth. Her features were as handsome as Mary’s, but she had little fascination, and in spite of her many suitors no man lost his head over Elizabeth as men did over Mary. She was far too masculine in mind and temperament, and her extravagant addiction to the outward trappings of femininity was probably due to the absence or atrophy of deeper feminine instincts. In the same way the impossibility of marriage made her all the freer with her flirtations, and she carried some of them to lengths that scandalized a public unconscious of Elizabeth’s security. She had every reason to keep them in the dark, and to convince other courts that she could and would marry if the provocation were sufficient. She could not marry Philip II., but she held out hopes to more than one of his Austrian cousins whenever France or Mary Stuart seemed to threaten; and later she encouraged two French princes when Philip had lost patience with Elizabeth and made Mary Stuart his protégée. Her other suitors were less important, except Leicester, who appealed to the least intellectual side of Elizabeth and was always a cause of distraction in her policy and her ministers.

Elizabeth was terribly handicapped by having no heirs of her body and no obvious English successor. She could not afford to recognize Mary’s claim, for that would have been to alienate the Protestants, double the number of Catholics, and, in her own phrase, to spread a winding-sheet before her eyes; for all would have turned to the rising sun. Mary was dangerous enough as it was, and no one would willingly make his rival his heir. Elizabeth could hardly be expected to go out of her way and ask parliament to repeal its own acts for Mary’s sake; probably it would have refused. Nor was it personal enmity on Elizabeth’s part that brought Mary to the block. Parliament had long been ferociously demanding Mary’s execution, not because she was guilty but because she was dangerous to the public peace. She alone could have given the Spanish Armada any real chance of success; and as the prospect of invasion loomed larger on the horizon, fiercer grew the popular determination to remove the only possible centre of a domestic rising, without which the external attack was bound to be a failure. Elizabeth resisted the demand, not from compassion or qualms of conscience, but because she dreaded the responsibility for Mary’s death. She wished Paulet would manage the business on his own account, and when at last her signature was extorted she made a scapegoat of her secretary Davison who had the warrant executed.

The other great difficulty, apart from the succession, with which Elizabeth had to deal arose from the exuberant aggressiveness of England, which she could not, and perhaps did not want to, repress. Religion was not really the cause of her external dangers, for the time had passed for crusades, and no foreign power seriously contemplated an armed invasion of England for religion’s sake. But no state could long tolerate the affronts which English seamen offered Spain. The common view that the British Empire has been won by purely defensive action is not tenable, and from the beginning of her reign Englishmen had taken the offensive, partly from religious but also from other motives. They were determined to break up the Spanish monopoly in the new world, and in the pursuit of this endeavour they were led to challenge Spain in the old. For nearly thirty years Philip put up with the capture of his treasure-ships, the raiding of his colonies and the open assistance rendered to his rebels. Only when he had reached the conclusion that his power would never be secure in the Netherlands or the New World until England was conquered, did he despatch the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth delayed the breach as long as she could, probably because she knew that war meant taxation, and that taxation was the most prolific parent of revolt.

With the defeat of the Spanish Armada Elizabeth’s work was done, and during the last fifteen years of her reign she got more out of touch with her people. That period was one of gradual transition to the conditions of Stuart times; during it practically every claim was put forward that was made under the first two Stuarts either on behalf of parliament or the prerogative, and Elizabeth’s attitude towards the Puritans was hardly distinguishable from James I.’s. But her past was in her favour, and so were her sex and her Tudor tact, which checked the growth of discontent and made Essex’s rebellion a ridiculous fiasco. He was the last and the most wilful but perhaps the best of her favourites, and his tragic fate deepened the gloom of her closing years. The loneliness of a queen who had no husband or children and no relatives to mention must at all times have been oppressive; it grew desolating in old age after the deaths of Leicester, Walsingham, Burghley and Essex, and Elizabeth died, the last of her race, on the 24th of March 1603.

ELIZABETH [PETROVNA] (1709-1762), Empress of Russia, the daughter of Peter the Great and Martha Skovronskaya, born at Kolomenskoye, near Moscow, on the 18th of December 1709. Even as a child her parts were good, if not brilliant, but unfortunately her education was both imperfect and desultory. Her father had no leisure to devote to her training, and her mother was too illiterate to superintend her studies. She had a French governess, however, and at a later day picked up some Italian, German and Swedish, and could converse in these languages with more fluency than accuracy. From her earliest years she delighted every one by her extraordinary beauty and vivacity. It was Peter’s intention to marry his second daughter to the young French king Louis XV., but the pride of the Bourbons revolted against any such alliance. Other connubial speculations foundered on the personal dislike of the princess for the various suitors proposed to her, so that on the death of her mother (May 1727) and the departure to Holstein of her beloved sister Anne, her only remaining near relation, the princess found herself at the age of eighteen practically her own mistress. So long as Menshikov remained in power, she was treated with liberality and distinction by the government of Peter II., but the Dolgorukis, who supplanted Menshikov and hated the memory of Peter the Great, practically banished Peter’s daughter 284 from court. Elizabeth had inherited her father’s sensual temperament and, being free from all control, abandoned herself to her appetites without reserve. While still in her teens, she made a lover of Alexius Shubin, a sergeant in the Semenovsky Guards, and after his banishment to Siberia, minus his tongue, by order of the empress Anne, consoled herself with a handsome young Cossack, Alexius Razumovski, who, there is good reason to believe, subsequently became her husband. During the reign of her cousin Anne (1730-1740), Elizabeth effaced herself as much as possible; but under the regency of Anne Leopoldovna the course of events compelled the indolent but by no means incapable beauty to overthrow the existing government. The idea seems to have been first suggested to her by the French ambassador, La Chétardie, who was plotting to destroy the Austrian influence then dominant at the Russian court. It is a mistake to suppose, however, that La Chétardie took a leading part in the revolution which placed the daughter of Peter the Great on the Russian throne. As a matter of fact, beyond lending the tsesarevna 2000 ducats, instead of the 15,000 she demanded of him, he took no part whatever in the actual coup d’état which was as great a surprise to him as to every one else. The merit and glory of that singular affair belong to Elizabeth alone. The fear of being imprisoned in a convent for the rest of her life was the determining cause of her irresistible outburst of energy. At midnight on the 6th of December 1741, with a few personal friends, including her physician, Armand Lestocq, her chamberlain, Michael Ilarionvich Vorontsov, her future husband, Alexius Razumovski, and Alexander and Peter Shuvalov, two of the gentlemen of her household, she drove to the barracks of the Preobrazhensky Guards, enlisted their sympathies by a stirring speech, and led them to the Winter Palace, where the regent was reposing in absolute security. Having on the way thither had all the ministers arrested, she seized the regent and her children in their beds, and summoned all the notables, civil and ecclesiastical, to her presence. So swiftly and noiselessly indeed had the whole revolution proceeded that as late as eight o’clock the next morning very few people in the city were aware of it. Thus, at the age of three-and-thirty, this naturally indolent and self-indulgent woman, with little knowledge and no experience of affairs, suddenly found herself at the head of a great empire at one of the most critical periods of its existence. Fortunately for herself, and for Russia, Elizabeth Petrovna, with all her shortcomings, had inherited some of her father’s genius for government. Her usually keen judgment and her diplomatic tact again and again recall Peter the Great. What in her sometimes seemed irresolution and procrastination, was, most often, a wise suspense of judgment under exceptionally difficult circumstances; and to this may be added that she was ever ready to sacrifice the prejudices of the woman to the duty of the sovereign.

After abolishing the cabinet council system in favour during the rule of the two Annes, and reconstituting the senate as it had been under Peter the Great,—with the chiefs of the departments of state, all of them now Russians again, as ex-officio members under the presidency of the sovereign,—the first care of the new empress was to compose her quarrel with Sweden. On the 23rd of January 1743, direct negotiations between the two powers were opened at Åbo, and on the 7th of August 1743 Sweden ceded to Russia all the southern part of Finland east of the river Kymmene, which thus became the boundary between the two states, including the fortresses of Villmanstrand and Fredrikshamn. This triumphant issue was mainly due to the diplomatic ability of the new vice chancellor, Alexius Bestuzhev-Ryumin (q.v.), whom Elizabeth, much as she disliked him personally, had wisely placed at the head of foreign affairs immediately after her accession. He represented the anti-Franco-Prussian portion of her council, and his object was to bring about an Anglo-Austro-Russian alliance which, at that time, was undoubtedly Russia’s proper system. Hence the reiterated attempts of Frederick the Great and Louis XV. to get rid of Bestuzhev, which made the Russian court during the earlier years of Elizabeth’s reign the centre of a tangle of intrigue impossible to unravel by those who do not possess the clue to it (see Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Alexius). Ultimately, however, the minister, strong in the support of Elizabeth, prevailed, and his faultless diplomacy, backed by the despatch of an auxiliary Russian corps of 30,000 men to the Rhine, greatly accelerated the peace negotiations which led to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (October 18, 1748). By sheer tenacity of purpose, Bestuzhev had extricated his country from the Swedish imbroglio; reconciled his imperial mistress with the courts of Vienna and London, her natural allies; enabled Russia to assert herself effectually in Poland, Turkey and Sweden, and isolated the restless king of Prussia by environing him with hostile alliances. But all this would have been impossible but for the steady support of Elizabeth, who trusted him implicitly, despite the insinuations of the chancellor’s innumerable enemies, most of whom were her personal friends.

The great event of Elizabeth’s later years was the Seven Years’ War. Elizabeth rightly regarded the treaty of Westminster (January 16, 1756, whereby Great Britain and Prussia agreed to unite their forces to oppose the entry into, or the passage through, Germany of the troops of every foreign power) as utterly subversive of the previous conventions between Great Britain and Russia. A by no means unwarrantable fear of the king of Prussia, who was “to be reduced within proper limits,” so that “he might be no longer a danger to the empire,” induced Elizabeth to accede to the treaty of Versailles, in other words the Franco-Austrian league against Prussia, and on the 17th of May 1757 the Russian army, 85,000 strong, advanced against Königsberg. Neither the serious illness of the empress, which began with a fainting-fit at Tsarskoe Selo (September 19, 1757), nor the fall of Bestuzhev (February 21, 1758), nor the cabals and intrigues of the various foreign powers at St Petersburg, interfered with the progress of the war, and the crushing defeat of Kunersdorf (August 12, 1759) at last brought Frederick to the verge of ruin. From that day forth he despaired of success, though he was saved for the moment by the jealousies of the Russian and Austrian commanders, which ruined the military plans of the allies. On the other hand, it is not too much to say that, from the end of 1759 to the end of 1761, the unshakable firmness of the Russian empress was the one constraining political force which held together the heterogeneous, incessantly jarring elements of the anti-Prussian combination. From the Russian point of view, Elizabeth’s greatness as a statesman consists in her steady appreciation of Russian interests, and her determination to promote them at all hazards. She insisted throughout that the king of Prussia must be rendered harmless to his neighbours for the future, and that the only way to bring this about was to reduce him to the rank of an elector. Frederick himself was quite alive to his danger. “I am at the end of my resources,” he wrote at the beginning of 1760, “the continuance of this war means for me utter ruin. Things may drag on perhaps till July, but then a catastrophe must come.” On the 21st of May 1760 a fresh convention was signed between Russia and Austria, a secret clause of which, never communicated to the court of Versailles, guaranteed East Prussia to Russia, as an indemnity for war expenses. The failure of the campaign of 1760, so far as Russia and France were concerned, induced the court of Versailles, on the evening of the 22nd of January 1761, to present to the court of St Petersburg a despatch to the effect that the king of France by reason of the condition of his dominions absolutely desired peace. On the following day the Austrian ambassador, Esterhazy, presented a despatch of a similar tenor from his court. The Russian empress’s reply was delivered to the two ambassadors on the 12th of February. It was inspired by the most uncompromising hostility towards the king of Prussia. Elizabeth would not consent to any pacific overtures until the original object of the league had been accomplished. Simultaneously, Elizabeth caused to be conveyed to Louis XV. a confidential letter in which she proposed the signature of a new treaty of alliance of a more comprehensive and explicit nature than the preceding treaties between the two powers, without the knowledge of Austria. Elizabeth’s object in this mysterious negotiation 285 seems to have been to reconcile France and Great Britain, in return for which signal service France was to throw all her forces into the German war. This project, which lacked neither ability nor audacity, foundered upon Louis XV.’s invincible jealousy of the growth of Russian influence in eastern Europe and his fear of offending the Porte. It was finally arranged by the allies that their envoys at Paris should fix the date for the assembling of a peace congress, and that, in the meantime, the war against Prussia should be vigorously prosecuted. The campaign of 1761 was almost as abortive as the campaign of 1760. Frederick acted on the defensive with consummate skill, and the capture of the Prussian fortress of Kolberg on Christmas day O.S. 1761, by Rumyantsev, was the sole Russian success. Frederick, however, was now at the last gasp. On the 6th of January 1762, he wrote to Finkenstein, “We ought now to think of preserving for my nephew, by way of negotiation, whatever fragments of my territory we can save from the avidity of my enemies,” which means, if words mean anything, that he was resolved to seek a soldier’s death on the first opportunity. A fortnight later he wrote to Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, “The sky begins to clear. Courage, my dear fellow. I have received the news of a great event.” The great event which snatched him from destruction was the death of the Russian empress (January 5, 1762).

ELIZABETH [AMÉLIE EUGÉNIE] (1837-1898), consort of Francis Joseph, emperor of Austria and king of Hungary, was the daughter of Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria and Louisa Wilhelmina, daughter of Maximilian I. of Bavaria, and was born on the 24th of December 1837 at the castle of Possenhofen on Lake Starnberg. She inherited the quick intelligence and artistic taste displayed in general by members of the Wittelsbach royal house, and her education was the reverse of conventional. She accompanied her eccentric father on his hunting expeditions, becoming an expert rider and climber, visiting the peasants in their huts and sharing in rustic pleasures. The emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph, met the Bavarian ducal family at Ischl in August 1853, and immediately fell in love with Elizabeth, then a girl of sixteen, and reported to be the most beautiful princess in Europe. The marriage took place in Vienna on the 24th of April 1854. In the early days of her married life she frequently came into collision with Viennese prejudice. Her attempts to modify court etiquette, and her extreme fondness for horsemanship and frequent visits to the imperial riding school, scandalized Austrian society, while her predilection for Hungary and for everything Hungarian offended German sentiment. There is no doubt that her influence helped the establishment of the Ausgleich with Hungary, but outside Hungarian affairs the empress took small part in politics. She first visited Hungary in 1857, and ten years later was crowned queen. Her popularity with the Hungarians remained unchanged throughout her life; and the castle of Gödöllö, presented as a coronation gift, was one of her favourite residences. Elizabeth was one of the most charitable of royal ladies, and her popularity with her Austrian subjects was more than restored by her assiduous care for the wounded in the campaign of 1866. Besides her public benefactions she constantly exercised personal and private charity. Her eldest daughter died in infancy; Gisela (b. 1856) married the Prince Leopold of Bavaria; and her youngest daughter Marie Valerie (b. 1868) married the Archduke Franz Salvator. The tragic death of her only son, the crown prince Rudolph, in 1889, was a shock from which she never really recovered. She was also deeply affected by the suicide of her cousin Louis II. of Bavaria, and again by the fate of her sister Sophia, duchess of Alençon, who perished in the fire of the Paris charity bazaar in 1897. The empress had shown signs of lung disease in 1861, when she spent some months in Madeira; but she was able to resume her outdoor sports, and for some years before 1882, when she had to give up riding, was a frequent visitor on English and Irish hunting fields. In her later years her dislike of publicity increased. Much of her time was spent in travel or at the Achilleion, the palace she had built in the Greek style in Corfu. She was walking from her hotel at Geneva to the steamer when she was stabbed by the anarchist Luigi Luccheni, on the 10th of September 1898, and died of the wound within a few hours. This aimless and dastardly crime completed the list of misfortunes of the Austrian house, and aroused intense indignation throughout Europe.

ELIZABETH (1596-1662), consort of Frederick V., elector palatine and titular king of Bohemia, was the eldest daughter of James I. of Great Britain and of Anne of Denmark, and was born at Falkland Castle in Fifeshire in August 1596. She was entrusted to the care of the earl of Linlithgow, and after the departure of the royal family to England, to the countess of Kildare, subsequently residing with Lord and Lady Harington at Combe Abbey in Warwickshire. In November 1605 the Gunpowder Plot conspirators formed a plan to seize her person and proclaim her queen after the explosion, in consequence of which she was removed by Lord Harington to Coventry. In 1608 she appeared at court, where her beauty soon attracted admiration and became the theme of the poets, her suitors including the dauphin, Maurice, prince of Orange, Gustavus Adolphus, Philip III. of Spain, and Frederick V., the elector palatine. A union with the last-named was finally arranged, in spite of the queen’s opposition, in order to strengthen the alliance with the Protestant powers in Germany, and the marriage took place on the 14th of February 1613 midst great rejoicing and festivities. The prince and princess entered Heidelberg on the 17th of June, and Elizabeth, by means of her English annuity, enjoyed five years of pleasure and of extravagant gaiety to which the small German court was totally unaccustomed. On the 26th of August 1618, Frederick, as a leading Protestant prince, was chosen king by the Bohemians, who deposed the emperor Ferdinand, then archduke of Styria. There is no evidence to show that his acceptance was instigated by the princess or that she had any influence in her husband’s political career. She accompanied Frederick to Prague in October 1619, and was crowned on the 7th of November. Here her unrestrainable high spirits and levity gave great offence to the citizens. On the approach of misfortune, however, she showed great courage and fortitude. She left Prague on the 8th of November 1620, after the fatal battle of the White Hill, for Küstrin, travelling thence to Berlin and Wolfenbüttel, finally with Frederick taking refuge at the Hague with Prince Maurice of Orange. The help sought from James came only in the shape of useless embassies and negotiations; the two Palatinates were soon occupied by the Spaniards and the duke of Bavaria; and the romantic attachment and services of Duke Christian of Brunswick, of the 1st earl of Craven, and of other chivalrous young champions who were inspired by the beauty and grace of the “Queen of Hearts,” as Elizabeth was now called, availed nothing. Her residence was at Rhenen near Arnheim, where she received many English visitors and endeavoured to maintain her spirits and fortitude, with straitened means and in spite of frequent disappointments. The victories of Gustavus Adolphus secured no permanent advantage, and his death at Lützen was followed by that of the elector at Mainz on the 29th of November 1632. Subsequent attempts of the princess to reinstate her son in his dominions were unsuccessful, and it was not till the peace of Westphalia in 1648 that he regained a portion of them, the Rhenish Palatinate. Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s position in Holland grew more and more unsatisfactory. The payment of her English annuity of £12,000 ceased after the outbreak of the troubles with the parliament; the death of Charles I. in 1649 put an end to all hopes from that quarter; and the pension 286 allowed her by the house of Orange ceased in 1650. Her children, in consequence of disputes, abandoned her, and her eldest son Charles Louis refused her a home in his restored electorate. Nor did Charles II. at his restoration show any desire to receive her in England. Parliament voted her £20,000 in 1660 for the payment of her debts, but Elizabeth did not receive the money, and on the 19th of May 1661 she left the Hague for England, in spite of the king’s attempts to hinder her journey, receiving no official welcome on her arrival in London and being lodged at Lord Craven’s house in Drury Lane. Charles, however, subsequently granted her a pension and treated her with kindness. On the 8th of February 1662 she removed to Leicester House in Leicester Fields, and died shortly afterwards on the 13th of the same month, being buried in Westminster Abbey. Her beauty, grace and vivacity exercised a great charm over her contemporaries, the enthusiasm for her, however, being probably not merely personal but one inspired also by her misfortunes and by the fact that these misfortunes were incurred in defence of the Protestant cause; later, as the ancestress of the Protestant Hanoverian dynasty, she obtained a conspicuous place in English history. She had thirteen children—Frederick Henry, drowned at sea in 1629; Charles Louis, elector palatine, whose daughter married Philip, duke of Orleans, and became the ancestress of the elder and Roman Catholic branch of the royal family of England; Elizabeth, abbess and friend of Descartes; Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice, who died unmarried; Louisa, abbess; Edward, who married Anne de Gonzaga, “princesse palatine,” and had children; Henrietta Maria, who married Count Sigismund Ragotzki but died childless; Philip and Charlotte, who died childless; Sophia, who married Ernest Augustus, elector of Hanover, and was mother of George I. of England; and two others who died young.

ELIZABETH [PAULINE ELIZABETH OTTILIE LOUISE] (1843-  ), consort of King Charles I. (q.v.) of Rumania, widely known by her literary name of “Carmen Sylva,” was born on the 29th of December 1843. She was the daughter of Prince Hermann of Neuwied. She first met the future king of Rumania at Berlin in 1861, and was married to him on the 15th of November 1869. Her only child, a daughter, died in 1874. In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 she devoted herself to the care of the wounded, and founded the Order of Elizabeth (a gold cross on a blue ribbon) to reward distinguished service in such work. She fostered the higher education of women in Rumania, and established societies for various charitable objects. Early distinguished by her excellence as a pianist, organist and singer, she also showed considerable ability in painting and illuminating; but a lively poetic imagination led her to the path of literature, and more especially to poetry, folk-lore and ballads. In addition to numerous original works she put into literary form many of the legends current among the Rumanian peasantry.

“Carmen Sylva” wrote with facility in German, Rumanian, French and English. A few of her voluminous writings, which include poems, plays, novels, short stories, essays, collections of aphorisms, &c., may be singled out for special mention. Her earliest publications were Sappho and Hammerstein, two poems which appeared at Leipzig in 1880. In 1888 she received the Prix Botta, a prize awarded triennially by the French Academy, for her volume of prose aphorisms Les Pensées d’une reine (Paris, 1882), a German version of which is entitled Vom Amboss (Bonn, 1890). Cuvinte Sufletesci, religious meditations in Rumanian (Bucharest, 1888), was also translated into German (Bonn, 1890), under the name of Seelen-Gespräche. Several of the works of “Carmen Sylva” were written in collaboration with Mite Kremnitz, one of her maids of honour, who was born at Greifswald in 1857, and married Dr Kremnitz of Bucharest; these were published between 1881 and 1888, in some cases under the pseudonyms Dito et Idem, and includes the novel Aus zwei Welten (Leipzig, 1884), Anna Boleyn (Bonn, 1886), a tragedy, In der Irre (Bonn, 1888), a collection of short stories, &c. Edleen Vaughan, or Paths of Peril, a novel (London, 1894), and Sweet Hours, poems (London, 1904), were written in English. Among the translations made by “Carmen Sylva” are German versions of Pierre Loti’s romance Pêcheur d’Islande, and of Paul de St Victor’s dramatic criticisms Les Deux Masques (Paris, 1881-1884); and in particular The Bard of the Dimbovitza, a fine English version by “Carmen Sylva” and Alma Strettell of Helène Vacarescu’s collection of Rumanian folk-songs, &c., entitled Lieder aus dem Dimbovitzathal (Bonn, 1889). The Bard of the Dimbovitza was first published in 1891, and was soon reissued and expanded. Translations from the original works of “Carmen Sylva” have appeared in all the principal languages of Europe and in Armenian.

ELIZABETH (1635-1650), English princess, second daughter of Charles I., was born on the 28th of December 1635 at St James’s Palace. On the outbreak of the Civil War and the departure of the king from London, while the two elder princes accompanied their father, the princess and the infant duke of Gloucester were left under the care of the parliament. In October 1642 Elizabeth sent a letter to the House of Lords begging that her old attendants might not be removed. In July 1644 the royal children were sent to Sir John Danvers at Chelsea, and in 1645 to the earl and countess of Northumberland. After the final defeat of the king they were joined in 1646 by James, and during 1647 paid several visits to the king at Caversham, near Reading, and Hampton Court, but were again separated by Charles’s imprisonment at Carisbrooke Castle. On the 21st of April 1648 James was persuaded to escape by Elizabeth, who declared that were she a boy she would not long remain in confinement. The last sad meeting between Charles and his two children, at which the princess was overcome with grief, and of which she wrote a short and touching account, took place on the 29th of January 1649, the day before his execution. In June she was entrusted to the care of the earl and countess of Leicester at Penshurst, but in 1650, upon the landing of Charles II. in Scotland, the parliament ordered the royal children to be taken for security to Carisbrooke Castle. The princess fell ill from a wetting almost immediately upon her arrival, and died of fever on the 8th of September. She was buried in St Thomas’s church at Newport, Isle of Wight, where the initials “E.S.” alone marked her grave till 1856, when a monument was erected to her memory by Queen Victoria. The princess’s sorrowful career and early death have attracted general interest and sympathy. She was said to have acquired considerable proficiency in Greek, Hebrew and Latin, as well as in Italian and French, and several books were dedicated to her, including the translation of the Electra of Sophocles by Christopher Wase in 1649. Her mild nature and gentleness towards her father’s enemies gained her the name of “Temperance.”

ELIZABETH [Élisabeth Philippine Marie Hélène of France] (1764-1794), commonly called Madame Elizabeth, daughter of Louis the Dauphin and Marie Josephine of Saxony, and sister of Louis XVI., was born at Versailles on the 3rd of May 1764. Left an orphan at the age of three, she was brought up by Madame de Mackau, and had a residence at Montreuil, where she gave many proofs of her benevolent character. She refused all offers of marriage so that she might remain by the side of her brother, whom she loved passionately. At the outset of the Revolution she foresaw the gravity of events, and refused to leave the king, whom she accompanied in his flight on the 20th of June 1792, and with whom she was arrested at Varennes. 287 She was present at the Legislative Assembly when Louis was suspended, and was imprisoned in the Temple with the royal family. By the execution of the king and the removal of Marie Antoinette to the Conciergerie, Madame Elizabeth was deprived of her companions in the Temple prison, and on the 9th of May 1794 she was herself transferred to the Conciergerie, and haled before the revolutionary tribunal. Accused of assisting the king’s flight, of supplying émigrés with funds, and of encouraging the resistance of the royal troops on the 10th of August 1792, she was condemned to death, and executed on the 10th of May 1794. Like her brother, she had all the domestic virtues, and, as was to be expected of a sister of Louis XVI., she was in favour of absolutist principles. Hers was one of the most touching tragedies of the Revolution; she perished because she was the sister of the king.

ELIZABETH, SAINT (1207-1231), daughter of Andrew II., king of Hungary (d. 1235), by his first wife, Gertrude of Andechs-Meran (d. 1213), was born in Pressburg in 1207. At four years of age she was betrothed to Louis IV., landgrave of Thuringia, and conducted to the Wartburg, near Eisenach, to be educated under the direction of his parents. In spite of her decidedly worldly surroundings at the Thuringian court, she evinced from the first an aversion from even the most innocent pleasures, and stimulated by the example of her mother’s sister, St Hedwig, wife of Henry VI., duke of Silesia-Breslau, devoted her whole time to religion and to works of charity. She was married at the age of fourteen, and acquired such influence over her husband that he adopted her point of view and zealously assisted her in all her charitable endeavours. According to the legend, much celebrated in German art, Louis at first desired to curtail her excessive charities, and forbade her unbounded gifts to the poor. One day, returning from hunting, he met his wife descending from the Wartburg with a heavy bundle filled with bread. He sternly bade her open it; she did so, and he saw nothing but a mass of red roses. The miracle completed his conversion. On the death of Louis “the Saint” in 1227, Elizabeth was deprived of the regency by his brother, Henry Raspe IV. (d. 1247), on the pretext that she was wasting the estates by her alms; and with her three infant children she was driven from her home without being allowed to carry with her even the barest necessaries of life. She lived for some time in great hardship, but ultimately her maternal uncle, Egbert, bishop of Bamberg, offered her an asylum in a house adjoining his palace. Through the intercession of some of the principal barons, the regency was again offered her, and her son Hermann was declared heir to the landgraviate; but renouncing all power, and making use of her wealth only for charitable purposes, she preferred to live in seclusion at Marburg under the direction of her confessor, the bigoted persecutor Conrad of Marburg. There she spent the remainder of her days in penances of unusual severity, and in ministrations to the sick, especially those afflicted with the most loathsome diseases. She died at Marburg on the 19th of November 1231, and four years afterwards was canonized by Gregory IX. on account of the frequent miracles reported to have been performed at her tomb.

The exhibition in the Royal Academy of P.H. Calderon’s picture, “St Elizabeth of Hungary’s Great Act of Renunciation,” now in the Tate Gallery in London, roused considerable protest among Catholics. The saint is represented as kneeling nude before the altar, in the presence of her confessor and a couple of nuns. The passage this is intended to illustrate is in Lib. iv. § 1 of Dietrich of Apolda’s Vita, which relates how, on a certain Good Friday, she went into a chapel and, in the presence of some Franciscan brothers, laid her hands on the bare altar, renounced her own will, her parents, children, relations, and all pomps of this kind (hujus modi) in imitation of Christ; and stripped herself utterly naked (omnino se exuit et nudavit) in order to follow Him naked, in the steps of poverty. A literal interpretation of this passage is not impossible; for ecstatic mystics of all ages have indulged in a like κενώσις, and Conrad, who revelled in inflicting religious tortures, was quite capable of imposing this crowning humiliation upon his gentle victim. It is far more probable, however, that the passage is not to be taken literally.

ELIZABETH, a city and the county-seat of Union county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on Elizabeth river, Newark Bay, and Arthur Kill, 10 m. S.W. of Jersey City. Pop. (1890) 37,764; (1900) 52,130, of whom 14,770 were foreign-born and 1139 were negroes; (1910 census) 73,409. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley and the Central of New Jersey railways. The site is level and the streets are broad and shaded. There are many residences of New York business men, and several historic buildings, including Liberty Hall, the mansion of William Livingston, first governor of the state; Boxwood Hall (now used as a home for aged women), the former home of Elias Boudinot; the old brick mansion of Jonathan Belcher (1681-1757), governor of the province from 1747 to 1757; the First Presbyterian Church; and the house occupied at different times by General Winfield Scott. The city has several parks, the Union county court house (1905), a public library and several charitable institutions. Elizabethport, that part of the city on Staten Island Sound, about 2 m. S.E. of the centre of Elizabeth, has a port open to vessels of 300 tons; it is an outlet of the Pennsylvania coal fields and is thus one of the most important coal shipping depots in the United States. Here, too, are a plant (covering more than 800 acres) of the Standard Oil Company and a large establishment for the manufacture of the “Singer” sewing machine—according to the U.S. census the largest manufactory of sewing machines in the world—employing more than 6000 workmen in 1905; among the other manufactures of Elizabeth are foundry and machine shop products (value in 1905, $3,887,139), wire, oil (value in 1905, $2,387,656), refined and smelted copper, the output of railway repair shops, edge tools and lager beer. The value of the manufactured products was $10,489,364 in 1890; $22,861,375 (factory product) in 1900; and $29,300,801 (factory product) in 1905.

Elizabeth was settled in 1665 by a company from Long Island for whom the land had been purchased from the Indians and a grant had been obtained from Richard Nicolls as agent for the duke of York. But about the same time the duke conveyed the entire province to John, Lord Berkeley, and Sir George Carteret, and these two conflicting grants gave rise to a long-continued controversy (see New Jersey). The town was named in honour of Elizabeth, wife of Sir George Carteret, and was first known as Elizabethtown. From 1665 to 1686 it was the seat of government of the province, and the legislature sat here occasionally until 1790. In the home of the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson (1688-1747), its first president, the first sessions of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) were held in 1747, but immediately afterwards the college removed to Newark. In December 1776 and twice in June 1780 the British entered Elizabeth and made it a base of operations, but on each occasion they were soon driven out. Elizabeth became a “free town and borough” in 1739; the borough charter was confirmed 288 by the legislature in 1789 and repealed in 1790, and Elizabeth was chartered as a city in 1855.

ELIZABETHAN STYLE, in architecture, the term given to the early Renaissance style in England, which flourished chiefly during the reign of Queen Elizabeth; it followed the Tudor style, and was succeeded in the beginning of the 16th century by the purer Italian style introduced by Inigo Jones. It responds to the Cinque-Cento period in Italy, the François I. style in France, and the Plateresque or Silversmith’s style in Spain. During the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. many Italian artists came over, who carried out various decorative features at Hampton Court; Layer Marney, Suffolk (1522-1525); Sutton Place, Surrey (1529); Nonsuch Palace and elsewhere. Later in the century Flemish craftsmen succeeded the Italians, and the Royal Exchange in London (1566-1570) is one of the first important buildings designed by Henri de Paschen, an architect from Antwerp. Longford Castle, Wollaton, Hatfield, Blickling, Audley End, and Charterhouse (London) all show the style introduced by Flemish workmen.

ELIZABETH CITY, a town, port of entry and the county-seat of Pasquotank county, North Carolina, U.S.A., on the Pasquotank river, at the head of navigation, 46 m. S. by E. of Norfolk, Virginia. Pop. (1890) 3251; (1900) 6348 (3164 negroes); (1910) 8412. It is served by the Norfolk & Southern, and the Suffolk & Carolina railways, and is on the Dismal Swamp and Albemarle & Chesapeake canals. Elizabeth City is a winter meeting-place for hunters. It is the seat of a state normal school for negroes and of the Atlantic Collegiate Institute, is a trucking centre, has shipyards, and has a large wholesale trade in clothing, groceries and general merchandise; from it are shipped considerable quantities of fish, cotton and lumber. The town is the port of entry of the Albemarle customs district, but its foreign trade is unimportant. Among its manufactures are cotton goods, iron, lumber, nets and twine, bricks, and carriages and wagons. The oyster fisheries in the vicinity are of considerable importance. Elizabeth City was settled in 1793, and was first incorporated in the same year.

ELK, or Moose, the largest of all the deer tribe, distinguished from other members of the Cervidae by the form of the antlers of the males. These arise as cylindrical beams projecting on each side at right angles to the middle line of the skull, which after a short distance divide in a fork-like manner. The lower prong of this fork may be either simple, or divided into two or three tines, with some flattening. In the East Siberian elk (Alces machlis bedfordiae) the posterior division of the main fork divides into three tines, with no distinct flattening. In the common elk (A. machlis or A. alces), on the other hand, this branch usually expands into a broad palmation, with one large tine at the base, and a number of smaller snags on the free border; there is, however, a phase of the Scandinavian elk in which the antlers are simpler, and recall those of the East Siberian race. The palmation appears to be more marked in the North American race (A. m. americanus) than in the typical Scandinavian elk. The largest of all is the Alaskan race (A. m. gigas), which is said to stand 8 ft. in height, with a span of 6 ft. across the antlers. The great length of the legs gives a decidedly ungainly appearance to the elk. The muzzle is long and fleshy, with only a very small triangular naked patch below the nostrils; and the males have a peculiar sac, known as the bell, hanging from the neck. From the shortness of their necks, elks are unable to graze, and their chief food consists of young shoots and leaves of willow and birch. In North America during the winter one male and several females form a “moose-yard” in the forest, which they keep open by trampling the snow. Although generally timid, the males become very bold during the breeding season, when the females utter a loud call; and at such times they fight both with their antlers and their hoofs. The usual pace is a shambling trot, but when pressed elks break into a gallop. The female gives birth to one or two young at a time, which are not spotted. In America the elk is known as the moose, and the former name is transferred to the wapiti deer.

ELKHART, a city of Elkhart county, Indiana, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Elkhart and St Joseph rivers, about 100 m. E. of Chicago. Pop. (1890) 11,360; (1900) 15,184, of whom 1353 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 19,282. Elkhart is at the junction of the western division with the main line of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railway, and is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Northern Indiana railways (the latter electric). It is attractively situated and has fine business and public buildings, including a Carnegie library and the Clark hospital, with which a nurses’ training school is connected. It has also several parks, including the beautiful Island Park and McNaughton Park, the latter the annual meeting-place of the St Joseph Valley Chautauqua. A valuable water-power is utilized for manufacturing purposes. There are extensive railway-car shops and iron and brass foundries, and the manufactures include band instruments, furniture, telephone supplies, electric transformers, bridges, paper, flour, starch, rubber goods, acetylene gas machines, printing presses, drugs and carriages. The total value of the factory product was $4,345,466 in 1905, an increase of 10.5% since 1900. At Elkhart is the main publishing house of the Mennonite Church in America, two weekly periodicals being issued, one in English, The Herald of Truth, and one in German, the Mennonitische Rundschau. The first settlement was made here about 1834; and Elkhart was chartered as a city in 1875.

ELKINGTON, GEORGE RICHARDS (1801-1865), founder of the electroplating industry in England, was born in Birmingham on the 17th of October 1801, the son of a spectacle manufacturer. Apprenticed to his uncles, silver platers in Birmingham, he became, on their death, sole proprietor of the business, but subsequently took his cousin, Henry Elkington, into partnership. The science of electrometallurgy was then in its infancy, but the Elkingtons were quick to recognize its possibilities. They had already taken out certain patents for the application of electricity to metals when, in 1840, John Wright, a Birmingham surgeon, discovered the valuable properties of a solution of cyanide of silver in cyanide of potassium for electroplating purposes. The Elkingtons purchased and patented Wright’s process, subsequently acquiring the rights of other processes and improvements. Large new works for electroplating and electrogilding were opened in Birmingham in 1841, and in the following year Josiah Mason became a partner in the firm. George Richards Elkington died on the 22nd of September 1865, and Henry Elkington on the 26th of October 1852.

ELLA, or Ælla, the name of three Anglo-Saxon kings.

Ella (d. c. 514), king of the South Saxons and founder of the kingdom of Sussex, was a Saxon ealdorman, who landed near Arundel in Sussex with his three sons in 477. Defeating the Britons, who were driven into the forest of Andredsweald, Ella and his followers established themselves along the south coast, although their progress was slow and difficult. However, in 491, strengthened by the arrival of fresh bands of immigrants, they captured the Roman city of Anderida and “slew all that were therein.” Ella, who is reckoned as the first Bretwalda, then became king of the South Saxons, and, when he died about 514, he was succeeded by his son Cissa.

Ella (d. 588), king of the Deirans, was the son of an ealdorman named Iffa, and became the first king of Deira when, in 559, the Deirans separated themselves from the neighbouring kingdom of Bernicia. The English slaves, who aroused the interest of Pope Gregory I. at Rome, were subjects of Ella, and on this occasion the pope, punning the name of their king, suggested that “Alleluia” should be sung in his land. When Ella died in 588 Deira was conquered by Bernicia. One of his sons was Edwin, afterwards king of the Northumbrians.

Ella (d. 867), king of the Northumbrians, became king about 862 on the deposition of Osbert, although he was not of royal birth. Afterwards he became reconciled with Osbert, and together they attacked the Danes, who had invaded Northumbria, and drove them into York. Rallying, however, the Danes defeated the Northumbrians, and in the encounter both Ella and Osbert were slain. In certain legends Ella is represented 289 as having brought about the Danish invasion of Northumbria by cruel and unjust actions.

ELLAND, an urban district in the Elland parliamentary division of Yorkshire, England, on the Calder, 2½ m. S. of Halifax by the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1901) 10,412. The church of St Mary is Decorated and Perpendicular. Cotton-mills, woollen-factories, ironworks, flagstone quarries at Elland Edge, and fire-clay works employ the industrial population. Elland Hall, though almost rebuilt, retains the recollection of a remarkable family feud between the Ellands and the Beaumonts of Crosland Hall, the site of which may be traced in the vicinity. A nephew of Sir John Elland, in 1342, met death at the hands of a relative of the Beaumonts upon whom Sir John took vengeance, as also upon the heads of the allied houses of Lockwood and Quarmby. The children of these families were educated in the hope of avenging their parents, and after many years succeeded in doing so, cutting off Sir John Elland and his heir.

ELLENBOROUGH, EDWARD LAW, 1st Baron (1750-1818), English judge, was born on the 16th of November 1750, at Great Salkeld, in Cumberland, of which place his father, Edmund Law (1703-1787), afterwards bishop of Carlisle, was at the time rector. Educated at the Charterhouse and at Peterhouse, Cambridge, he passed as third wrangler, and was soon afterwards elected to a fellowship at Trinity. In spite of his father’s strong wish that he should take orders, he chose the legal profession, and on quitting the university was entered at Lincoln’s Inn. After spending five years as a special pleader under the bar, he was called to the bar in 1780. He chose the northern circuit, and in a very short time obtained a lucrative practice and a high reputation. In 1787 he was appointed principal counsel for Warren Hastings in the celebrated impeachment trial before the House of Lords, and the ability with which he conducted the defence was universally recognized. He had begun his political career as a Whig, but, like many others, he saw in the French Revolution a reason for changing sides, and became a supporter of Pitt. On the formation of the Addington ministry in 1801, he was appointed attorney-general and shortly afterwards was returned to the House of Commons as member for Newtown in the Isle of Wight. In 1802 he succeeded Lord Kenyon as chief justice of the king’s bench. On being raised to the bench he was created a peer, taking his title from the village of Ellenborough in Cumberland, where his maternal ancestors had long held a small patrimony. In 1806, on the formation of Lord Grenville’s ministry “of all the talents,” Lord Ellenborough declined the offer of the great seal, but accepted a seat in the cabinet. His doing so while he retained the chief justiceship was much criticized at the time, and, though not without precedent, was open to such obvious objections on constitutional grounds that the experiment has not since been repeated. As a judge he had grave faults, though his decisions displayed profound legal knowledge, and in mercantile law especially were reckoned of high authority. He was harsh and overbearing to counsel, and in the political trials which were so frequent in his time showed an unmistakable bias against the accused. In the trial of William Hone (q.v.) for blasphemy in 1817, Ellenborough directed the jury to find a verdict of guilty, and their acquittal of the prisoner is generally said to have hastened his death. He resigned his judicial office in November 1818, and died on the 13th of December following.

Ellenborough was succeeded as 2nd baron by his eldest son, Edward, afterwards earl of Ellenborough; another son was Charles Ewan Law (1792-1850), recorder of London and member of parliament for Cambridge University from 1835 until his death in August 1850.

Three of Ellenborough’s brothers attained some degree of fame. These were John Law (1745-1810), bishop of Elphin; Thomas Law (1759-1834), who settled in the United States in 1793, and married, as his second wife, Anne, a granddaughter of Martha Washington; and George Henry Law (1761-1845), bishop of Chester and of Bath and Wells. The connexion of the Law family with the English Church was kept up by George Henry’s sons, three of whom took orders. Two of these were Henry Law (1797-1884), dean of Gloucester, and James Thomas Law (1790-1876), chancellor of the diocese of Lichfield.

ELLENBOROUGH, EDWARD LAW, Earl of (1790-1871), the eldest son of the 1st Lord Ellenborough, was born on the 8th of September 1790. He was educated at Eton and St John’s College, Cambridge. He represented the subsequently disfranchised borough of St Michael’s, Cornwall, in the House of Commons, until the death of his father in 1818 gave him a seat in the House of Lords. He was twice married; his only child died young; his second wife was divorced by act of parliament in 1830.

In the Wellington administration of 1828 Ellenborough was made lord privy seal; he took a considerable share in the business of the foreign office, as an unofficial assistant to Wellington, who was a great admirer of his talents. He aimed at succeeding Lord Dudley at the foreign office, but was forced to content himself with the presidency of the board of control, which he retained until the fall of the ministry in 1830. Ellenborough was an active administrator, and took a lively interest in questions of Indian policy. The revision of the company’s charter was approaching, and he held that the government of India should be transferred directly to the crown. He was impressed with the growing importance of a knowledge of central Asia, in the event of a Russian advance towards the Indian frontier, and despatched Burnes on an exploring mission to that district. Ellenborough subsequently returned to the board of control in Peel’s first and second administrations. He had only held office for a month on the third occasion when he was appointed by the court of directors to succeed Lord Auckland as governor-general of India. His Indian administration of two and a half years, or half the usual term of service, was from first to last a subject of hostile criticism. His own letters sent monthly to the queen, and his correspondence with the duke of Wellington, published in 1874, afford material for an intelligent and impartial judgment of his meteoric career. The events chiefly in dispute are his policy towards Afghanistan and the army and captives there, his conquest of Sind, and his campaign in Gwalior.

Ellenborough went to India in order “to restore peace to Asia,” but the whole term of his office was occupied in war. On his arrival there the news that greeted him was that of the massacre of Kabul, and the sieges of Ghazni and Jalalabad, while the sepoys of Madras were on the verge of open mutiny. In his proclamation of the 15th of March 1842, as in his memorandum for the queen dated the 18th, he stated with characteristic clearness and eloquence the duty of first inflicting some signal and decisive blow on the Afghans, and then leaving them to govern themselves under the sovereign of their own choice. Unhappily, when he left his council for upper India, and learned the trifling failure of General England, he instructed Pollock and Nott, who were advancing triumphantly with their avenging columns to rescue the British captives, to fall back. The army proved true to the governor-general’s earlier proclamation rather than to his later fears; the hostages were rescued, the scene of Sir Alexander Burnes’s murder in the heart of Kabul was burned down. Dost Mahommed was quietly dismissed from a prison in Calcutta to the throne in the Bala Hissar, and Ellenborough presided over the painting of the elephants for an unprecedented military spectacle at Ferozepur, on the south bank of the Sutlej. But this was not the only piece of theatrical display which capped with ridicule the horrors and the follies of these four years in Afghanistan. When Sultan Mahmud, in 1024, sacked the Hindu temple of Somnath on the north-west coast of India, he carried off, with the treasures, the richly studded sandal-wood gates of the fane, and set them up in his 290 capital of Ghazni. The Mahommedan puppet of the English, Shah Shuja, had been asked, when ruler of Afghanistan, to restore them to India; and what he had failed to do the Christian ruler of opposing Mahommedans and Hindus resolved to effect in the most solemn and public manner. In vain had Major (afterwards Sir Henry) Rawlinson proved that they were only reproductions of the original gates, to which the Ghazni moulvies clung merely as a source of offerings from the faithful who visited the old conqueror’s tomb. In vain did the Hindu sepoys show the most chilling indifference to the belauded restoration. Ellenborough could not resist the temptation to copy Napoleon’s magniloquent proclamation under the pyramids. The fraudulent folding doors were conveyed on a triumphal car to the fort of Agra, where they were found to be made not of sandalwood but of deal. That Somnath proclamation (immortalized in a speech by Macaulay) was the first step towards its author’s recall.

Hardly had Ellenborough issued his medal with the legend “Pax Asiae Restituta” when he was at war with the amirs of Sind. The tributary amirs had on the whole been faithful, for Major (afterwards Sir James) Outram controlled them. But he had reported the opposition of a few, and Ellenborough ordered an inquiry. His instructions were admirable, in equity as well as energy, and if Outram had been left to carry them out all would have been well. But the duty was entrusted to Sir Charles Napier, with full political as well as military powers. And to add to the evil, Mir Ali Morad intrigued with both sides so effectually that he betrayed the amirs on the one hand, while he deluded Sir Charles Napier to their destruction on the other. Ellenborough was led on till events were beyond his control, and his own just and merciful instructions were forgotten. Sir Charles Napier made more than one confession like this: “We have no right to seize Sind, yet we shall do so, and a very advantageous, useful and humane piece of rascality it will be.” The battles of Meeanee and Hyderabad followed; and the Indus became a British river from Karachi to Multan.

Sind had hardly been disposed of when troubles arose on both sides of the governor-general, who was then at Agra. On the north the disordered kingdom of the Sikhs was threatening the frontier. In Gwalior to the south, the feudatory Mahratta state, there were a large mutinous army, a Ranee only twelve years of age, an adopted chief of eight, and factions in the council of ministers. These conditions brought Gwalior to the verge of civil war. Ellenborough reviewed the danger in the minute of the 1st of November 1845, and told Sir Hugh Gough to advance. Further treachery and military licence rendered the battles of Maharajpur and Punniar, fought on the same day, inevitable though they were, a surprise to the combatants. The treaty that followed was as merciful as it was wise. The pacification of Gwalior also had its effect beyond the Sutlej, where anarchy was restrained for yet another year, and the work of civilization was left to Ellenborough’s two successors. But by this time the patience of the directors was exhausted. They had no control over Ellenborough’s policy; his despatches to them were haughty and disrespectful; and in June 1844 they exercised their power of recalling him.

On his return to England Ellenborough was created an earl and received the thanks of parliament; but his administration speedily became the theme of hostile debates, though it was successfully vindicated by Peel and Wellington. When Peel’s cabinet was reconstituted in 1846 Ellenborough became first lord of the admiralty. In 1858 he took office under Lord Derby as president of the board of control, for the fourth time. It was then his congenial task to draft the new scheme for the government of India which the mutiny had rendered necessary. But his old fault of impetuosity again proved his stumbling-block. He wrote a caustic despatch censuring Lord Canning for the Oudh proclamation, and allowed it to be published in The Times without consulting his colleagues, who disavowed his action in this respect. General disapprobation was excited; votes of censure were announced in both Houses; and, to save the cabinet, Ellenborough resigned.

But for this act of rashness he might have enjoyed the task of carrying into effect the home constitution for the government of India which he sketched in his evidence before the select committee of the House of Commons on Indian territories on the 8th of June 1852. Paying off his old score against the East India Company, he then advocated the abolition of the court of directors as a governing body, the opening of the civil service to the army, the transference of the government to the crown, and the appointment of a council to advise the minister who should take the place of the president of the board of control. These suggestions of 1852 were carried out by his successor Lord Stanley, afterwards earl of Derby, in 1858, so closely even in details, that Lord Ellenborough must be pronounced the author, for good or evil, of the present home constitution of the government of India. Though acknowledged to be one of the foremost orators in the House of Lords, and taking a frequent part in debate, Ellenborough never held office again. He died at his seat, Southam House, near Cheltenham, on the 22nd of December 1871, when the barony reverted to his nephew Charles Edmund Law (1820-1890), the earldom becoming extinct.

ELLERY, WILLIAM (1727-1820), American politician, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Newport, Rhode Island, on the 22nd of December 1727. He graduated from Harvard in 1747, engaged in trade, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1770. He was a member of the Rhode Island committee of safety in 1775-1776, and was a delegate in Congress in 1776-1781 and again in 1783-1785. Just after his first election to Congress, he was placed on the important marine committee, and he was made a member of the board of admiralty when it was established in 1779. In April 1786 he was elected commissioner of the continental loan office for the state of Rhode Island and from 1790 until his death at Newport, on the 15th of February 1820, he was collector of the customs for the district of Newport.

ELLESMERE, FRANCIS EGERTON, 1st Earl of (1800-1857), born in London on the 1st of January 1800, was the second son of the 1st duke of Sutherland. He was known by his patronymic as Lord Francis Leveson Gower until 1833, when he assumed the surname of Egerton alone, having succeeded on the death of his father to the estates which the latter inherited from the duke of Bridgewater. Educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, he entered parliament soon after attaining his majority as member for the pocket borough of Bletchingly in Surrey. He afterwards sat for Sutherlandshire and for South Lancashire, which he represented when he was elevated to the peerage as earl of Ellesmere and Viscount Brackley in 1846. In politics he was a moderate Conservative of independent views, as was shown by his supporting the proposal for establishing the university of London, by his making and carrying a motion for the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, and by his advocating free trade long before Sir Robert Peel yielded on the question. Appointed a lord of the treasury in 1827, he held the post of chief secretary for Ireland from 1828 till July 1830, when he became secretary-at-war for a short time. His claims to remembrance are founded chiefly on his services to literature and the fine arts. Before he was twenty he printed for private circulation a volume of poems, which he followed up after a short interval by the publication of a translation of Goethe’s Faust, one of the earliest that appeared in England, with some translations of German lyrics and a few original poems. In 1839 he visited the Mediterranean and the Holy Land. His impressions of travel were recorded in his very agreeably written Mediterranean Sketches (1843), and in the notes to a poem entitled The Pilgrimage. He published several other works in prose and verse, all displaying a fine literary taste. His literary reputation 291 secured for him the position of rector of Aberdeen University in 1841. Lord Ellesmere was a munificent and yet discriminating patron of artists. To the splendid collection of pictures which he inherited from his great-uncle, the 3rd duke of Bridgewater, he made numerous additions, and he built a noble gallery to which the public were allowed free access. Lord Ellesmere served as president of the Royal Geographical Society and as president of the Royal Asiatic Society, and he was a trustee of the National Gallery. He died on the 18th of February 1857. He was succeeded by his son (1823-1862) as 2nd earl, and his grandson (b. 1847) as 3rd earl.

ELLESMERE, a market town in the Oswestry parliamentary division of Shropshire, England, on the main line of the Cambrian railway, 182 m. N.W. from London. Pop. of urban district (1901) 1945. It is prettily situated on the west shore of the mere or small lake from which it takes its name, while in the neighbourhood are other sheets of water, as Blake Mere, Cole Mere, White Mere, Newton Mere and Crose Mere. The church of St Mary is of various styles from Norman onward, but was partly rebuilt in 1848. The site of the castle is occupied by pleasure gardens, commanding an extensive view from high ground. The town hall contains a library and a natural history collection. The college is a large boys’ school. The town is an important agricultural centre. Ellesmere canal, a famous work of Thomas Telford, connects the Severn with the Mersey, crossing the Vale of Llangollen by an immense aqueduct, 336 yds. long and 127 ft. high.

The manor of Ellesmere (Ellesmeles) belonged before the Conquest to Earl Edwin of Mercia, and was granted by William the Conqueror to Roger, earl of Shrewsbury, whose son, Robert de Belesme, forfeited it in 1112 for treason against Henry I. In 1177 Henry II. gave it with his sister in marriage to David, son of Owen, prince of North Wales, after whose death it was retained by King John, who in 1206 granted it to his daughter Joan on her marriage with Llewellyn, prince of North Wales; it was finally surrendered to Henry III. by David, son of Llewellyn, about 1240. Ellesmere owed its early importance to its position on the Welsh borders and to its castle, which was in ruins, however, in 1349. While Ellesmere was in the hands of Joan, lady of Wales, she granted to the borough all the free customs of Breteuil. The town was governed by a bailiff appointed by a jury at one of the court leets of the lord of the manor, until a local board was formed in 1859. In 1221 Henry III. granted Llewellyn, prince of Wales, a market on Thursdays in Ellesmere. The inquisition taken in 1383 after the death of Roger le Straunge (Lord Strange), lord of Ellesmere, shows that he also held two fairs there on the feasts of St Martin and the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. By 1597 the market had been discontinued on account of the plague by which many of the inhabitants had died, and the queen granted that Sir Edward Kynaston, Kt., and thirteen others might hold a market every Thursday and a fair on the 3rd of November. Since 1792 both have been discontinued. The commerce of Ellesmere has always been chiefly agricultural.

ELLICE (LAGOON) ISLANDS, an archipelago of the Pacific Ocean, lying between 5° and 11° S. and about 178° E., nearly midway between Fiji and Gilbert. It is under British protection, being annexed in 1892. It comprises a large number of low coralline islands and atolls, which are disposed in nine clusters extending over a distance of about 400 m. in the direction from N.W. to S.E. Their total area is 14 sq. m. and the population is about 2400. The chief groups, all yielding coco-nuts, pandanus fruit and yams, are Funafuti or Ellice, Nukulailai or Mitchell, Nurakita or Sophia, Nukufetau or De Peyster, Nui or Egg, Nanomana or Hudson, and Niutao or Lynx. Nearly all the natives are Christians, Protestant missions having been long established in several of the islands. Those of Nui speak the language of the Gilbert islanders, and have a tradition that they came some generations ago from that group. All the others are of Samoan speech, and their tradition that they came thirty generations back from Samoa is supported by recent research. They have an ancient spear which they believe was brought from Samoa, and they actually name the valley from which their ancestors started. A missionary visiting the Samoan valley found there a tradition of a party who put to sea never to return, and he also found the wood of which the staff was made growing plentifully in the district. Borings and soundings taken at Funafuti in 1897 indicate almost beyond doubt that the whole of this Polynesian region is an area of comparatively recent subsidence.

ELLICHPUR, or Illichpur, a town of India in the Amraoti district of Berar. Pop. (1901) 26,082. It is first mentioned authentically in the 13th century as “one of the famous cities of the Deccan.” Though tributary to the Mahommedans after 1294, it remained under Hindu administration till 1318, when it came directly under the Mahommedans. It was afterwards capital of the province of Berar at intervals until the Mogul occupation, when the seat of the provincial governor was moved to Balapur. The town retains many relics of the nawabs of Berar. It has ginning factories and a considerable trade in cotton and forest produce. It is connected by good roads with Amraoti and Chikalda. It was formerly the headquarters of the district of Ellichpur, which had an area of 2605 sq. m. and a population in 1901 of 297,403. This district, however, was merged in that of Amraoti in 1905. The civil station of Paratwada, 2 m. from the town of Ellichpur, contains the principal public buildings.

ELLIOTSON, JOHN (1791-1868), English physician, was born at Southwark, London, on the 29th of October 1791. He studied medicine first at Edinburgh and then at Cambridge, in both which places he took the degree of M.D., and subsequently in London at St Thomas’s and Guy’s hospitals. In 1831 he was elected professor of the principles and practice of physic in London University, and in 1834 he became physician to University College hospital. He was a student of phrenology and mesmerism, and his interest in the latter eventually brought him into collision with the medical committee of the hospital, a circumstance which led him, in December 1838, to resign the offices held by him there and at the university. But he continued the practice of mesmerism, holding séances in his home and editing a magazine, The Zoist, devoted to the subject, and in 1849 he founded a mesmeric hospital. He died in London on the 29th of July 1868. Elliotson was one of the first teachers in London to appreciate the value of clinical lecturing, and one of the earliest among British physicians to advocate the employment of the stethoscope. He wrote a translation of Blumenbach’s Institutiones Physiologicae (1817); Cases of the Hydrocyanic or Prussic Acid (1820); Lectures on Diseases of the Heart (1830); Principles and Practice of Medicine (1839); Human Physiology (1840); and Surgical Operations in the Mesmeric State without Pain (1843). He was the author of numerous papers in the Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, of which he was at one time president; and he was also a fellow both of the Royal College of Physicians and Royal Society, and founder and president of the Phrenological Society. W.M. Thackeray’s Pendennis was dedicated to him.

ELLIOTT, EBENEZER (1781-1849), English poet, the “corn-law rhymer,” was born at Masborough, near Rotherham, Yorkshire, on the 17th of March 1781. His father, who was an extreme Calvinist and a strong radical, was engaged in the iron trade. Young Ebenezer, although one of a large family, had a solitary and rather morbid childhood. He was sent to various schools, but was generally regarded as a dunce, and when he was sixteen years of age he entered his father’s foundry, working for seven years with no wages beyond a little pocket money. In a fragment of autobiography printed in the Athenaeum (12th of January 1850) he says that he was entirely self-taught, and attributes his poetic development to long country walks undertaken in search of wild flowers, and to a collection of books, including the works of Young, Barrow, Shenstone and Milton, bequeathed to his father by a poor clergyman. At seventeen he wrote his Vernal Walk in imitation of Thomson. His earlier volumes of poems, dealing with romantic themes, received little but unfriendly comment. The faults of Night, the earliest of 292 these, are pointed out in a long and friendly letter (30th of January 1819) from Robert Southey to the author.

Elliott’s wife brought him some money, which was invested in his father’s share of the iron foundry. But the affairs of the firm were then in a desperate condition, and money difficulties hastened his father’s death. Elliott lost all his money, and when he was forty years old began business again in Sheffield on a small borrowed capital. He attributed his father’s pecuniary losses and his own to the operation of the corn laws. He took an active part in the Chartist agitation, but withdrew his support when the agitation for the repeal of the corn laws was removed from the Chartist programme. The fervour of his political convictions effected a change in the style and tenor of his verse. The Corn-Law Rhymes (3rd ed., 1831), inspired by a fierce hatred of injustice, are vigorous, simple and full of vivid description. In 1833-1835 he published The Splendid Village; Corn-Law Rhymes, and other Poems (3 vols.), which included “The Village Patriarch” (1829), “The Ranter,” an unsuccessful drama, “Keronah,” and other pieces. He contributed verses from time to time to Tait’s Magazine and to the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent. In the meantime he had been successful in business, but he remained the sturdy champion of the poor. In 1837 he again lost a great deal of money. This misfortune was also ascribed to the corn laws. He retired in 1841 with a small fortune and settled at Great Houghton, near Barnsley, where he died on the 1st of December 1849. In 1850 appeared two volumes of More Prose and Verse by the Corn-Law Rhymer. Elliott lives by his determined opposition to the “bread-tax,” as he called it, and his poems on the subject are saved from the common fate of political poetry by their transparent sincerity and passionate earnestness.

ELLIPSE (adapted from Gr. ἔλλειψις, a deficiency, ἐλλείπειν, to fall behind), in mathematics, a conic section, having the form of a closed oval. It admits of several definitions framed according to the aspect from which the curve is considered. In solido, i.e. as a section of a cone or cylinder, it may be defined, after Menaechmus, as the perpendicular section of an “acute-angled” cone; or, after Apollonius of Perga, as the section of any cone by a plane at a less inclination to the base than a generator; or as an oblique section of a right cylinder. Definitions in plano are generally more useful; of these the most important are: (1) the ellipse is the conic section which has its eccentricity less than unity: this involves the notion of one directrix and one focus; (2) the ellipse is the locus of a point the sum of whose distances from two fixed points is constant: this involves the notion of two foci. Other geometrical definitions are: it is the oblique projection of a circle; the polar reciprocal of a circle for a point within it; and the conic which intersects the line at infinity in two imaginary points. Analytically it is defined by an equation of the second degree of which the highest terms represent two imaginary lines. The curve has important mechanical relations, in particular it is the orbit of a particle moving under the influence of a central force which varies inversely as the square of the distance of the particle; this is the gravitational law of force, and the curve consequently represents the orbits of the planets if only an individual planet and the sun be considered; the other planets, however, disturb this orbit (see Mechanics).

The relation of the ellipse to the other conic sections is treated in the articles Conic Section and Geometry; in this article a summary of the properties of the curve will be given.

ELLIPSOID, a quadric surface whose sections are ellipses. Analytically, it has for its equation x²/a² + y²/b² + z²/c² = 1, a, b, c being its axes; the name is also given to the solid contained by this surface (see Geometry: Analytical). The solids and surfaces of revolution of the ellipse are sometimes termed ellipsoids, but it is advisable to use the name spheroid (q.v.).

The ellipsoid appears in the mathematical investigation of physical properties of media in which the particular property varies in three directions within the media; such properties are the elasticity, giving rise to the strain ellipsoid, thermal expansion, ellipsoid of expansion, thermal conduction, refractive index (see Crystallography), &c. In mechanics, the ellipsoid of gyration or inertia is such that the perpendicular from the centre to a tangent plane is equal to the radius of gyration of the given body about the perpendicular as axis; the “momental ellipsoid,” also termed the “inverse ellipsoid of inertia” or Poinsot’s ellipsoid, has the perpendicular inversely proportional to the radius of gyration; the “equimomental ellipsoid” is such that its moments of inertia about all axes are the same as those of a given body. (See Mechanics.)

ELLIPTICITY, in astronomy, deviation from a circular or spherical form; applied to the elliptic orbits of heavenly bodies, or the spheroidal form of such bodies. (See also Compression.)

ELLIS (originally Sharpe), ALEXANDER JOHN (1814-1890), English philologist, mathematician, musician and writer on phonetics, was born at Hoxton on the 14th of June 1814. He was educated at Shrewsbury, Eton, and Trinity College, Cambridge, and took his degree in high mathematical honours. He was connected with many learned societies as member or president, and was governor of University College, London. He was the first in England to reduce the study of phonetics to a science. His most important work, to which the greater part of his life was devoted, is On Early English Pronunciation, with special reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer (1869-1889), in five parts, which he intended to supplement by a sixth, containing an abstract of the whole, an account of the views and criticisms of other inquirers in the same field, and a complete index, but ill-health prevented him from carrying out his intention. He had long been associated with Isaac Pitman in his attempts to reform English spelling, and published A Plea for Phonotypy and Phonography (1845) and A Plea for Phonetic Spelling (1848); and contributed the articles on “Phonetics” and “Speech-sounds” to the 9th edition of the Ency. Brit. He translated (with considerable additions) Helmholtz’s Sensations of Tone as a physiological Basis for the Theory of Music (2nd ed., 1885); and was the author of several smaller works on music, chiefly in connexion with his favourite subject phonetics. He died in London on the 28th of October 1890.

ELLIS, GEORGE (1753-1815), English author, was born in London in 1753. Educated at Westminster school and at Trinity College, Cambridge, he began his literary career by some satirical verses on Bath society published in 1777, and Poetical Tales, by “Sir Gregory Gander,” in 1778. He contributed to the Rolliad and the Probationary Odes political satires directed against Pitt’s administration. He was employed in diplomatic business at the Hague in 1784; and in 1797 he accompanied Lord Malmesbury to Lille as secretary to the embassy. On his return he was introduced to Pitt, and the episode of the Rolliad, which had not been forgotten, was explained. He found continued scope for his powers as a political caricaturist in the columns of the Anti-Jacobin, a weekly paper which he founded in connexion with George Canning and William Gifford. For some years before the Anti-Jacobin was started Ellis had been working in the congenial field of Early English literature, in which he was one of the first to arouse interest. The first edition of his Specimens of the Early English Poets appeared in 1790; and this was followed by Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances (1805). He also edited Gregory Lewis Way’s translation of select Fabliaux in 1796. Ellis was an intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott, who styled him “the first converser I ever saw,” and dedicated to him the fifth canto of Marmion. Some of the correspondence between them is to be found in Lockhart’s Life. He died on the 10th of April 1815. The monument erected to his memory in the parish church of Gunning Hill, Berks, bears a fine inscription by Canning.

ELLIS, SIR HENRY (1777-1869), English antiquary, was born in London on the 29th of November 1777. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ school, and at St John’s College, Oxford, of which he was elected a fellow. After having held for a few months a sub-librarianship in the Bodleian, he was in 1800 appointed to a similar post in the British Museum. In 1827 he became chief librarian, and held that post until 1856, when he resigned on account of advancing age. In 1832 William IV. made him a knight of Hanover, and in the following year he received an English knighthood. He died on the 15th of January 1869. Sir Henry Ellis’s life was one of very considerable literary activity. His first work of importance was the preparation of a new edition of Brand’s Popular Antiquities, which appeared in 1813. In 1816 he was selected by the commissioners of public 294 records to write the introduction to Domesday Book, a task which he discharged with much learning, though several of his views have not stood the test of later criticism. His Original Letters Illustrative of English History (first series, 1824; second series, 1827; third series, 1846) are compiled chiefly from manuscripts in the British Museum and the State Paper Office, and have been of considerable service to historical writers. To the Library of Entertaining Knowledge he contributed four volumes on the Elgin and Townley Marbles. Sir Henry was for many years a director and joint-secretary of the Society of Antiquaries.

ELLIS, ROBINSON (1834-  ), English classical scholar, was born at Barming, near Maidstone, on the 5th of September 1834. He was educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, Rugby, and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1858 he became fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and in 1870 professor of Latin at University College, London. In 1876 he returned to Oxford, where from 1883 to 1893 he held the university readership in Latin. In 1893 he succeeded Henry Nettleship as professor. His chief work has been on Catullus, whom he began to study in 1859. His first Commentary on Catullus (1876) aroused great interest, and called forth a flood of criticism. In 1889 appeared a second and enlarged edition, which placed its author in the first rank of authorities on Catullus. Professor Ellis quotes largely from the early Italian commentators, maintaining that the land where the Renaissance originated had done more for scholarship than is commonly recognized. He has supplemented his critical work by a translation (1871, dedicated to Tennyson) of the poems in the metres of the originals. Another author to whom Professor Ellis has devoted many years’ study is Manilius, the astrological poet. In 1891 he published Noctes Manilianae, a series of dissertations on the Astronomica, with emendations. He has also treated Avianus, Velleius Paterculus and the Christian poet Orientius, whom he edited for the Vienna Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum. He edited the Ibis of Ovid, the Aetna of the younger Lucilius, and contributed to the Anecdota Oxoniensia various unedited Bodleian and other manuscripts. In 1907 he published Appendix Vergiliana (an edition of the minor poems); in 1908 The Annalist Licinianus.

ELLIS, WILLIAM (1794-1872), English Nonconformist missionary, was born in London on the 29th of August 1794. His boyhood and youth were spent at Wisbeach, where he worked as a market-gardener. In 1814 he offered himself to the London Missionary Society, and was accepted. During a year’s training he acquired some knowledge of theology and of various practical arts, such as printing and bookbinding. He sailed for the South Sea Islands in January 1816, and remained in Polynesia, occupying various stations in succession, until 1824, when he was compelled to return home on account of the state of his wife’s health. Though the period of his residence in the islands was thus comparatively short, his labours were very fruitful, contributing perhaps as much as those of any other missionary to bring about the extraordinary improvement in the religious, moral and social condition of the Pacific Archipelago that took place during the 19th century. Besides promoting the spiritual object of his mission, he introduced many other aids to the improvement of the condition of the people. His gardening experience enabled him successfully to acclimatize many species of tropical fruits and plants, and he set up and worked the first printing press in the South Seas. Returning home by way of the United States, where he advocated his work, Ellis was for some years employed as a travelling agent of the London Missionary Society, and in 1832 was appointed foreign secretary to the society, an office which he held for seven years. In 1837 he married his second wife, Sarah Stickney, a writer and teacher of some note in her generation. In 1841 he went to live at Hoddesdon, Herts, and ministered to a small Congregational church there. On behalf of the London Missionary Society he paid three visits to Madagascar (1853-1857), inquiring into the prospects for resuming the work that had been suspended by Queen Ranavolona’s hostility. A further visit was paid in 1863. Ellis wrote accounts of all his travels, and Southey’s praise (in the Quarterly Review) of his Polynesian Researches (2 vols., 1829) finds many echoes. He was a fearless, upright and tactful man, and a keen observer of nature. He died on the 25th of June 1872.

ELLISTON, ROBERT WILLIAM (1774-1831), English actor, was born in London on the 7th of April 1774, the son of a watchmaker. He was educated at St Paul’s school, but ran away from home and made his first appearance on the stage as Tressel in Richard III. at Bath in 1791. Here he was later seen as Romeo, and in other leading parts, both comic and tragic, and he repeated his successes in London from 1796. He acted at Drury Lane from 1804 to 1809, and again from 1812; and from 1819 he was the lessee of the house, presenting Kean, Mme Vestris and Macready. Ill-health and misfortune culminated in his bankruptcy in 1826, when he made his last appearance at Drury Lane as Falstaff. But as lessee of the Surrey theatre he acted almost up to his death, which was hastened by intemperance. Leigh Hunt compared him favourably with Garrick; Byron thought him inimitable in high comedy; Macready praised his versatility. Elliston was the author of The Venetian Outlaw (1805), and, with Francis Godolphin Waldron, of No Prelude (1803), in both of which plays he appeared.

ELLORA, a village of India in the native state of Hyderabad, near the city of Daulatabad, famous for its rock temples, which are among the finest in India. They are first mentioned by Ma′sudi, the Arabic geographer of the 10th century, but merely as a celebrated place of pilgrimage. The caves differ from those of Ajanta in consequence of their being excavated in the sloping sides of a hill and not in a nearly perpendicular cliff. They extend along the face of the hill for a mile and a quarter, and are divided into three distinct series, the Buddhist, the Brahmanical and the Jain, and are arranged almost chronologically. The most splendid of the whole series is the Kailas, a perfect Dravidian temple, complete in all its parts, characterized by Fergusson as one of the most wonderful and interesting monuments of architectural art in India. It is not a mere interior chamber cut in the rock, but is a model of a complete temple such as might have been erected on the plain. In other words, the rock has been cut away externally as well as internally. First the great sunken court measuring 276 ft. by 154 ft. was hewn out of the solid trap-rock of the hillside, leaving the rock mass of the temple wholly detached in a cloistered court like a colossal boulder, save that a rock bridge once connected the upper storey of the temple with the upper row of galleried chambers surrounding three sides of the court. Colossal elephants and obelisks stand on either side of the open mandapam, or pavilion, containing the sacred bull; and beyond rises the monolithic Dravidian temple to Siva, 90 ft. in height, hollowed into vestibule, chamber and image-cells, all lavishly carved. Time and earthquakes have weathered and broken away bits of the great monument, and Moslem zealots strove to destroy the carved figures, but these defects are hardly noticed. The temple was built by Krishna I., Rashtrakuta, king of Malkhed in 760-783.

ELLORE, a town of British India, in the Kistna district of Madras, on the East Coast railway, 303 m. from Madras. Pop. (1901) 33,521. The two canal systems of the Godavari and the Kistna deltas meet here. There are manufactures of cotton and saltpetre, and an important Church of England high school. Ellore was formerly a military station, and the capital of the Northern Circars. At Pedda Vegi to the north of it are extensive ruins, which are believed to be remains of the Buddhist kingdom of Vengi. From these the Mahommedans, after their conquest of the district in 1470, obtained material for building a fort at Ellore.

ELLSWORTH, OLIVER (1745-1807), American statesman and jurist, was born at Windsor, Connecticut, on the 29th of April 1745. He studied at Yale and Princeton, graduating from the latter in 1766, studied theology for a year, then law, and began to practise at Hartford in 1771. He was state’s attorney for Hartford county from 1777 to 1785, and achieved extraordinary success at the bar, amassing what was for his day a large fortune. From 1773 to 1775 he represented the town of Windsor in the general assembly of Connecticut, and in the latter year became a member of the important commission known as the “Pay Table,” which supervised the colony’s expenditures 295 for military purposes during the War of Independence. In 1779 he again sat in the assembly, this time representing Hartford. From 1777 to 1783 he was a member of the Continental Congress, and in this body he served on three important committees, the marine committee, the board of treasury, and the committee of appeals, the predecessors respectively of the navy and treasury departments and the Supreme Court under the Federal Constitution. From 1780 to 1785 he was a member of the governor’s council of Connecticut, which, with the lower house before 1784 and alone from 1784 to 1807, constituted a supreme court of errors; and from 1785 to 1789 he was a judge of the state superior court. In 1787, with Roger Sherman and William Samuel Johnson (1727-1819), he was one of Connecticut’s delegates to the constitutional convention at Philadelphia, in which his services were numerous and important. In particular, when disagreement seemed inevitable on the question of representation, he, with Roger Sherman, proposed what is known as the “Connecticut Compromise,” by which the Federal legislature was made to consist of two houses, the upper having equal representation from each state, the lower being chosen on the basis of population. Ellsworth also made a determined stand against a national paper currency. Being compelled to leave the convention before its adjournment, he did not sign the instrument, but used his influence to secure its ratification by his native state. From 1789 to 1796 he was one of the first senators from Connecticut under the new Constitution. In the senate he was looked upon as President Washington’s personal spokesman and as the leader of the Administration party. His most important service to his country was without a doubt in connexion with the establishment of the Federal judiciary. As chairman of the committee having the matter in charge, he drafted the bill by the enactment of which the system of Federal courts, almost as it is to-day, was established. He also took a leading part in the senate in securing the passage of laws for funding the national debt, assuming the state debts and establishing a United States bank. It was Ellsworth who suggested to Washington the sending of John Jay to England to negotiate a new treaty with Great Britain, and he probably did more than any other man to induce the senate, despite widespread and violent opposition, to ratify that treaty when negotiated. By President Washington’s appointment he became chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in March 1796, and in 1799 President John Adams sent him, with William Vans Murray (1762-1803) and William R. Davie (1756-1820), to negotiate a new treaty with France. It was largely through the influence of Ellsworth, who took the principal part in the negotiations, that Napoleon consented to a convention, of the 30th of September 1800, which secured for citizens of the United States their ships captured by France but not yet condemned as prizes, provided for freedom of commerce between the two nations, stipulated that “free ships shall give a freedom to goods,” and contained provisions favourable to neutral commerce. While he was abroad, failing health compelled him (1800) to resign the chief-justiceship, and after some months in England he returned to America in 1801. In 1803 he was again elected to the governor’s council, and in 1807, on the reorganization of the Connecticut judiciary, was appointed chief justice of the new Supreme Court. He never took office, however, but died at his home in Windsor on the 27th of November 1807.

ELLSWORTH, a city, port of entry and the county seat of Hancock county, Maine, U.S.A., at the head of navigation on the Union river (and about 3¾ m. from its mouth), about 30 m. S.E. of Bangor. Pop. (1890) 4804; (1900) 4297 (189 foreign-born); (1910) 3549. It is served by the Maine Central railway. The fall of the river, about 85 ft. in 2 m., furnishes good water-power, and the city has various manufactures, including lumber, shoes, woollens, sails, carriages and foundry and machine shop products, besides a large lumber trade. Shipbuilding was formerly important. There is a large United States fish hatchery here. The city is the port of entry for the Frenchman’s Bay customs district, but its foreign trade is unimportant. Ellsworth was first settled in 1763 and for some time was called New Bowdoin; but when it was incorporated as a town in 1800 the present name was adopted in honour of Oliver Ellsworth. A city charter was secured in 1869.

ELLWANGEN, a town of Germany in the kingdom of Württemberg, on the Jagst, 12 m. S.S.E. from Crailsheim on the railway to Goldshöfe. Pop. 5000. It is romantically situated between two hills, one crowned by the castle of Hohen-Ellwangen, built in 1354 and now used as an agricultural college, and the other, the Schönenberg, by the pilgrimage church of Our Lady of Loreto, in the Jesuit style of architecture. The town possesses one Evangelical and five Roman Catholic churches, among the latter the Stiftskirche, the old abbey church, a Romanesque building dating from 1124, and the Gothic St Wolfgangskirche. The classical and modern schools (Gymnasium and Realschule) occupy the buildings of a suppressed Jesuit college. The industries include the making of parchment covers, of envelopes, of wooden hafts and handles for tools, &c., and tanneries. There are also a wool-market and a horse-market, the latter famous in Germany.

The Benedictine abbey of Ellwangen is said to have been founded in 764 by Herulf, bishop of Langres; there is, however, no record of it before 814. In 1460 the abbey was converted, with the consent of Pope Pius II., into a Ritterstift (college or institution for noble pensioners) under a secular provost, who, in 1555, was raised to the dignity of a prince of the Empire. The provostship was secularized in 1803 and its territories were assigned to Württemberg. The town of Ellwangen, which grew up round the abbey and received the status of a town about the middle of the 14th century, was until 1803 the capital of the provostship.

ELLWOOD, THOMAS (1639-1714), English author, was born at Crowell, in Oxfordshire, in 1639. He is chiefly celebrated for his connexion with Milton, and the principal facts of his life are related in a very interesting autobiography, which contains much information as to his intercourse with the poet. While he was still young his father removed to London, where Thomas became acquainted with a Quaker family named Pennington, and was led to join the Society of Friends, a connexion which subjected him to much persecution. It was through the Penningtons that he was introduced in 1662 to Milton in the capacity of Latin reader. He spent nearly every afternoon in the poet’s house in Jewin Street, until the intercourse was interrupted by an illness which compelled him to go to the country. After a period of imprisonment in the old Bridewell prison and in Newgate for Quakerism, Ellwood resumed his visits to Milton, who was now residing at a house his friend had taken for him at Chalfont St Giles. In 1665 Ellwood was again arrested and imprisoned in Aylesbury gaol. When he visited Milton after his release the poet gave him the manuscript of the Paradise Lost to read. On returning the manuscript Ellwood said, “Thou hast said much here of Paradise lost; but what hast thou to say of Paradise found?” and when Milton long afterwards in London showed him Paradise Regained, it was with the remark, “This is owing to you, for you put it into my head at Chalfont.” Ellwood was the friend of Fox and Penn, and was the author of several polemical works in defence of the Quaker position, of which Forgery no Christianity (1674) and The Foundation of Tithes Shaken (1678) deserve mention. His Sacred Histories of the Old and New Testaments appeared in 1705 and 1709. He also published some volumes of poems, among them a Davideis in five books. He died on the 1st of March 1714.

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ELM, the popular name for the trees and shrubs constituting the genus Ulmus, of the natural order Ulmaceae. The genus contains fifteen or sixteen species widely distributed throughout the north temperate zone, with the exception of western North America, and extending southwards as far as Mexico in the New and the Sikkim Himalayas in the Old World.

The common elm, U. campestris, a doubtful native of England, is found throughout a great part of Europe, in North Africa and in Asia Minor, whence it ranges as far east as north Asia and Japan. It grows in woods and hedge-rows, especially in the southern portion of Britain, and on almost all soils, but thrives best on a rich loam, in open, low-lying, moderately moist situations, attaining a height of 60 to 100, and in some few cases as much as 130 or 150 ft. The branches are numerous and spreading, and often pendulous at the extremities; the bark is rugged; the leaves are alternate, ovate, rough, doubly serrate, and, as in other species of Ulmus, unequal at the base. The flowers are small, hermaphrodite, numerous, in purplish-brown tufts, and each with a fringed basal bract; the bell-shaped calyx is often four-toothed and surrounds four free stamens; the pistil bears two spreading hairy styles. They appear before the leaves in March and April. The seed-vessels are green, membranous, one-seeded and deeply cleft. Unlike the wych elm, the common elm rarely perfects its seed in England, where it is propagated by means of root suckers from old trees, or preferably by layers from stools. In the first ten years of its growth it ordinarily reaches a height of 25 to 30 ft. The wood, at first brownish white, becomes, with growth, of a brown colour having a greenish shade. It is close-grained, free from knots, without apparent medullary rays, and is hard and tough, but will not take a polish. All parts of the trunk, including the sapwood, are available in carpentry. By drying, the wood loses over 60% of its weight, and has then a specific gravity of 0.588. It has considerable transverse strength, does not crack when once seasoned, and is remarkably durable under water, or if kept quite dry; though it decays rapidly on exposure to the weather, which in ten to eighteen months causes the bark to fall off, and gives to the wood a yellowish colour—a sign of deterioration in quality. To prevent shrinking and warping it may be preserved in water or mud, but it is best worked up soon after felling. Analyses of the ash of the wood have given a percentage of 47.8% of lime, 21.9% of potash, and 13.7% of soda. In summer, elm trees often exude an alkaline gummy substance, which by the action of the air becomes the brown insoluble body termed ulmin. Elm wood is used for keels and bilge-planks, the blocks and dead-eyes of rigging, and ships’ pumps, for coffins, wheels, furniture, carved and turned articles, and for general carpenters’ work; and previous to the common employment of cast iron was much in request for waterpipes. The inner bark of the elm is made into bast mats and ropes. It contains mucilage, with a little tannic acid, and was formerly much employed for the preparation of an antiscorbutic decoction, now obsolete. The bark of Ulmus fulva, the slippery or red elm of the United States and Canada, serves the North American Indians for the same purpose, and also as a vulnerary. The leaves as well as the young shoots of elms have been found a suitable food for live stock. For ornamental purposes elm trees are frequently planted, and in avenues, as at the park of Stratfieldsaye, in Hampshire, are highly effective. They were first used in France for the adornment of public walks in the reign of Francis I. In Italy, as in ancient times, it is still customary to train the vine upon the elm—a practice to which frequent allusion has been made by the poets. The cork-barked elm, U. campestris, var. suberosa, is distinguished chiefly by the thick deeply fissured bark with which its branches are covered. There are numerous cultivated forms differing in size and shape of leaf, and manner of growth.

The Scotch or wych elm, U. montana, is indigenous to Britain and is the common elm of the northern portion of the island; it usually attains a height of about 50 ft., but among tall-growing trees may reach 120 ft. It has drooping branches and a smoother and thinner bark, larger and more tapering leaves, and a far less deeply notched seed-vessel than U. campestris. The wood, though more porous than in that species, is a tough and hard material when properly seasoned, and, being very flexible when steamed, is well adapted for boat-building. Branches of the wych elm were formerly manufactured into bows, and if forked were employed as divining-rods. The weeping elm, the most ornamental member of the genus, is a variety of this species. The Dutch or sand elm is a tree very similar to the wych elm, but produces inferior timber. The American or white elm, U. americana, is a hardy and very handsome species, of which the old tree on Boston (Mass.) Common was a representative. This tree is supposed to have been in existence before the settlement of Boston, and at the time of its destruction by the storm of the 15th of February 1876 measured 22 ft. in circumference.

ELMACIN (Elmakin or Elmacinus), GEORGE (c. 1223-1274), author of a history of the Saracens, which extends from the time of Mahomet to the year 1118 of our era. He was a Christian of Egypt, where he was born; is known in the east as Ibn-Amid; and after holding an official position under the sultans of Egypt, died at Damascus. His history is principally occupied with the affairs of the Saracen empire, but it contains passages which relate to the Eastern Christians. It was published in Arabic and Latin at Leiden in 1625. The Latin version is a translation by Erpenius, under the title, Historia saracenica, and from this a French translation was made by Wattier as L’Histoire mahométane (Paris, 1657).

ELMALI (“apple-town”), a small town of Asia Minor in the vilayet of Konia, the present administrative centre of the ancient Lycia, but not itself corresponding to any known ancient city. It lies about 25 m. inland, at the head of a long upland valley (5000 ft.) inhabited by direct descendants of the ancient Lycians, who have preserved a distinctive facial type, noticeable at once in the town population. There are about fifty Greek families, the rest of the population (4000) being Moslem. The district is agricultural and has no manufactures of importance.

ELMES, HARVEY LONSDALE (1813-1847), British architect, son of James Elmes (q.v.), was born at Chichester in 1813. After serving some time in his father’s office, and under a surveyor at Bedford and an architect at Bath, he became partner with his father in 1835, and in the following year he was successful among 86 competitors for a design for St George’s Hall, Liverpool. The foundation stone of this building was laid en the 28th of June 1838, but, Elmes being successful in a competition for the Assize Courts in the same city, it was finally decided to include the hall and courts in a single building. In accordance with this idea, Elmes prepared a fresh design, and the work of erection commenced in 1841. He superintended its progress till 1847, when from failing health he was compelled to delegate his duties to Charles Robert Cockerell, and leave for Jamaica, where he died of consumption on the 26th of November 1847.

ELMES, JAMES (1782-1862), British architect, civil engineer, and writer on the arts, was born in London on the 15th of October 1782. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ school, and, after studying building under his father, and architecture under George Gibson, became a student at the Royal Academy, where he gained the silver medal in 1804. He designed a large number of buildings in the metropolis, and was surveyor and civil engineer to the port of London, but is best known as a writer on the arts. In 1809 he became vice-president of the Royal Architectural Society, but this office, as well as that of surveyor of the port of London, he was compelled through partial loss of sight to resign in 1828. He died at Greenwich on the 2nd of April 1862. His publications were:—Sir Christopher Wren and his Times (1823); Lectures on Architecture (1823); The Arts and Artists (1825); General and Biographical Dictionary of the Fine Arts (1826); Treatise on Architectural Jurisprudence (1827), and Thomas Clarkson: a Monograph (1854).

ELMHAM, THOMAS (d. c. 1420), English chronicler, was probably born at North Elmham in Norfolk. He became a Benedictine monk at Canterbury, and then joining the Cluniacs, was prior of Lenton Abbey, near Nottingham; he was chaplain to Henry V., whom he accompanied to France in 1415, being present at Agincourt. Elmham wrote a history of the monastery 297 of St Augustine at Canterbury, which has been edited by C. Hardwick for the Rolls Series (1858); and a Liber metricus de Henrico V., edited by C.A. Cole in the Memorials of Henry V. (1858). It is very probable that Elmham wrote the famous Gesta Henrici Quinti, which is the best authority for the life of Henry V. from his accession to 1416. This work, often referred to as the “chaplain’s life,” and thought by some to have been written by Jean de Bordin, has been published for the English Historical Society by B. Williams (1850). Elmham, however, did not write the Vita et Gesta Henrici V., which was attributed to him by T. Hearne and others.

ELMINA, a town on the Gold Coast, British West Africa, in 5° 4′ N., 1° 20′ W. and about 8 m. W. of Cape Coast. Pop. about 4000. Facing the Atlantic on a rocky peninsula is Fort St George, considered the finest fort on the Guinea coast. It is built square with high walls, and has accommodation for 200 soldiers. On the land side were formerly two moats, cut in the rock on which the castle stands. The castle is the residence of the commissioner of the district and other officials. The houses in the native quarter are mostly built of stone, that material being plentiful in the vicinity.

Elmina is the earliest European settlement on the Gold Coast, and was visited by the Portuguese in 1481. Christopher Columbus is believed to have been one of the officers who took part in this voyage. The Portuguese at once began to build the castle now known as Fort St George, but it was not completed till eighty years afterwards. Another defensive work is Fort St Jago, built in 1666, which is behind the town and at some distance from the coast. (In the latter half of the 19th century it was converted into a prison.) Elmina was captured by the Dutch in 1637, and ceded to them by treaty in 1640. They made it the chief port for the produce of Ashanti. With the other Dutch possessions on the Guinea coast, it was transferred to Great Britain in April 1872. The king of Ashanti, claiming to be ground landlord, objected to its transfer, and the result was the Ashanti war of 1873-1874. For many years the greatest output of gold from this coast came from Elmina. The annual export is said to have been nearly £3,000,000 in the early years of the 18th century, but the figure is probably exaggerated. Since 1900 the bulk of the export trade in gold has been transferred to Sekondi (q.v.). Prempeh, the ex-king of Ashanti, was detained in the castle (1896) until his removal to the Seychelles. (See Ashanti: History, and Gold Coast: History.)

ELMIRA, a city and the county-seat of Chemung county, New York, U.S.A., 100 m. S.E. of Rochester, on the Chemung river, about 850 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1890) 30,893; (1900) 35,672, of whom 5511 were foreign-born (1988 Irish and 1208 German); (1910 census) 37,176. It is served by the Erie, the Pennsylvania, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Lehigh Valley, and the Tioga Division railways, the last of which connects it with the Pennsylvania coalfields 48 m. away. The city is attractively situated on both sides of the river, and has a fine water-supply and park system, among the parks being Eldridge, Rorick’s Glen, Riverside, Brand, Diven, Grove, Maple Avenue and Wisner; in the last-named is a statue of Thomas K. Beecher by J.S. Hartley. The city contains a Federal building, a state armoury, the Chemung county court house and other county buildings, the Elmira orphans’ home, the Steele memorial library, home for the aged, the Arnot-Ogden memorial hospital, the Elmira free academy, and the Railway Commercial training school. Here, also, is Elmira College (Presbyterian) for women, founded in 1855. This institution, chartered in 1852 as Auburn Female University and then situated in Auburn, was rechartered in 1855 as the Elmira Female College; it was established largely through the influence and persistent efforts of the Rev. Samuel Robbins Brown (1810-1880) and his associates, notably Simeon Benjamin of Elmira, who gave generously to the newly founded college, and was the first distinctively collegiate institution for women in the United States, and the first, apparently, to grant degrees to women. The most widely known institution in the city is the Elmira reformatory, a state prison for first offenders between the ages of sixteen and thirty, on a system of general indeterminate sentences. Authorized by the state legislature in 1866 and opened in 1876 under the direction of Zebulon Reed Brockway (b. 1827), it was the first institution of the sort and has served as a model for many similar institutions both in the United States and in other countries (see Juvenile Offenders). Elmira is an important railway centre, with large repair shops, and has also extensive manufactories (value of production in 1900, $8,558,786, of which $6,596,603 was produced under the “factory system”; in 1905, under the “factory system,” $6,984,095), including boot and shoe factories, a large factory for fire-extinguishing apparatus, iron and steel bridge works, steel rolling mills, large valve works, steel plate mills, knitting mills, furniture, glass and boiler factories, breweries and silk mills. Near the site of Elmira occurred on the 29th of August 1779 the battle of Newtown, in which General John Sullivan decisively defeated a force of Indians and Tories under Sir John Johnson and Joseph Brant. There were some settlers here at the close of the War of Independence, but no permanent settlement was made until 1788. The village was incorporated as Newtown in 1815, and was reincorporated as Elmira in 1828. A city charter was secured in 1864. In 1861 a state military camp was established here, and in 1864-1865 there was a prison camp here for Confederate soldiers.

ELMSHORN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein, on the Krückau, 19 m. by rail N.W. from Altona. Pop. (1905) 13,640. Its industries include weaving, dyeing, brewing, iron-founding and the manufacture of leather goods, boots and shoes and machines. There is a considerable shipping trade.

ELMSLEY, PETER (1773-1825), English classical scholar. He was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, and having inherited a fortune from his uncle, a well-known bookseller, devoted himself to the study of classical authors and manuscripts. In 1798 he was appointed to the chapelry of Little Horkesley in Essex, which he held till his death. He travelled extensively in France and Italy, and spent the winter of 1818 in examining the MSS. in the Laurentian library at Florence. In 1819 he was commissioned, with Sir Humphry Davy, to decipher the papyri found at Herculaneum, but the results proved insignificant. In 1823 he was appointed principal of St Alban’s Hall, Oxford, and Camden professor of ancient history. He died in Oxford on the 8th of March 1825. Elmsley was a man of most extensive learning and European reputation, and was considered to be the best ecclesiastical scholar in England. But it is chiefly by his collation of the MSS. of the Greek tragedians and his critical labours on the restoration of their text that he will be remembered. He edited the Acharnians of Aristophanes, and several of the plays and scholia of Sophocles and Euripides. He was the first to recognize the importance of the Laurentian MS. (see Sandys, Hist. of Class. Schol. iii. (1908).

ELNE, a town of south-western France in the department of Pyrénées-Orientales, 10 m. S.S.E. of Perpignan by rail. Pop. (1906) 3026. The hill on which it stands, once washed by the sea, which is now over 3 m. distant, commands a fine view over the plain of Roussillon. From the 6th century till 1602 the town was the seat of a bishopric, which was transferred to Perpignan. The cathedral of St Eulalie, a Romanesque building completed about the beginning of the 12th century, has a beautiful cloister in the same style, with interesting sculptures and three early Christian sarcophagi. Remains of the ancient ramparts flanked by towers are still to be seen. Silk-worm cultivation is carried on. Elne, the ancient Illiberis, was named Helena by the emperor Constantine in memory of his mother. Hannibal encamped under its walls on his march to Rome in 218 B.C. The emperor Constans was assassinated there in A.D. 350. The town several times sustained siege and capture between its occupation by the Moors in the 8th century and its capitulation in 1641 to the troops of Louis XIII.

EL OBEID, chief town of the mudiria (province) of Kordofan, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and 230 m. S.W. by S. of Khartum in 298 a direct line. Pop. (1905) about 10,000. It is situated about 2000 ft. above the sea, at the northern foot of Jebel Kordofan, in 13° 11′ N. and 30° 14′ E. It is an important trade centre, the chief articles of commerce being gum, ivory, cattle and ostrich feathers. A considerable part of the trade of Darfur with Egypt passes through El Obeid.

El Obeid, which appears to be a place of considerable antiquity and the ancient capital of the country, was garrisoned by the Egyptians on their conquest of Kordofan in 1821. In September 1882 the town was assaulted by the troops of the mahdi, who, being repulsed, laid siege to the place, which capitulated on the 17th of January 1883. During the Mahdia the city was destroyed and deserted, and when Kordofan passed, in 1899, into the possession of the Anglo-Egyptian authorities nothing was left of El Obeid but a part of the old government offices. A new town was laid out in squares, the mudiria repaired and barracks built. (See Kordofan, and Sudan: Anglo-Egyptian.)

ELOI [Eligius], SAINT (588-659), apostle of the Belgians and Frisians, was born at Cadillac, near Limoges, in 588. Having at an early age shown artistic talent he was placed by his parents with the master of the mint at Limoges, where he made rapid progress in goldsmith’s work. He became coiner to Clotaire II., king of the Franks, and treasurer to his successor Dagobert. Both kings entrusted him with important works, among which were the composition of the bas-reliefs which ornament the tomb of St Germain, bishop of Paris, and the execution (for Clotaire) of two chairs of gold, adorned with jewels, which at that time were reckoned chefs-d’œuvre. Though he was amassing great wealth, Eloi acquired a distaste for a worldly life, and resolved to become a priest. At first he retired to a monastery, but in 640 was raised to the bishopric of Noyon. He made frequent missionary excursions to the pagans of the Low Countries, and also founded a great many monasteries and churches. He died on the 1st of December 659. A mass of legend has gathered round the life of St Eloi, who as the patron saint of goldsmiths is still very popular.

ELONGATION, strictly “lengthening”; in astronomy, the apparent angular distance of a heavenly body from its centre of motion, as seen from the earth; designating especially the angular distance of the planet Mercury or Venus from the sun, or the apparent angle between a satellite and its primary. The greatest elongation of Venus is about 45°; that of Mercury generally ranges between 18° and 27°.

EL PASO, a city, port of entry, and the county-seat of El Paso county, Texas, U.S.A., on the E. bank of the Rio Grande, in the extreme W. part of the state, at an altitude of 3710 ft. Pop. (1880) 736; (1890) 10,338; (1900) 15,906, of whom 6309 were foreign-born and 466 were negroes; (1910 census) 39,279. Many of the inhabitants are of Mexican descent. El Paso is an important railway centre and is served by the following railways: the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, of which it is the S. terminus; the El Paso & South-Western, which connects with the Chicago, Rock Island & El Paso (of the Rock Island system); the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio, of which it is the W. terminus; the Mexican Central, of which it is the N. terminus; the Texas & Pacific, of which it is the W. terminus; a branch of the Southern Pacific, of which it is the E. terminus; and the short Rio Grande, Sierra Madre & Pacific, of which it is the N. terminus. The city is regularly laid out on level bottom lands, stretching to the table-lands and slopes to the N.E. and N.W. of the city. Opposite, on the W. bank of the river, is the Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez (until 1885 known as Paso del Norte), with which El Paso is connected by bridges and by electric railway. The climate is mild, warm and dry, El Paso being well known as a health resort, particularly for sufferers from pulmonary complaints. Among the city’s public buildings are a handsome Federal building, a county court house, a city hall, a Y.M.C.A. building, a public library, a sanatorium for consumptives, and the Hotel Dieu, a hospital maintained by Roman Catholics. El Paso is the seat of St Joseph’s Academy and of the El Paso Military Institute. Three miles E. of the city limits is Fort Bliss, a U.S. military post, with a reservation of about 2 sq. m. El Paso’s situation on the Mexican frontier gives it a large trade with Mexico; it is the port of entry of the Paso del Norte customs district, one of the larger Mexican border districts, and in 1908 its imports were valued at $2,677,784 and its exports at $5,661,901. Wheat, boots and shoes, mining machinery, cement, lime, lumber, beer, and denatured alcohol are among the varied exports; the principal imports are ore, sugar, cigars, oranges, drawn work and Mexican curios. El Paso has extensive manufactories, especially railway car shops, which in 1905 employed 34.5% of the factory wage-earners. Just outside the city limits are important lead smelting works, to which are brought ores for treatment from western Texas, northern Mexico, New Mexico and Arizona. Among the city’s manufactures are cement, denatured alcohol, ether, varnish, clothing and canned goods. The value of the city’s total factory product in 1905 was $2,377,813, 96% greater than that in 1900. El Paso lies in a fertile agricultural valley, and in 1908 the erection of an immense dam was begun near Engle, New Mexico (100 m. above El Paso), by the U.S. government, to store the flood waters of the Rio Grande for irrigating this area. Before the Mexican War, following which the first United States settlement was made, the site of El Paso was known as Ponce de Leon Ranch, the land being owned by the Ponce de Leon family. El Paso was first chartered as a city in 1873, and in 1907 adopted the commission form of government.

ELPHINSTONE, MOUNTSTUART (1779-1859), Indian statesman and historian, fourth son of the 11th Baron Elphinstone in the peerage of Scotland, was born in 1779. Having received an appointment in the civil service of the East India Company, of which one of his uncles was a director, he reached Calcutta in the beginning of 1796. After filling several subordinate posts, he was appointed in 1801 assistant to the British resident at Poona, at the court of the peshwa, the most powerful of the Mahratta princes. Here he obtained his first opportunity of distinction, being attached in the capacity of diplomatist to the mission of Sir Arthur Wellesley to the Mahrattas. When, on the failure of negotiations, war broke out, Elphinstone, though a civilian, acted as virtual aide-de-camp to General Wellesley. He was present at the battle of Assaye, and displayed such courage and knowledge of tactics throughout the whole campaign that Wellesley told him he had mistaken his profession, and that he ought to have been a soldier. In 1804, when the war closed, he was appointed British resident at Nagpur. Here, the times being uneventful and his duties light, he occupied much of his leisure in reading classical and general literature, and acquired those studious habits which clung to him throughout life. In 1808 he was appointed the first British envoy to the court of Kabul, with the object of securing a friendly alliance with the Afghans; but this proved of little value, because Shah Shuja was driven from the throne by his brother before it could be ratified. The most valuable permanent result of the embassy was the literary fruit it bore several years afterwards in Elphinstone’s great work on Kabul. After spending about a year in Calcutta arranging the report of his mission, Elphinstone was appointed in 1811 to the important and difficult post of resident at Poona. The difficulty arose from the general complication of Mahratta politics, and especially from the weak and treacherous character of the peshwa, which Elphinstone rightly read from the first. While the mask of friendship was kept up Elphinstone carried out the only suitable policy, that of vigilant quiescence, with admirable tact and patience; when in 1817 the mask was thrown aside and the peshwa ventured to declare war, the English resident proved for the second time the truth of Wellesley’s assertion that he was born a soldier. Though his own account of his share in the campaign is characteristically modest, one can gather from it that the success of the British troops was 299 chiefly owing to his assuming the command at an important crisis during the battle of Kirkee.

The peshwa being driven from his throne, his territories were annexed to the British dominions, and Elphinstone was nominated commissioner to administer them. He discharged the responsible task with rare judgment and ability. In 1819 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Bombay and held this post till 1827, his principal achievement being the compilation of the “Elphinstone code.” He may fairly be regarded as the founder of the system of state education in India, and he probably did more than any other Indian administrator to further every likely scheme for the promotion of native education. His connexion with the Bombay presidency was appropriately commemorated in the endowment of the Elphinstone College by the native communities, and in the erection of a marble statue by the European inhabitants.

Returning to England in 1829, after an interval of two years’ travel, Elphinstone retained in his retirement and enfeebled health an important influence on public affairs. He twice refused the offer of the governor-generalship of India. Long before his return he had made his reputation as an author by his Account of the Kingdom of Cabul and its Dependencies in Persia and India (1815). Soon after his arrival in England he commenced the preparation of a work of wider scope, a history of India, which was published in 1841. It embraces the Hindu and Mahommedan periods, and is still a work of high authority. He died on the 20th of November 1859.

ELPHINSTONE, WILLIAM (1431-1514), Scottish statesman and prelate, founder of the university of Aberdeen, was born in Glasgow, and educated at the university of his native city, taking the degree of M.A. in 1452. After practising for a short time as a lawyer in the church courts, he was ordained priest, becoming rector of St Michael’s church, Trongate, Glasgow, in 1465. Four years later he went to continue his studies at the university of Paris, where he became reader in canon law, and then, proceeding to Orleans, became lecturer in the university there. Before 1474 he had returned to Scotland, and was made rector of the university, and official of the see of Glasgow. Further promotion followed, but soon more important duties were entrusted to Elphinstone, who was made bishop of Ross in 1481. He was a member of the Scots parliament, and was sent by King James III. on diplomatic errands to Louis XI. of France, and to Edward IV. of England; in 1483 he was appointed bishop of Aberdeen, although his consecration was delayed for four years; and he was sent on missions to England, both before and after the death of Richard III. in 1485. Although he attended the meetings of parliament with great regularity he did not neglect his episcopal duties, and the fabric of the cathedral of Aberdeen owes much to his care. Early in 1488 the bishop was made lord high chancellor, but on the king’s death in the following June he vacated this office, and retired to Aberdeen. As a diplomatist of repute, however, his services were quickly required by the new king, James IV., in whose interests he visited the kings of England and France, and the German king, Maximilian I. Having been made keeper of the privy seal in 1492, and having arranged a dispute between the Scotch and the Dutch, the bishop’s concluding years were mainly spent in the foundation of the university of Aberdeen. The papal bull for this purpose was obtained in 1494, and the royal charter which made old Aberdeen the seat of a university is dated 1498. A small endowment was provided by the king, and the university, modelled on that of Paris and intended principally to be a school of law, soon became the most famous and popular of the Scots seats of learning, a result which was largely due to the wide experience and ripe wisdom of Elphinstone and of his friend, Hector Boece, the first rector. The building of the college of the Holy Virgin in Nativity, now King’s College, was completed in 1506, and the bishop also rebuilt the choir of his cathedral, and built a bridge over the Dee. Continuing to participate in public affairs he opposed the policy of hostility towards England which led to the disaster at Flodden in September 1513, and died in Edinburgh on the 25th of October 1514. Elphinstone was partly responsible for the introduction of printing into Scotland, and for the production of the Breviarium Aberdonense. He may have written some of the lives in this collection, and gathered together materials concerning the history of Scotland; but he did not, as some have thought, continue the Scotichronicon, nor did he write the Lives of Scottish Saints.

EL RENO, a city and the county-seat of Canadian county, Oklahoma, U.S.A., on the N. fork of the Canadian river, about 26 m. W. of Oklahoma City. Pop. (1890) 285; (1900) 3383; (1907) 5370 (401 were of negro descent and 7 were Indians); (1910) 7872. It is served by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf (owned by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific), and the St Louis, El Reno & Western railways, the last extending from El Reno to Guthrie. El Reno lies on the rolling prairie lands, about 1360 ft. above the sea, in an Indian corn, wheat, oats and cotton-producing and dairying region, and has a large grain elevator, a cotton compress, and various manufacturing establishments, among the products being flour, canned goods and crockery. El Reno has a Carnegie library, and within the city’s limits is Bellamy’s Lake (180 acres), a favourite resort. Near the city is a Government boarding school for the Indians of the Cheyenne and the Arapahoe Reservation. Fort Reno, a U.S. military post, was established near El Reno in 1876, and in 1908 became a supply depot of the quartermaster’s department under the name of “Fort Reno Remount Depot.” The first settlement here, apart from the fort, was made in the autumn of 1889; in 1892 El Reno received a city charter.

ELSFLETH, a maritime town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Oldenburg, in a fertile district at the confluence of the Hunte with the Weser, on the railway Hude-Nordenham. Pop. 2000. It has an Evangelical church, a school of navigation, a harbour and docks. It has considerable trade in corn and timber and is one of the centres of the North Sea herring fishery.

ELSINORE (Dan. Helsingör), a seaport of Denmark in the amt (county) of Frederiksborg, on the east coast of the island of Zealand, 28 m. N. of Copenhagen by rail. Pop. (1901) 13,902. It stands at the narrowest part of the Sound, opposite the Swedish town of Helsingborg, 3 m. distant. Communication is maintained by means of a steam ferry. Its harbour admits vessels of 20 ft. draught, and the roadstead affords excellent anchorage. There are shipbuilding yards, with foundry, engineering shops, &c.; the chief export is agricultural produce; imports, iron, coal, cereals and yarn. Helsingör received town-privileges in 1425. In 1522 it was taken and burnt by Lübeck, but in 1535 was retaken by Christian II. It is celebrated as the Elsinore of Shakespeare’s tragedy of Hamlet, and was the birthplace of Saxo Grammaticus, from whose history the story of Hamlet is derived. A pile of rocks surrounded by trees is shown as the grave of Hamlet, and Ophelia’s brook is also pointed out, but both are, of course, inventions. On a tongue of land east of the town stands the castle of Kronberg or Kronenberg, a magnificent, solid and venerable Gothic structure built by Frederick II. towards the end of the 16th century, and extensively restored by Christian IV. after a fire in 1637. It was taken by the Swedes in 1658, but its possession was again given up to the Danes in 1660. From its turrets, one of which serves as a lighthouse, there are fine views of the straits and of the neighbouring countries. The Flag Battery is the “platform before the castle” where the ghost appears in Hamlet. Within it the principal object of interest is the apartment in which Matilda, queen of Christian VII. and sister of George III. of England, was imprisoned before she was taken to Hanover. The chapel contains fine wood-carving of the 17th century. North-west of the town 300 is Marienlyst, originally a royal château, but now a seaside resort.

ELSSLER, FANNY (1810-1884), Austrian dancer, was born in Vienna on the 23rd of June 1810. From her earliest years she was trained for the ballet, and made her appearance at the Kärntner-Thor theatre in Vienna before she was seven. She almost invariably danced with her sister Theresa, who was two years her senior; and, after some years’ experience together in Vienna, the two went in 1827 to Naples. Their success there—to which Fanny contributed more largely than her sister, who used to efface herself in order to heighten the effect of Fanny’s more brilliant powers—led to an engagement in Berlin in 1830. This was the beginning of a series of triumphs for Fanny’s personal beauty and skill in dancing. After captivating all hearts in Berlin and Vienna, and inspiring the aged statesman Friedrich von Gentz (q.v.) with a remarkable passion, she paid a visit to London, where she received much kindness at the hands of Mr and Mrs Grote, who practically adopted the little girl who was born three months after the mother’s arrival in England. In September 1834 Fanny Elssler appeared at the Opera in Paris, a step to which she looked forward with much misgiving on account of Taglioni’s supremacy on that stage. The result, however, was another triumph for her, and the temporary eclipse of Taglioni, who, although the finer artist of the two, could not for the moment compete with the newcomer’s personal fascination. It was conspicuously in her performance of the Spanish cachuca that Fanny Elssler outshone all rivals. In 1840 she sailed with her sister for New York, and after two years’ unmixed success they returned to Europe, where during the following five years Fanny appeared in Germany, Austria, France, England and Russia. In 1845, having amassed a fortune, she retired from the stage and settled near Hamburg. A few years later her sister Theresa contracted a morganatic marriage with Prince Adalbert of Prussia, and was ennobled under the title of Baroness von Barnim. Fanny Elssler died at Vienna on the 27th of November 1884. Theresa was left a widow in 1873, and died on the 19th of November 1878.

ELSTER, the name of two rivers of Germany. (1) The Schwarze (Black) Elster rises in the Lausitz range, on the southern border of Saxony, flows N. and N.W., and after a course of 112 m. enters the Elbe a little above Wittenberg. It is a sluggish stream, winding its way through sandy soil and frequently along a divided channel. (2) The Weisse (White) Elster rises in the north-western corner of Bohemia, a little north of Eger, cuts through the Vogtland in a deep and picturesque valley, passing Plauen, Greiz, Gera and Zeitz on its way north to Leipzig, just below which city it receives its most important tributary, the Pleisse. At Leipzig it divides, the main stream turning north-west and entering the Saale from the right a little above Halle; the other arm, the Luppe, flowing parallel to the main stream and south of it enters the Saale below Merseburg. Total length, 121 m.; total descent, 1286 ft.

ELSTER, a spa and inland watering-place of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, on the Weisse Elster, close to the Bohemian frontier on the railway Plauen-Eger, and 20 m. S. of the former. It has some industries of lace-making and weaving, and a population of about 2000, in addition to visitors. The mineral springs, saline-chalybeate, specific in cases of nervous disorders and feminine ailments, have been lately supplemented by baths of various kinds, and these, together with the natural attractions of the place as a climatic health resort, have combined to make it a fashionable watering-place during the summer season. The number of visitors amounts annually to about 10,000.

ELSWICK, a ward of the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, in the western part of the borough, bordering the river Tyne. The name is well known in connexion with the great ordnance and naval works of Sir W.G. Armstrong, Mitchell & Co. Elswick Park, attached to the old mansion of the same name, is now a public recreation ground.

EL TEB, a halting-place in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan near the coast of the Red Sea, 9 m. S.W. of the port of Trinkitat on the road to Tokar. At El Teb, on the 4th of February 1884, a heterogeneous force under General Valentine Baker, marching to the relief of the Egyptian garrison of Tokar, was completely routed by the Mahdists (see Egypt: Military Operations).

ELTON, CHARLES ISAAC (1839-1900), English lawyer and antiquary, was born at Southampton on the 6th of December 1839. Educated at Cheltenham and Balliol College, Oxford, he was elected a fellow of Queen’s College in 1862. He was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1865. His remarkable knowledge of old real property law and custom helped him to an extensive conveyancing practice and he took silk in 1885. He sat in the House of Commons for West Somerset in 1884-1885 and from 1886 to 1892. In 1869 he succeeded to his uncle’s property of Whitestaunton, near Chard, in Somerset. During the later years of his life he retired to a great extent from legal practice, and devoted much of his time to literary work. He died at Whitestaunton on the 23rd of April 1900. Elton’s principal works were The Tenures of Kent (1867); Treatise on Commons and Waste Lands (1868); Law of Copyholds (1874); Origins of English History (1882); Custom and Tenant Right (1882).

ELTVILLE (Elfeld), a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, on the right bank of the Rhine, 5 m. S.W. from Wiesbaden, on the railway Frankfort-on-Main-Cologne, and with a branch to Schlangenbad. Pop. 3700. It has a Roman Catholic and a Protestant church, ruins of a feudal castle, a Latin school, and a monument to Gutenberg. It has a considerable trade in the wines of the district and two manufactories of sparkling wines. Eltville (originally Adeldvile, Lat. Altavilla) is first mentioned in a record of the year 882. It was given by the emperor Otto I. to the archbishops of Mainz, who often resided here. It received town rights in 1331 and was a place of importance during the middle ages. In 1465 Gutenberg set up his press at Eltville, under the patronage of Archbishop Adolphus of Nassau, shortly afterwards handing over its use to the brothers Heinrich and Nikolaus Bechtermünz. Several costly early examples of printed books issued by this press survive, the earliest being the Vocabularium Latino-Teutonicum, first printed in 1467.

ELTZ, a small river of Germany, a left bank tributary of the Mosel. It rises in the Eifel range, and, after a course of 5 m., joins the latter river at Moselkern. Just above its confluence stands the romantic castle of Eltz, crowning a rocky summit 900 ft. high, and famous as being one of the best preserved medieval strongholds of Germany. It is the ancestral seat of the counts of Eltz and contains numerous antiquities.

ELVAS, an episcopal city and frontier fortress of Portugal, in the district of Portalegre and formerly included in the province of Alemtejo; 170 m. E. of Lisbon, and 10 m. W. of the Spanish fortress of Badajoz, by the Madrid-Badajoz-Lisbon railway. Pop. (1900) 13,981. Elvas is finely situated on a hill 5 m. N.W. of the river Guadiana. It is defended by seven bastions and the two forts of Santa Luzia and Nossa Senhora da Graça. Its late Gothic cathedral, which has also many traces of Moorish influence in its architecture, dates from the reign of Emmanuel I. (1495-1521). A fine aqueduct, 4 m. long, supplies the city with pure water; it was begun early in the 15th century and completed in 1622. For some distance it includes four tiers of superimposed arches, with a total height of 120 ft. The surrounding lowlands are very fertile, and Elvas is celebrated for its excellent olives and plums, the last-named being exported, either fresh or dried, in large quantities. Brandy is distilled and pottery manufactured in the city. The fortress of Campo Maior, 10 m. N.E., is famous for its siege by the French and relief by the British under Marshal Beresford in 1811—an exploit commemorated in a ballad by Sir Walter Scott.

Elvas is the Roman Alpesa or Helvas, the Moorish Balesh, the Spanish Yelves. It was wrested from the Moors by Alphonso VIII. of Castile in 1166; but was temporarily recaptured 301 before its final occupation by the Portuguese in 1226. In 1570 it became an episcopal see. From 1642 until modern times it was the chief frontier fortress S. of the Tagus; and it twice withstood sieges by the Spanish, in 1658 and 1711. The French under Marshal Junot took it in March 1808, but evacuated it in August, after the conclusion of the convention of Cintra (see Peninsular War).

ELVEY, SIR GEORGE JOB (1816-1893), English organist and composer, was born at Canterbury on the 27th of March 1816. He was a chorister at Canterbury cathedral under Highmore Skeats, the organist. Subsequently he became a pupil of his elder brother, Stephen, and then studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Cipriani Potter and Dr Crotch. In 1834 he gained the Gresham prize medal for his anthem, “Bow down thine ear,” and in 1835 was appointed organist of St George’s chapel, Windsor, a post he filled for 47 years, retiring in 1882. He took the degree of Mus. B. at Oxford in 1838, and in 1840 that of Mus. D. Anthems of his were commissioned for the Three Choirs Festivals of 1853 and 1857, and in 1871 he received the honour of knighthood. He died at Windlesham in Surrey on the 9th of December 1893. His works, which are nearly all for the Church, include two oratorios, a great number of anthems and services, and some pieces for the organ. A memoir of him, by his widow, was published in 1894.

ELVIRA, SYNOD OF, an ecclesiastical synod held in Spain, the date of which cannot be determined with exactness. The solution of the question hinges upon the interpretation of the canons, that is, upon whether they are to be taken as reflecting a recent, or as pointing to an imminent, persecution. Thus some argue for a date between 300 and 303, i.e. before the Diocletian persecution; others for a date between 303 and 314, after the persecution, but before the synod of Arles; still others for a date between the synod of Arles and the council of Nicaea, 325. Mansi, Hardouin, Hefele and Dale are in substantial agreement upon 305 or 306, and this is probably the closest approximation possible in the present state of the evidence. The place of meeting, Elvira, was not far from the modern Granada, if not, as Dale thinks, actually identical with it. There the nineteen bishops and twenty-four presbyters, from all parts of Spain, but chiefly from the south, assembled, probably at the instigation of Hosius of Cordova, but under the presidency of Felix of Accis, with a view to restoring order and discipline in the church. The eighty-one canons which were adopted reflect with considerable fulness the internal life and external relations of the Spanish Church of the 4th century. The social environment of Christians may be inferred from the canons prohibiting marriage and other intercourse with Jews, pagans and heretics, closing the offices of flamen and duumvir to Christians, forbidding all contact with idolatry and likewise participation in pagan festivals and public games. The state of morals is mirrored in the canons denouncing prevalent vices. The canons respecting the clergy exhibit the clergy as already a special class with peculiar privileges, a more exacting moral standard, heavier penalties for delinquency. The bishop has acquired control of the sacraments, presbyters and deacons acting only under his orders; the episcopate appears as a unit, bishops being bound to respect one another’s disciplinary decrees. Worthy of special note are canon 33, enjoining celibacy upon all clerics and all who minister at the altar (the most ancient canon of celibacy); canon 36, forbidding pictures in churches; canon 38, permitting lay baptism under certain conditions; and canon 53, forbidding one bishop to restore a person excommunicated by another.

EL WAD, a town in the Algerian Sahara, 125 m. in a straight line S.S.E. of Biskra, and 190 m. W. by S. of Gabes. Pop. (1906) 7586. El Wad is one of the most interesting places in Algeria. It is surrounded by huge hollows containing noble palm groves; and beyond these on every side stretches the limitless desert with its great billows of sand, the encroachments of which on the oasis are only held at bay by ceaseless toil. The town itself consists of a mass of one-storeyed stone houses, each surmounted by a little dome, clustering round the market-place with its mosque and minaret. By an exception rare in Saharan settlements, there are no defensive works save the fort containing the government offices, which the French have built on the south side of the town. The inhabitants are of two distinct tribes, one, the Aduan, of Berber stock, the other a branch of the Sha`ambah Arabs. El Wad possesses a curious currency known as flous, consisting of obsolete copper coins of Algerian and Tunisian dynasties. Seven flous are regarded as equal to the French five-centime piece.

El Wad oasis is one of a group known collectively as the Suf. Five miles N.W. is Kuinine (pop. 3541) and 6 m. farther N.W. Guemar (pop. 6885), an ancient fortified town noted for its manufacture of carpets. Linen weaving is carried on extensively in the Suf. Administratively El Wad is the capital of an annexe to the territory of Tuggurt.

ELWOOD, a city of Madison county, Indiana, U.S.A., on Duck Creek, about 38 m. N.E. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1880) 751; (1890) 2284; (1900) 12,950 (1386 foreign-born); (1910) 11,028. Elwood is served by the Lake Erie & Western and the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis railways, and by an interurban electric line. Its rapid growth in population and as a manufacturing centre was due largely to its situation in the natural gas region; the failure of the gas supply in 1903 caused a decrease in manufacturing, but the city gradually adjusted itself to new conditions. It has large tin plate mills, iron and steel foundries, saw and planing mills, wooden-ware and furniture factories, bottling works and lamp-chimney factories, flour mills and packing houses. In 1905 the value of the city’s factory product was $6,111,083; in 1900 it was $9,433,513; the glass product was valued at $223,766 in 1905, and at $1,011,803 in 1900. There are extensive brick-yards in the vicinity, and the surrounding agricultural country furnishes large supplies of grain, live-stock, poultry and produce, for which Elwood is the shipping centre. The site was first settled under the name of Quincy; the present name was adopted in 1869; and in 1891 Elwood received a city charter.

ELY, RICHARD THEODORE (1854-  ), American economist, was born at Ripley, New York, on the 13th of April 1854. Educated at Columbia and Heidelberg universities, he held the professorship of economics at Johns Hopkins University from 1881 to 1892, and was subsequently professor of economics at Wisconsin University. Professor Ely took an active part in the formation of the American Economic Association, was secretary from 1885 to 1892 and president from 1899 to 1901. He published a useful Introduction to Political Economy (1889); Outlines of Economics (1893); The Labour Movement in America (1883); Problems of To-day (1888); Social Aspects of Christianity (1889); Socialism and Social Reform (1894); Monopolies and Trusts (1900), and Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society (1903).

ELY, a cathedral city and market-town, in the Newmarket parliamentary division of Cambridgeshire, England, 16 m. N.N.E. of Cambridge by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 7713. It stands on a considerable eminence on the west (left) bank of the Ouse, in the Isle of Ely, which rises above the surrounding fens. Thus its situation, before the great drainage operations of the 17th century, was practically insular. The magnificent cathedral, towering above the town, is a landmark far over the wide surrounding level. The soil in the vicinity is fertile and market-gardening is carried on, fruit and vegetables (especially asparagus) being sent to the London markets. The town has a considerable manufacture of tobacco pipes and earthenware, and there are in the neighbourhood mills for the preparation of oil from flax, hemp and cole-seed. Besides the cathedral Ely has in St Mary’s church, lying almost under the shadow of the greater building, a fine structure ranging in style from Norman to Perpendicular, but in the main Early English. The sessions house and corn exchange are the 302 principal public buildings. The grammar school, founded by Henry VIII. in 1541, occupies (together with other buildings) the room over the gateway of the monastery, known as the Porta, and the chapel built by Prior John de Cranden (1321-1341) is restored to use as a school chapel. A theological college was founded in 1876 and opened in 1881.

The foundation of the present cathedral was laid by its first Norman abbot, Simeon, in 1083. But the reputation of Ely had been established long before Etheldreda (Æthelthryth), daughter of Anna, king of East Anglia, was married to Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria, against her will, as she had vowed herself wholly to a religious life. Her husband opposed himself to her vow, but with the help of Wilfrid, archbishop of York, she took the veil, and found refuge from her husband in the marsh-girt Isle of Ely. Here she founded a religious house, in all probability a mixed community, in 673, becoming its first abbess, and giving the whole Isle of Ely to the foundation. In 870 the monastery was destroyed by the Danes, as were also the neighbouring foundations at Soham, Thorney, Crowland and Peterborough, and it remained in ruins till 970, when Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester, founded a new Benedictine monastery here. King Edgar in 970 endowed the monks with the former possessions of the convent and also granted them the secular causes of two hundreds within and of five hundreds without the marshes, all charges belonging to the king in secular disputes in all their lands and every fourth penny of public revenue in the province of Grantecestre. The wealth and importance of Ely rose, and its abbots held the post of chancellors of the king’s court alternately with the abbots of Glastonbury and of St Augustine’s, Canterbury. But Ely again became a scene of contest in the desperate final struggle against William the Conqueror of which Hereward “the Wake” was the hero. Finally, in 1071, the monks agreed to surrender the Isle of Ely to the king on condition of the confirmation of all the possessions and privileges, held by them in the time of Edward the Confessor. Abbot Simeon (1081-1094), who now began the reconstruction of the church, was related to William and brother to Walkelin, first Norman bishop of Winchester. Under Abbot Richard (1100-1107) the translation from the Saxon church of the bodies of St Etheldreda and of the two abbesses who had followed her, and their enshrinement in the new edifice, took place; and it was due to the honour in which the memory of the foundresses was held that Ely maintained the position of dignity which it kept henceforth until the dissolution of the monasteries. The feast of St Etheldreda, or St Awdrey as she was generally called, was the occasion every year for a large fair here, at which “trifling objects” were sold to pilgrims by way of souvenirs; whence the word “tawdrey,” a contraction of St Awdrey. In 1109 the Isle of Ely, most of Cambridgeshire, and the abbeys of Thorney and Cetricht were separated from the diocese of Lincoln, and converted into a new diocese, Ely being the seat of the bishopric, and after the dissolution of the monasteries Henry VIII. converted the conventual church into a cathedral (1541). The diocese is extensive. It covers nearly the whole of Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire, part of Suffolk, and small portions of Essex, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

The cathedral is a cruciform structure, 537 ft. long and 190 ft. across the great transepts (exterior measurements). A relic of the Saxon foundation is preserved in the cross of St Osyth (c. 670), and a pre-Norman window is kept in the triforium, having been dug up near the cathedral. Of the work of the first two Norman abbots all that remains is the early Norman lower storey of the main transept. The foundations of Abbot Simeon’s apse were discovered below the present choir. The nave, which is Norman throughout, is 208 ft. in length, 72 ft. 9 in. to the top of the walls, and 77 ft. 3 in. broad, including the aisles. The upper parts of the western tower and the transept were begun by Bishop Geoffrey Ridel (d. 1189), and continued by his successor William Longchamp, chancellor of England. The tower, which is 215 ft. high, is surmounted by a Decorated octagon with partly detached side turrets, and underwent alteration and strengthening in the Perpendicular period. The north-western transept wing is in ruins; it is not known when it fell. The Galilee, or western porch, by which the cathedral is entered, is the work of Bishop Eustace (d. 1215), and is a perfect example of Early English style. In 1322 the Norman central tower, erected by Abbot Simeon, fell. Alan of Walsingham, sacrist of the church, designed its restoration in the form of the present octagon, a beautiful and unique conception. Instead of the ordinary four-arched central crossing, an octagon is formed at the crossing, the arches of the nave aisles and choir aisles being set obliquely. Both without and within, the octagon is the principal feature in the unusual general appearance of the cathedral, which gives it a peculiar eminence among English churches. The octagon was completed in 1328, and upon the ribbed vaulting of wood above it rose the lofty lantern, octagonal also, with its angles set opposite those of the octagon below. The total height of the structure is 170 ft. 7 in. Alan of Walsingham was further employed by Bishop John of Hotham (d. 1337) as architect of the Lady chapel, a beautiful example of Decorated work, which served from 1566 onward as a parish church. Of the seven bays of the choir the four easternmost, as well as the two beyond forming the retrochoir, were built by Bishop Hugh of Northwold (d. 1254). The three western bays were destroyed by the fall of the tower in 1321, and were rebuilt by Alan of Walsingham. The earlier portion is a superb example of Early English work, while the later is perhaps the best example of pure Decorated in England. The wooden canopies of the choir stalls are Decorated (1337) and very elaborate. The Perpendicular style is represented by windows and certain other details, including supporting arches to the western tower. There are also some splendid chantry chapels and tombs in this style—the chapels of Bishop John Alcock (d. 1500) and Bishop Nicolas West (d. 1534), in the north and south choir aisles respectively, are completely covered with the most delicate ornamentation; while the tomb of Bishop Richard Redman (d. 1505) has a remarkably beautiful canopy. Among earlier monuments the canopied tomb of Bishop William de Luda (1290-1298) and the finely-carved effigy of Bishop Northwold (1254) are notable. Between 1845 and 1884 the cathedral underwent restoration under the direction of Sir Gilbert Scott. The work included the erection of the modern reredos and choir-screen, both designed by Scott, and the painting of the nave roof by Styleman le Strange (d. 1862), who was succeeded by Gambier Parry. Parry also richly ornamented the octagon and lantern in the style of the 14th century.

Remains of the monastic buildings are fragmentary but numerous. Mention has been made of the Ely “Porta” or gateway (1396), which is occupied by the grammar school, and of Prior John de Cranden’s beautiful little Decorated chapel. But many of the remains, the bulk of which are incorporated in the deanery and canons’ and other residences to the south of the cathedral, are of much earlier date. Thus the fine early Norman undercroft of the prior’s hall is probably of the time of Abbot Simeon. Another notable fragment is the transitional Norman chancel of the infirmary chapel. The remnants of the cloisters show a reconstruction in the 15th century, but the prior’s and monks’ doorways from the cloisters into the cathedral are highly decorated late Norman. The bishop’s palace to the west of the cathedral has towers erected by Bishop Alcock at the close of the 15th century. In the muniment room of the chapter is preserved, among many ancient documents of great interest, the liber Eliensis, a history of the monastery by the monk known as Thomas of Ely (d. c. 1174), of which the first part, which extends to the year 960, contains a life of St Etheldreda, while the second is continued to the year 1107.

Ely, which according to Bede (Hist. eccl. iv. 19) derives its name from the quantity of eels in the waters about it (A.S. æl, eel, -ig, island), was a borough by prescription at least as early as the reign of William the Conqueror. It owed its importance entirely to the monastery, and for a long time the abbot and afterwards the bishop had almost absolute power in the town. The bailiff who governed the town was chosen by the bishop until 1850, when a local board was appointed. Richard I. 303 granted the bishop of Ely a fair there, and in 1319-1320 John of Hotham, a later bishop, received licence to hold a fair on the vigil and day of Ascension and for twenty days following. The markets are claimed by an undated charter by the bishop, who also continues to hold the fairs. In 1295 Ely sent two members to parliament, but has never been represented since.

ELYOT, SIR THOMAS (c. 1490-1546), English diplomatist and scholar. His father, Sir Richard Elyot (d. 1522), who held considerable estates in Wiltshire, was made (1503) serjeant-at-law and attorney-general to the queen consort, and soon afterwards was commissioned to act as justice of assize on the western circuit, becoming in 1513 judge of common pleas. Thomas was the son of his first marriage with Alice Fynderne, but neither the date nor place of his birth is accurately known. Anthony à Wood claimed him as an alumnus of St Mary Hall, Oxford, while C.H. Cooper in the Athenae Cantabrigienses put in a claim for Jesus College, Cambridge. Elyot himself says in the preface to his Dictionary that he was educated under the paternal roof, and was from the age of twelve his own tutor. He supplies, in the introduction to his Castell of Helth, a list of the authors he had read in philosophy and medicine, adding that a “worshipful physician” read to him Galen and some other authors. In 1511 he accompanied his father on the western circuit as clerk to the assize, and he held this position until 1528. In addition to his father’s lands in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire he inherited in 1523 the Cambridge estates of his cousin, Thomas Fynderne. His title was disputed, but Wolsey decided in his favour, and also made him clerk of the privy council. Elyot, in a letter addressed to Thomas Cromwell, says that he never received the emoluments of this office, while the barren honour of knighthood conferred on him when he was displaced in 1530 merely put him to further expense. In that year he sat on the commission appointed to inquire into the Cambridgeshire estates of his former patron, Cardinal Wolsey. He married Margaret Barrow, who is described (Stapleton, Vita Thomae Mori, p. 59, ed. 1558) as a student in the “school” of Sir Thomas More.

In 1531 he produced the Boke named the Governour, dedicated to King Henry VIII. The work advanced him in the king’s favour, and in the close of the year he received instructions to proceed to the court of the emperor Charles V. to induce him to take a more favourable view of Henry’s projected divorce from Catherine of Aragon. With this was combined another commission, on which one of the king’s agents, Stephen Vaughan, was already engaged. He was, if possible, to apprehend William Tyndale. It is probable that Elyot was suspected, as Vaughan certainly was, of lukewarmness in carrying out the king’s wishes, but this has not prevented his being much abused by Protestant writers. As ambassador Elyot had been involved in ruinous expense, and on his return he wrote to Thomas Cromwell, begging to be excused from serving as sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, on the score of his poverty. The request was not granted. He was one of the commissioners in the inquiry instituted by Cromwell prior to the suppression of the monasteries, but he did not obtain any share of the spoils. There is little doubt that his known friendship for Thomas More militated against his chances of success, for in a letter addressed to Cromwell he admitted his friendship for More, but protested that he rated higher his duty to the king. William Roper, in his Life of More, says that Elyot was on a second embassy to Charles V., in the winter of 1535-1536, when he received at Naples the news of More’s execution. He had been kept in the dark by his own government, but heard the news from the emperor. The story of an earlier embassy to Rome (1532), mentioned by Burnet, rests on a late endorsement of instructions dated from that year, which cannot be regarded as authoritative. In 1542 he represented the borough of Cambridge in parliament. He had purchased from Cromwell the manor of Carleton in Cambridgeshire, where he died on the 26th of March 1546.

Sir Thomas Elyot received little reward for his services to the state, but his scholarship and his books were held in high esteem by his contemporaries. The Boke named the Governour was printed by Thomas Berthelet (1531, 1534, 1536, 1544, &c.). It is a treatise on moral philosophy, intended to direct the education of those destined to fill high positions, and to inculcate those moral principles which alone could fit them for the performance of their duties. The subject was a favourite one in the 16th century, and the book, which contained many citations from classical authors, was very popular. Elyot expressly acknowledges his obligations to Erasmus’s Institutio Principis Christiani; but he makes no reference to the De regno et regis institutione of Francesco Patrizzi (d. 1494), bishop of Gaeta, on which his work was undoubtedly modelled. As a prose writer, Elyot enriched the English language with many new words. In 1534 he published The Castell of Helth, a popular treatise on medicine, intended to place a scientific knowledge of the art within the reach of those unacquainted with Greek. This work, though scoffed at by the faculty, was appreciated by the general public, and speedily went through many editions. His Latin Dictionary, the earliest comprehensive dictionary of the language, was completed in 1538. The copy of the first edition in the British Museum contains an autograph letter from Elyot to Thomas Cromwell, to whom it originally belonged. It was edited and enlarged in 1548 by Thomas Cooper, bishop of Winchester, who called it Bibliotheca Eliotae, and it formed the basis in 1565 of Cooper’s Thesaurus linguae Romanae et Britannicae.

ELYRIA, a city and the county-seat of Lorain county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Black river, 8 m. from Lake Erie, and about 25 m. W.S.W. of Cleveland. Pop. (1890) 5611; (1900) 8791, of whom 1397 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 14,825. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, and the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railways. Elyria is about 720 ft. above sea-level, and lies at the junction of the two forks of the Black river, each of which falls about 50 ft. here, furnishing water-power. Among the city’s manufactures are oxide of tin and other chemicals, iron and steel, leather goods, automobiles and bicycles, electrical and telephone supplies, butted tubing, gas engines, screws and bolts, silk, lace and hosiery. In 1905 the city’s factory products were valued at $2,933,450—140.2% more than their value in 1900. Flagging, building-stones and grindstones, taken from quarries in the vicinity (known as the Berea Grit quarries), are shipped from Elyria in large quantities. Elyria was founded about 1819 by Heman Ely, in whose honour it was named; it was selected as the site for the county seat in 1823, and was chartered as a city in 1892.

ELYSIUM, in Greek mythology, the Elysian fields, the abode of the righteous after their removal from earth. In Homer (Od. iv. 563) this region is a plain at the farthest end of the earth on the banks of the river Oceanus, where the fair-haired 304 Rhadamanthys rules, and where the people are vexed by neither snow nor storm, heat nor cold, the air being always tempered by the zephyr wafted from the ocean. It is no dwelling of the dead nor part of the lower world, but distinguished heroes are translated thither without dying, to live a life of perfect happiness. In Hesiod (W. and D. 166) the same description is given of the Islands of the Blessed under the rule of Cronus, which yield three harvests yearly. Here, according to Pindar, Rhadamanthys sits by the side of his father Cronus and administers judgment (Ol. ii. 61, Frag. 95). All who have successfully gone through a triple probation on earth are admitted to share these blessings. In later accounts (Aeneid, vi. 541) Elysium was regarded as part of the underworld, the home of the righteous dead adjudged worthy of it by the tribunal of Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeacus. Those who had lived evil lives were thrust down into Tartarus, where they suffered endless torments.

ELZE, KARL (1821-1889), German scholar and Shakespearian critic, was born at Dessau on the 22nd of May 1821. Having studied (1839-1843) classical philology, and modern, but especially English, literature at the university of Leipzig, he was a master for a time in the Gymnasium (classical school) at Dessau, and in 1875 was appointed extraordinary, and in 1876 ordinary, professor of English philology at the university of Halle, in which city he died on the 21st of January 1889. Elze began his literary career with the Englischer Liederschatz (1851), an anthology of English lyrics, edited for a while a critical periodical Atlantis, and in 1857 published an edition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet with critical notes. He also edited Chapman’s Alphonsus (1867) and wrote biographies of Walter Scott, Byron and Shakespeare; Abhandlungen zu Shakespeare (English translation by D. Schmitz, as Essays on Shakespeare, London, 1874), and the excellent treatise, Notes on Elizabethan Dramatists with conjectural emendations of the text (3 vols., Halle, 1880-1886, new ed. 1889).

ELZEVIR, the name of a celebrated family of Dutch printers belonging to the 17th century. The original name of the family was Elsevier, or Elzevier, and their French editions mostly retain this name; but in their Latin editions, which are the more numerous, the name is spelt Elzeverius, which was gradually corrupted in English into Elzevir as a generic term for their books. The family originally came from Louvain, and there Louis, who first made the name Elzevir famous, was born in 1540. He learned the business of a bookbinder, and having been compelled in 1580, on account of his Protestantism and his adherence to the cause of the insurgent provinces, to leave his native country, he established himself as bookbinder and bookseller in Leiden. His Eutropius, which appeared in 1592, was long regarded as the earliest Elzevir, but the first is now known to be Drusii Ebraicarum quaestionum ac responsionum libri duo, which was produced in 1583. In all he published about 150 works. He died on the 4th of February 1617. Of his five sons, Matthieu, Louis, Gilles, Joost and Bonaventure, who all adopted their father’s profession, Bonaventure, who was born in 1583, is the most celebrated. He began business as a printer in 1608, and in 1626 took into partnership Abraham, a son of Matthieu, born at Leiden in 1592. Abraham died on the 14th of August 1652, and Bonaventure about a month afterwards. The fame of the Elzevir editions rests chiefly on the works issued by this firm. Their Greek and Hebrew impressions are considered inferior to those of the Aldi and the Estiennes, but their small editions in 12mo, 16mo and 24mo, for elegance of design, neatness, clearness and regularity of type, and beauty of paper, cannot be surpassed. Especially may be mentioned the two editions of the New Testament in Greek (Ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη, Novum Testamentum, &c.), published in 1624 and 1633, of which the latter is the more beautiful and the more sought after; the Psalterium Davidis, 1653; Virgilii opera, 1636; Terentii comediae, 1635; but the works which gave their press its chief celebrity are their collection of French authors on history and politics in 24mo, known under the name of the Petites Républiques, and their series of Latin, French and Italian classics in small 12mo. Jean, son of Abraham, born in 1622, had since 1647 been in partnership with his father and uncle, and when they died Daniel, son of Bonaventure, born in 1626, joined him. Their partnership did not last more than two years, and after its dissolution Jean carried on the business alone till his death in 1661. In 1654 Daniel joined his cousin Louis (the third of that name and son of the second Louis), who was born in 1604, and had established a printing press at Amsterdam in 1638. From 1655 to 1666 they published a series of Latin classics in 8vo, cum notis variorum; Cicero in 4to; the Etymologicon linguae Latinae; and a magnificent Corpus juris civilis in folio, 2 vols., 1663. Louis died in 1670, and Daniel in 1680. Besides Bonaventure, another son of Matthieu, Isaac, born in 1593, established a printing press at Leiden, where he carried on business from 1616 to 1625; but none of his editions attained much fame. The last representatives of the Elzevir printers were Peter, grandson of Joost, who from 1667 to 1675 was a bookseller at Utrecht, and printed seven or eight volumes of little consequence; and Abraham, son of the first Abraham, who from 1681 to 1712 was university printer at Leiden.

Some of the Elzevir editions bear no other typographical mark than simply the words Apud Elzeverios, or Ex officina Elseveriana, under the rubrique of the town. But the majority bear one of their special devices, four of which are recognized as in common use. Louis Elzevir, the founder of the family, usually adopted the arms of the United Provinces, an eagle on a cippus holding in its claws a sheaf of seven arrows, with the motto Concordia res parvae crescunt. About 1620 the Leiden Elzevirs adopted a new device, known as “the solitary,” and consisting of an elm tree, a fruitful vine and a man alone, with a motto Non solus. They also used another device, a palm tree with the motto, Assurgo pressa. The Elzevirs of Amsterdam used for their principal device a figure of Minerva with owl, shield and olive tree, and the motto, Ne extra oleas. The earliest productions of the Elzevir press are marked with an angel bearing a book and a scythe, and various other devices occur at different times. When the Elzevirs did not wish to put their name to their works they generally marked them with a sphere, but of course the mere fact that a work printed in the 17th century bears this mark is no proof that it is theirs. The total number of works of all kinds which came from the presses of the Elzevirs is given by Willems as 1608; there were also many forgeries.

EMANATION (Lat. emanatio, from e-, out, manare, to flow), in philosophy and theology, the name of one of the three chief theories of existence, i.e. of the relation between God and men—the One and the Many, the Universal and the Particular. This theory has been propounded in many forms, but the central idea is that the universe of individuals consists of the involuntary “outpourings” of the ultimate divine essence. That essence is not only all-inclusive, but absolutely perfect, while the “emanated” individuals degenerate in proportion to the degree of their distance from the essence. The existence of evil in opposition to the perfect goodness of God, as thus explained, need not be attributed to God’s agency, inasmuch as the whole emanation-process is governed by necessary—as it were mechanical—laws, which may be compared to those of the physical universe. The doctrine of emanation is thus to be distinguished from the cosmogonic theory of Judaism and Christianity, which explains human existence as due to a single creative act of a moral agent. The God of Judaism and 305 Christianity is essentially a person in close personal relation to his creatures; emanation is the denial of personality both for God and for man. The emanation theory is to be contrasted, on the other hand, with the theory of evolution. The two theories are alike in so far as both recognize the existence of individuals as due to a necessary process of differentiation and a scale of existence. They differ, however, fundamentally in this respect, that, whereas evolution regards the process as from the indeterminate lower towards the determinate higher, emanation regards it as from the highest to the indefinitely lower.

There is considerable superficial similarity between evolution and emanation, especially in their formal statements. The process of evolution from the indeterminate to the determinate is often expressed as a progress from the universal to the particular. Thus the primordial matter assumed by the early Greek physicists may be said to be the universal substance out of which particular things arise. The doctrine of emanation also regards the world as a process of particularization. Yet the resemblance is more apparent than real. The universal is, as Herbert Spencer remarked, a subjective idea, and the general forms, existing ante res, which play so prominent a part in Greek and medieval philosophy, do not in the least correspond to the homogeneous matter of the physical evolutionists. The one process is a logical operation, the other a physical. The theory of emanation, which had its source in certain moral and religious ideas, aims first of all at explaining the origin of mental or spiritual existence as an effluence from the divine and absolute spirit. In the next place, it seeks to account for the general laws of the world, for the universal forms of existence, as ideas which emanate from the Deity. By some it was developed into a complete philosophy of the world, in which matter itself is viewed as the lowest emanation from the absolute. In this form it stands in sharp antithesis to the doctrine of evolution, both because the former views the world of particular things and events as essentially unreal and illusory, and because the latter, so far as it goes, looks on matter as eternal, and seeks to explain the general forms of things as we perceive them by help of simpler assumptions. In certain theories known as doctrines of emanation, only mental existence is referred to the absolute source, while matter is viewed as eternal and distinct from the divine nature. In this form the doctrine of emanation approaches certain forms of the evolution theory (see Evolution).