The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia, Volume 1 of 28 (part 9 of 14)

The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia, Volume 1 of 28 (part 9 of 14)

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--F. R. Chesney, The Euphrates Expedition (1850) H. Guys, Statistique du Pachalik d'Alep (1853), and Esquisse de l'etat de la Syrie (1862); E. B. B. Barker, Syria and Egypt (1876); W. F. Ainsworth, Personal Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition (1888); E. R. Bevan, Heuse of Seleucas (1902); G. le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems (1890). (D. G. H.)

ALES (ALESIUS), ALEXANDER (1500-1565), Scottish divine of the school of Augsburg, whose family name was ALANE, was born at Edinburgh on the 23rd of April 1500. He studied at St Andrews in the newly-founded college of St Leonard's, where he graduated in 1515. Some time afterwards he was appointed a canon of the collegiate church, and at first contended vigorously for the scholastic theology as against the doctrines of the Reformers. His views were entirely changed, however, on the execution of Patrick Hamilton, abbot of Fern, in 1528. He had been chosen to meet Hamilton in controversy, with a view to convincing him of his errors, but the arguments of the Scottish proto-martyr, and above all the spectacle of his heroism at the stake, impressed Alesius so powerfully that he was entirely won over to the cause of the Reformers. A sermon which he preached before the Synod at St Andrews against the dissoluteness of the clergy gave great offence to the provost, who cast him into prison, and might have carried his resentment to the extremest limit had not Alesius contrived to escape to Germany in 1532. After travelling in various countries of northern Europe, he settled down at Wittenberg, where he made the acquaintance of Luther and Melanchthon, and signed the Augsburg confession. Meanwhile he was tried in Scotland for heresy and condemned without a hearing. In 1533 a decree of the Scottish clergy, prohibiting the reading of the New Testament by the laity, drew from Alesius a defence of the right of the people, in the form of a letter to James V. A reply to this by John Cochlaeus, also addressed to the Scottish king, occasioned a second letter from Alesius, in which he not only amplifies his argument with great force, but enters into more general questions connected with the Reformation. In August 1534 he and a few others were excommunicated at Holyrood by the deputy of the archbishop of St Andrews. When Henry VIII. broke with the church of Rome Alesius was induced to go to England, where he was very cordially received (August 1535) by the king and his advisers Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell. After a short residence at Lambeth he was appointed, through the influence of Cromwell, then chancellor of the university, to lecture on theology at Cambridge; but when he had delivered a few expositions of the Hebrew psalms, he was compelled by the opposition of the papal party to desist. Returning to London he supported himself for some time by practising as a physician. In 1537 he attended a convocation of the clergy, and at the request of Cromwell conducted a controversy with Stokesley, bishop of London, on the nature of the sacraments. His argument was afterwards published under the title Of the Auctorite of the Word of God concerning the number of the Sacraments. In 1539 Alesius was compelled to flee for the second time to Germany, in consequence of the enactment of the statute of the Six Articles. He was appointed to a theological chair in the university of Frankfort-on-Oder, where he was the first professor who taught the reformed doctrines. In 1543 he quitted Frankfort for a similar position at Leipzig, his contention that it was the duty of the civil magistrate to punish fornication, and his sudden departure, having given offence to the authorities of the former university. He was in England again for a short time during Edward VI.'s reign, and was commissioned by Cranmer to make a Latin version of the First Prayer-Book (1549) for the information of Bucer, whose opinion was desired. He died at Leipzig on the 17th of March 1565.

Alesius was the author of a large number of exegetical, dogmatic and polemical works, of which over twenty are mentioned by Bale in his List of English Writers. (See also the British Museum catalogue.) In his controversial works he upholds the synergistic views of the Scottish theologian John Major. He displayed his interest in his native land by the publication of a Cohortatio ad Concordiam Pietatis, missa in Patriam suam (1544), which had the express approval of Luther, and a Cohortatio ad Pietatis Concordiam ineundam (1559).

The best early account of Alesius is the Oratio de Alexandro Alesio of Jacob Thomasius (April 1661), printed in the latter's Orationes (No. XIV., Leipzia, 1683): the best modern account is by Dr A. W. Ward in the Dictionary of National Biography. See also A. F. Mitchell's introduction to Gau's Richt Vay (Scottish Text Society, 1888).

ALESIA, the ancient name for a hill in central France, now Alise-Ste-Reine (department Cote d'Or), where in 52 B.C. Caesar besieged the Gaulish national leader Vercingetorix within enormous entrenchments, forced him to surrender, and thus practically ended his conquest of Gaul. The siege-works have been excavated by Napoleon III. and others, down to the present day. The site seems to have been inhabited also during the Roman empire, but its importance is limited to Caesar's siege.

ALESSANDRI, ALESSANDRO (ALEXANDER AB ALEXANDRO) (1461-1523), Italian jurist, was born at Naples about the year 1461. He studied law at Naples and Rome, and afterwards practised for a time as advocate in both cities. He is said to have been royal proto-notary at Naples in 1490. Dissatisfied, according to his own account, with the corrupt administration of justice, he at length quitted the bar and devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits, especially to the study of philology and antiquities. A sinecure appointment, which he owed to the favour of the pope, enabled him to lead a life of learned leisure at Rome, where he died on the 2nd of October 1523. His work entitled Dies Geniales appeared at Rome in 1522, and was constructed after the model of the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius, and the Saturnalia of Macrobius. It consists of a confused mass of heterogeneous materials relating to philology, antiquities, law, dreams, spectres, &c., and is characterized by considerable credulity.

ALESSANDRIA, a city and episcopal see of Piedmont, Italy, capital of a province which bears its name, situated on the river Tanaro, 57 m. E. by S. of Turin by rail. Pop. (1901) 71,298, of which about half reside in the actual town: the rest are distributed over the suburbs. Alessandria was founded in 1168 by the inhabitants of the district in order to defend themselves against the marquis of Monferrato and the town of Pavia, at whose request it was besieged in 1174 by Frederick Barbarossa for six months, but without success. The Lombard League now included it among the allied cities and named it Alessandria, after Pope Alexander III. The traditional account of its foundation by the Lombard League has been disproved by F. Graf, Die Grundung Alessandrias: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Lombardenbunides (1888). After falling into various hands, it was ceded to Savoy by the peace of Utrecht in 1713, and its citadel was begun in 1728. During the French occupation (1800-1814), which began after the battle of Marengo, it was still more strongly fortified; the works were entirely destroyed by the Austrians in 1815, but were afterwards reconstructed, and Alessandria is still an important fortress and the headquarters of the second army corps. The citadel is on the left bank of the Tanaro, the town being on the right bank. It is regularly built and contains few buildings of architectural interest, but is a flourishing and important commercial town, not merely owing to its own manufactures (which are miscellaneous) but for the products of the district, and one of the greatest railway centres in Italy. Lines diverge from it to Turin via Asti, to Valenza (and thence to Vercelli, Mortara--for Novara or Milan--and Pavia), to Tortona, to Novi, to Acqui and to Bra.

ALESSI, GALEAZZO (1512-1572), Italian architect, was born at Perugia, and was probably a pupil of Caporali. He was an enthusiastic student of ancient architecture, and his style gained for him a European reputation. Genoa is indebted to him for a number of its most magnificent palaces, and specimens of his skill may be seen in the churches of San Paolo and Santa Vittoria at Milan, in certain parts of the Escurial, and in numerous churches and palaces throughout Sicily, Flanders and Germany.

See Rossi, Di Galeazzo Alessi memorie (Perugia, 1873).

ALETHIOLOGY (from the Gr. aletheia, truth), an uncommon expression for the doctrine of truth, used by Sir William Hamilton in his philosophic writings when treating of the rules for the discrimination of truth and error.

ALETRIUM (mod. Alatri), a town of the Hernici, about 6 m. due N. of Frusino, Italy, mentioned in 306 B.C. for its fidelity to Rome. In Cicero's time it was a municipium, and continued in this position throughout the imperial period. It is chiefly remarkable for its finely preserved fortifications constructed of tetrahedral and polygonal blocks of local limestone well jointed, with maximum dimensions of about 3 by 1 1/2 ft.; the outer circuit of the city wall measures about 2 1/2 m. It is almost entirely an embanking wall, as is the rule in the cities of this part of Italy, with a maximum height, probably, of about 30 ft. Two of the gates (of which there were perhaps five) are still to some extent preserved, and three posterns are to be found. In the centre of the city rises a hill (1647 ft.) which was adopted as the citadel. Remains of the fortifications of three successive periods can be traced, of which the last, perhaps a little more recent than that of the city wall, is the best preserved. In the first two periods the construction is rough, while in the third the blocks are very well and finely jointed, and the faces smoothed; they are mostly polygonal in form and are much larger (the maximum about 10 by 6 ft.) than those of the city wall. A flat surface was formed partly by smoothing off the rock and partly by the erection of huge terrace walls which rise to a height of over 50 ft., enclosing a roughly rectangular area of 235 by 115 yds. Two approaches to the citadel were constructed, both passing through the wall; the openings of both are rectangular. The architrave of the larger, known as Porta di Civita, measures about 17 ft. in length, 5 ft. in height, 6 ft. in thickness; while that of the smaller is decorated with three phalli in relief. Later, though probably in ancient times, a ramp was added on the northern side. In the centre of the arx was a building on the site of the present cathedral, of which only a small portion is preserved. Remains of a high-pressure aqueduct, which supplied the town with water and was constructed with other public buildings (Corp. Inscr. Lat. x., Berlin, 1883, p. 5807) by L. Betilienus Varus, may still be traced. A temple was excavated in 1889 about 1/2 m. to the north of the town and many fragments of the painted terra-cottas with which it was decorated were found. A reconstruction of it has been erected in the Museo di Villa Giulia at Rome. The present town (pop. in 1901, 15,322) has a picturesque aspect, and contains many buildings in the Gothic style.

See R. Bassel, Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung, 1881, 121, p. 134; H. Winnefeld, Romische Mitteilungen, 1889, 126; G. Fiorelli in Notizie degli Scavi, 1882, 417. (T. As.)

ALEURITES (Gr. aleuritus, pertaining to aleuron, ground meal, from alein, to grind), a genus of trees belonging to the natural order Euphorbiaceae. Aleurites moluccana, or triloba, is widely cultivated throughout the tropical and sub-tropical parts of the world for its fruit, which is about the size of a walnut, and contains several seeds which are rich in oil. The oil is extracted and used for food and light; it is known in India as kekuna, and the tree as the ``candle-nut.'' In the Sandwich Islands the nuts are strung upon strips of wood and used as torches. The oil is exported to Europe for candle-making. A. cordata flourishes in China, where it is known as the varnish- tree, on account of the lac contained in its seeds.

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS (possibly from Chukchi aliat, ``island''), a chain of small islands situated in the Northern Pacific Ocean, and extending about 1200 m. westward from the extremity of the Alaskan peninsula toward the peninsula of Kamchatka; they constitute part of the District of Alaska, U.S.A. The islands, of which an alternative collective name is the Catherine Archipelago, comprise four groups--the Fox, Andreanof, Rat and Near Islands. They are all included between 52 deg. and 55 deg. N. lat. and 172 deg. E. and 163 deg. W. long.

The axis of the archipelago near the mainland of Alaska has a S.W. trend, but near the 129th meridian its direction changes to the N.W. This change of direction corresponds to a curve in the line of volcanic fissures which have contributed their products to the building of the islands. Such curved chains are repeated about the Pacific Ocean in the Kurile Islands, the Japanese chain, the Philippines, &c. The general elevation is greatest in the eastern islands and least in the western. The island chain is really a western continuation of the Aleutian Range on the mainland.

The great majority of the islands bear evident marks of volcanic origin, and there are numerous volcanic cones on the north side of the chain, some of them active; many of the islands, however, are not wholly volcanic, but contain crystalline or sedimentary rocks, and also amber and beds of lignite. The coasts are rocky and surf-worn and the approaches are exceedingly dangerous, the land rising immediately from the coasts to steep, bold mountains.

The climate of the islands is oceanic, with moderate and fairly uniform temperatures and heavy rainfall. Fogs are almost constant. The summers are much cooler than on the mainland at Sitka (q.v.), but the winter temperature of the islands and of south-eastern Alaska is very nearly the same. The mean annual temperature for Unalaska, the most important island of the group, is about 38 deg. F.; being about 30 deg. for January and about 52 deg. for August. The highest and lowest temperatures recorded on the islands are 78 deg. and 5 deg. . The average annual amount of rainfall is about 80 in., and Unalaska, with about 250 rainy days per year, is said to be the rainiest place within the territory of the United States. The growing season lasts about 135 days, from early in May till late in September, but agriculture is limited to the raising of a few vegetables. With the exception of some stunted willows the islands are practically destitute of trees, but are covered with a luxuriant growth of herbage, including grasses, sedges and many flowering plants. On the less mountainous islands the raising of sheep and reindeer is believed to be practicable. The principal occupations of the natives have always been fishing and hunting, and the women weave basketry of exquisite fineness. From the end of the 18th century the Russian fur traders had settlements here for the capture of the seal and the sea otter and the blue and the Arctic fox. Under the American regime seal fishing off the Aleutians save by the natives has never been legal, but the depletion of the Pribilof herd, the almost complete extinction of the sea otter, and the rapid decrease of the foxes and other fur animals, have threatened the Aleuts (as the natives are commonly called) with starvation. In recent years enterprising traders have raised foxes by culture and by especially protecting certain small islands, and this has furnished employment to whole communities of natives. Fish and sea-fowl are extremely abundant.

The natives are rather low in stature, but plump and well shaped, with short necks, swarthy faces, black eyes and long black hair. They are a branch of the Esquimauan family, but differ greatly from the Eskimo of the mainland in language, habits, disposition and mental ability. They were good fighters until they were cowed by the treatment of the Russians, who practically reduced them to slavery. Sporadic efforts to Christianize the Aleuts were made in the latter half of the 18th century, but little impression was made before the arrival in 1824 of Father Ivan Venyaminov, who in 1840 became the first Greek bishop of Alaska. While the missionaries of the Greek Church have nominally converted the natives to Christianity, white adventurers have more effectually converted them to various bad habits. In dress and mode of life they have adopted outwardly civilized customs. From the position of the Aleutian islands, stretching like a broken bridge from Asia to America, some ethnologists have supposed that by means of them America was first peopled. Raised shore-lines, occasional earthquakes, and slow measurable elevation of the land about active volcanoes, indicate that elevation is now in progress, but the geological evidence shows no sign of former submergence of a connecting isthmus. There is granite at the core of the Shaler range of mountains in southern Unalaska.

It is stated that before the advent of the Russians there were 25,000 Aleuts on the archipelago, but that the barbarities of the traders eventually reduced the population to one-tenth of this number. The number of Aleuts in 1890 was reported as 968; the total population of the archipelago in 1900 was 2000.

The principal settlements are on the Unalaska Island. Of these Iliuliuk (also called Unalaska), the oldest, settled in 1760-1775, has a custom house, a Russian-Greek Church, and a Methodist Mission and orphanage, and is the headquarters for a considerable fleet of United States revenue cutters which patrol the sealing grounds of the Pribilofs; adjacent is Dutch Harbor (so named, it is said, because a Dutch vessel was the first to enter it), which is an important port for Bering Sea commerce. The volcano Makushin (5691 ft.) is visible from Iliuliuk, and the volcanic islets Bogoslof and Grewingk, which rose from the sea in 1796 and 1883 respectively, lie about 30 m. W. of the bay. The latter is still active; in 1906 a new cone rose between the two earlier islets, and in 1907 still another: these were nearly demolished by an explosive eruption on the 1st of September 1907. The population of Unalaska Island in 1900 was 575 Aleuts and 66 whites. The Commander Islands group near the Asiatic coast is geographically, but since the acquisition of the Russian possessions in America not politically, a part of the Aleutian system.

In 1741 the Russian government sent out Vitus Bering, a Dane, and Alexei Chirikov, a Russian, in the ships ``Saint Peter'' and ``Saint Paul'' on a voyage of discovery in the Northern Pacific. After the ships were separated by a storm, Chirikov discovered several eastern islands of the Aleutian group, and Bering discovered several of the western islands, finally being wrecked and losing his life on the island of the Commander group that now bears his name. The survivors of Bering's party reached Kamchatka in a boat constructed from the wreckage of their ship, and reported that the islands were rich in fur-bearing animals. Siberian fur hunters at once flocked to the Commander Islands and gradually moved eastward across the Aleutian Islands to the mainland. In this manner Russia gained a foothold on the north-western coast of North America. The Aleutian Islands consequently belonged to Russia, until that country in 1867 transferred to the United States all its possessions in America. During his third and last voyage, in 1778, Captain James Cook surveyed the eastern portion of the Aleutian archipelago, accurately determined the position of some of the more important islands and corrected many errors of former navigators. Some preliminary surveys have been made by the United States government with a view to establishing a naval station on the island Kiska, in the western part of the Aleutian Chain.

ALEXANDER (ALEXANDER OF BATTENBERG) (1857-1893), first prince of Bulgaria, was the second son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and the Rhine by his morganatic marriage with Julia, countess von Hauke. The title of princess of Battenberg, derived from an old residence of the grand-dukes of Hesse, was conferred, with the prefix Durchlaucht or ``Serene Highness,'' on the countess and her descendants in 1858. Prince Alexander, who was born on the 5th of April 1857, was nephew of the tsar Alexander II., who had married a sister of Prince Alexander of Hesse; his mother, a daughter of Count Moritz von Hauke, had been lady-in-waiting to the tsaritsa. In his boyhood and early youth he was frequently at St Petersburg, and he accompanied his uncle, who was much attached to him, during the Bulgarian campaign of 1877. When Bulgaria under the Berlin Treaty was constituted an autonomous principality under the suzerainty of Turkey, the tsar recommended his nephew to the Bulgarians as a candidate for the newly created throne, and Prince Alexander was elected prince of Bulgaria by unanimous vote of the Grand Sobranye (April 29, 1879). He was at that time serving as a lieutenant in the Prussian life-guards at Potsdam. Before proceeding to Bulgaria, Prince Alexander paid visits to the tsar at Livadia, to the courts of the great powers and to the sultan; he was then conveyed on a Russian warship to Varna, and after taking the oath to the new constitution at Tirnova (July 8, 1879) he repaired to Sofia, being everywhere greeted with immense enthusiasm by the people. (For the political history of Prince Alexander's reign, see BULGARIA.) Without any previous training in the art of government, the young prince from the outset found himself confronted with difficulties which would have tried the sagacity of an experienced ruler. On the one hand he was exposed to numberless humiliations on the part of the representatives of official Russia, who made it clear to him that he was expected to play the part of a roi faineant; on the other he was compelled to make terms with the Bulgarian politicians, who, intoxicated with newly won liberty, prosecuted their quarrels with a crude violence which threatened to subvert his authority and to plunge the nation in anarchy. After attempting to govern under these conditions for nearly two years, the prince, with the consent of the tsar Alexander III., assumed absolute power (May 9, 1881), and a suspension of the ultra-democratic constitution for a period of seven years was voted by a specially convened assembly (July 13). The experiment, however, proved unsuccessful; the Bulgarian Liberal and Radical politicians were infuriated, and the real power fell into the hands of two Russian generals, Sobolev and Kaulbars, who had been specially despatched from St Petersburg. The prince, after vainly endeavouring to obtain the recall of the generals, restored the constitution with the concurrence of all the Bulgarian political parties (September 18, 1883). A serious breach with Russia followed, which was widened by the part which the prince subsequently played in encouraging the national aspirations of the Bulgarians. The revolution of Philippopolis (September 18, 1885), which brought about the union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria, was carried out with his consent, and he at once assumed the government of the revolted province. In the anxious year which followed, the prince gave evidence of considerable military and diplomatic ability. He rallied the Bulgarian army, now deprived of its Russian officers, to resist the Servian invasion, and after a brilliant victory at Slivnitza (November 19) pursued King Milan into Servian territory as far as Pirot, which he captured (November 27). Although Servia was protected from the consequences of defeat by the intervention of Austria, Prince Alexander's success sealed the union with Eastern Rumelia, and after long negotiations he was nominated governor-general of that province for five years by the sultan (April 5, 1886). This arrangement, however, cost him much of his popularity in Bulgaria, while discontent prevailed among a certain number of his officers, who considered themselves slighted in the distribution of rewards at the close of the campaign. A military conspiracy was formed, and on the night of the 20th of August the prince was seized in the palace at Sofia, and compelled to sign his abdication; he was then hurried to the Danube at Rakhovo, transported on his yacht to Reni, and handed over to Russian authorities, by whom he was allowed to proceed to Lemberg. He soon, however, returned to Bulgaria, owing to the success of the counter- revolution led by Stamboloff, which overthrew the provisional government set up by the Russian party at Sofia. But his position had become untenable, partly owing to an ill-considered telegram which he addressed to the tsar on his return; partly in consequence of the attitude of Prince Bismarck, who, in conjunction with the Russian and Austrian governments, forbade him to punish the leaders of the military conspiracy. He therefore issued a manifesto resigning the throne, and left Bulgaria on the 8th of September 1886. He now retired into private life. A few years later he married Fraulein Loisinger, an actress, and assumed the style of Count Hartenau (February 6, 1889). The last years of his life were spent principally at Gratz, where he held a local command in the Austrian army. Here, after a short illness, he died on the 23rd of October 1893. His remains were brought to Sofia, where they received a public funeral, and were eventually deposited in a mausoleum erected in his memory. Prince Alexander possessed much charm and amiability of manner; he was tall, dignified and strikingly handsome. His capabilities as a soldier have been generally recognized by competent authorities. As a ruler he committed some errors, but his youth and inexperience and the extreme difficulty of his position must be taken into consideration. He was not without aptitude for diplomacy, and his intuitive insight and perception of character sometimes enabled him to outwit the crafty politicians by whom he was surrounded. His principal fault was a want of tenacity and resolution; his tendency to unguarded language undoubtedly increased the number of his enemies.

See Drandar, Le Prince Alexandre de Battenberg en Bulgarie (Paris, 1884); Koch, Furst Alexander von Bulgarien (Darmstadt, 1887); Matveyev, Bulgarien nach dem Berliner Congress (Petersburg, 1887); Bourchier, ``Prince Alexander of Battenberg,'' in Fortnightly Review, January 1894. (J. D. B.)

ALEXANDER I., king of Epirus about 342 B.C., brother of Olympias the mother of Alexander the Great, and son-in-law of Philip of Macedon, whose daughter Cleopatra he married (336). In 332 he crossed over to Italy to assist the Tarentines against the Lucanians, Bruttians and Samnites. He gained considerable successes and made an arrangement with the Romans for a joint attack upon the Samnites; but the Tarentines, suspecting him of the design of founding an independent kingdom, turned against him. Although the advantage at first rested with Alexander, he gradually lost it, and his supporters dwindled away. In 330 (or earlier) he was defeated at Pandosia and slain by a Lucanian emigrant.

See Justin viii. 6, ix. 6, xii. 2; Livy viii. 3, 17, 24; Aulus Gellius xvii. 21; and article MACEDONIAN EMPIRE.

ALEXANDER II., king of Epirus, succeeded his father Pyrrhus, 272 B.C. He attacked Antigonus Gonatas and conquered the greater part of Macedonia, but was in turn driven out of both Epirus and Macedonia by Demetrius the son of Antigonus. He subsequently recovered his kingdom by the aid of the Acarnanians and Aetolians. He died about 260 (Polybius ii. 45, ix. 34; Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 9; Justin xviii. 1, xxvi. 2, xxviii. 1).

See Thirlwall, History of Greece, vol. viii.; Droysen, Hellenismus; B. Niese, Gesch. d. griech. u. maked. Staaten; J. Beloch, Griech. Gesch. vol. iii.

ALEXANDER III., known as THE GREAT1 (356-323 B.C.), king of Macedon, was the son of Philip II. of Macedon, and Olympias, an Epirote princess. His father was pre-eminent for practical genius, his mother a woman of half-wild blood, weird, visionary and terrible; and Alexander himself is singular among men of action for the imaginative splendours which guided him, and among romantic dreamers for the things he achieved.

Youth.

We was born in 356 B.C., probably about October (Hogarth, pp. 284 ff.). The court at which he grew up was the focus of great activities, for Philip, by war and diplomacy, was raising Macedon to the headship of the Greek states, and the air was charged with great ideas. To unite the Greek race in a war against the Persian empire was set up as the ultimate mark for ambition, the theme of idealists. The great literary achievements of the Greeks in the 5th century lay already far enough behind to have become invested with a classical dignity; the meaning of Hellenic civilization had been made concrete in a way which might sustain enthusiasm for a body of ideal values, authoritative by tradition. And upon Alexander in his fourteenth year this sum of tradition was brought to bear through the person of the man who beyond all others had gathered it up into an organic whole: in 343-342 Aristotle (q.v.) came to Pella at Philip's bidding to direct the education of his son. We do not know what faculty the master-thinker may have had for captivating this ardent spirit; at any rate Alexander carried with him through life a passion for Homer, however he may have been disposed to greyer philosophic theory. But his education was not all from books. The coming and going of envoys from many states, Greek and Oriental, taught him something of the actual conditions of the world. He was early schooled in war. At the age of sixteen he commanded in Macedonia during Philip's absence and quelled a rising of the hill-tribes on the northern border; in the following year (338) he headed the charge which broke the Sacred Band at Chaeronea. Then came family dissensions such as usually vex the polygamous courts of the East. In 337 Philip repudiated Olympias for another wife, Cleopatra, Alexander went with his mother to her home in Epirus, and, though he soon returned and an outward reconciliation between father and son was contrived, their hearts were estranged. The king's new wife was with child; her kinsmen were in the ascendant; the succession of Alexander was imperilled. Some negotiations which Pixodarus, the satrap of Caria, opened with the Macedonian court with a view to effecting a marriage alliance between his house and Philip's, brought Alexander into fresh broils. In 336 Philip was suddenly assassinated whilst celebrating at Aegae the marriage of his daughter to Alexander I. of Epirus in the presence of a great concourse from all the Greek world. It is certain that the hand of the assassin was prompted by some one in the background; suspicion could not fail to fall upon Alexander among others. But guilt of that sort would hardly be consistent with his character as it appears in those early day's.

Accession.

Alexander was not the only claimant to the vacant throne, but, recognized by the army, he soon swept all rivals from his path. The newly born son of Philip by Cleopatra, and Alexander's cousin Amyntas, were put to death, and Alexander took up the interrupted work of his father. That work was on the point of opening its most brilliant chapter by an invasion of the great king's dominions; the army was concentrated and certain forces had already been sent on to occupy the opposite shore of the Hellespont. The assassination of Philip delayed the blow, for it immediately made the base, Macedonia, insecure, and in such an enterprise, plunging into the vast territories of the Persian empire, a secure base was everything. Philip's removal had made all the hill-peoples of the north and west raise their heads and set the Greek states free from their fears. A demonstration in Greece, led by the new king of Macedonia, momentarily checked the agitation, and at the diet at Corinth Alexander was recognized as captain-general (egemon autokrator) of the Hellenes against the barbarians, in the place of his father Philip.

Leader of the Hellenes.

In the spring of 335 he went out from Macedonia northwards, struck across the Balkans, probably by the Shipka Pass, frustrating the mountain warfare of its tribes by a precision of discipline which, probably, no other army of the time could have approached, and traversed the land of the Triballians (Rumelia) to the Danube. To gratify his own imagination or strike the imagination of the world he took his army over the Danube and burnt a settlement of the Getae upon the other side. Meanwhile the Illyrians had seized Pelion (Pliassa), which commanded the passes on the west of Macedonia, and from the Danube Alexander marched straight thither over the hills. He had hardly restored Macedonian prestige in this quarter when he heard that Greece was aflame. Thebes had taken up arms. By a forced march he took the Thebans completely by surprise, and in a few days the city, which a generation before had won the headship of Greece, was taken. There were to be no half-measures now; the city was wiped out of existence with the exception of its temples and the house which had been Pindar's. Greece might now be trusted to lie quiet for some time to come. The Panhellenic alliance (from which Sparta still stood aloof) against the barbarians was renewed. Athens, although known to be hostile at heart to the cities of Macedonian power, Alexander treated all through with eager courtesy.

Invasion of Asia Minor.

In the spring of 334, Alexander crossed with an army of between 30,000 and 40,000 men, Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians and the contingents of the Greek states, into Asia. The place of concentration was Arisbe on the Hellespont. Alexander himself first visited the site of Troy and there went through those dramatic acts of sacrifice to the Ilian Athena, assumption of the shield believed to be that of Achilles; and offerings to the great Homeric dead, which are significant of the poetic glamour shed, in the young king's mind, over the whole enterprise, and which men will estimate differently according to the part they assign to imagination in human affairs.

Battle of Granicus.

To meet the invader the great king had in Asia Minor an army slightly larger, it would seem, than Alexander's, gathered under the satraps of the western provinces at Zeleia. He had also, what was more serious, command of the Aegean. Alexander could communicate with his base only by the narrow line of the Hellespont, and ran the risk, if he went far from it, of being cut off altogether. To draw him after them, while avoiding a conflict, was sound strategy for the Persian generals. It was urged upon them by their colleague the Rhodian Memnon. But strategic considerations were cancelled by the Persian barons' code of chivalry, and Alexander found them waiting for him on the banks of the Granicus. It was a cavalry melee, in which the common code of honour caused Macedonian and Persian chieftains to engage hand to hand, and at the end of the day the relics of the Persian army were in flight, leaving the high-roads of Asia Minor clear for the invader. Alexander could now accomplish the first part of the task belonging to him as captain-general to the Hellenes, that liberation of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, for which Panhellenic enthusiasts had cried out so long. He first went to take possession of the old Lydian capital Sardis, the headquarters of the Persian government on this side of the Taurus, and the strong city surrendered without a blow. And now in all the Greek cities of Aeolis and Ionia the oligarchies or tyrants friendly to Persia fell, and democracies were established under the eye of Alexander's officers. Only where the cities were held by garasons in the Persian service, garrisons composed mainly of Greek mercenaries, was the liberator likely to meet with any resistance. From Ephesus indeed the garrison fled upon the news of Granicus, but Miletus required a siege. The Persian fleet in vain endeavoured to relieve it, and Miletus did not long hold out against Alexander's attack. It was at Halicarnassus that Alexander first encountered stubborn resistance, at Halicarnassus where Memnon and the satraps of Caria had rallied what land-forces yet belonged to Persia in the west. When winter fell, Alexander had captured indeed the city itself, but the two citadels still held out against his blockade.

Meanwhile Alexander was making it plain that he had come not merely as captain-general for a war of reprisals, but to take the Persian's place as king of the land. The conquered provinces were organized under Macedonian governors and in Caria a dethroned princess of the native dynasty, Ada, was restored to power. In the winter, whilst Parmenio advanced upon the central plateau to make the occupation of Phrygia effective, Alexander himself passed along the coast to receive the submission of the Lycians and the adherence of the Greek cities of the Pamphylian sea-board. The hills inland were the domain of fighting tribes which the Persian government had never been able to subdue. To conquer them, indeed, Alexander had no time, but he stormed some of their fortresses to hold them in check, and marched through their territory when he turned north from Pamphylia into the interior. The point of concentration for next year's campaign had been fixed at Gordium, a meeting-place of roads in Northern Phrygia. The story of Alexander's cutting the fatal ``Gordian knot'' on the chariot of the ancient Phrygian king Gordius is connected with his stay in this place.

Extension of Alexander's power.

Whilst Alexander had been grounding his power in Asia Minor, he had run a narrow risk of losing his base in Europe. He had after the siege of Miletus disbanded the Graeco- Macedonian fleet, surrendering for the time all attempts to challenge the command of the Aegean. Memnon the Rhodian, now in supreme command of the Persian fleet, saw the European coasts exposed and set out to raise Greece, where discontent always smouldered in Alexander's rear. But Memnon died at the critical moment whilst laying siege to Mytilene and the great plan collapsed. A Persian fleet still held the sea, but it effected little, and presently fresh Graeco-Macedonian squadrons began to hold it in check. It was, however, the need to ensure command of the sea and free all lines of communication behind him that determined Alexander's plan for the next campaign. If he mastered the whole coast-line of the Levant, the enemy's fleet would find itself left in the air. The Syrian coast was accordingly his immediate objective when he broke up from Gordium for the campaign of 333. He was through the Cicilian Gates before the Persian king, Darius III., had sent up a force adequate to hold them. His passage through Cilicia was marked by a violent fever that arrested him for a while in Tarsus, and meantime a great Persian army was waiting for him in northern Syria under the command of Darius himself. In the knot of mountains which close in about the head of the Gulf of Alexandretta, Alexander, following hard by the coast, marched past the Persian army encamped on the plains to the east. To cut Alexander's communications with the rear, Darius now committed the error of entangling his large force in the mountain defiles.

Battle of Issus.

Alexander turned, and near the town of Issus fought his second pitched battle, sending Darius and the relic of his army in wild flight back to the east.2 It was an incident which did not modify Alexander's plan. He did not press the pursuit far, although the great king's camp with his harem fell into his hands. The chivalrous courtesy which he showed to the captive princesses was a favourite theme for later rhetoricians. He went on his way to occupy Syria and Phoenicia. It is now that we get definite evidence as to the reach of Alexander's designs; for Darius opened negotiations in which he ultimately went so far as to offer a partition of the empire, all west of the Euphrates, to be Alexander's. Alexander refused the bargain and definitely claimed the whole.3 The conquest of the Phoenician coast was not to be altogether easy, for Tyre shut its gates and for seven months Alexander had to sit before it--one of those obstinate sieges which mark the history of the Semitic races. When it fell, Alexander had the old Tyrian people scattered to the winds, 30,000 sold as slaves. Gaza offered a resistance equally heroic, lasting two months, and here too the old population was dispersed. The occupation of the rest of Syria and Palestine proceeded smoothly, and after the fall of Gaza Alexander's way lay open into Egypt.4 Egypt was the last of the Mediterranean provinces to be won, and here no defence was made. To the native Egyptians Alexander appeared as a deliverer from the Persian tyranny, and he sacrificed piously to the gods of Memphis. The winter (332-331) which Alexander spent in Egypt saw two memorable actions on his part. One was the expedition (problematic in its motive and details) to the oracle of Zeus Ammon (Oasis of Siwa), where Alexander was hailed by the priest as son of the god, a belief which the circle of Alexander, and perhaps Alexander himself, seem hereafter to have liked to play with in that sort of semi-serious vein which still allowed him in the moments of every-day commonplace to be the son of Philip. The other action was the foundation of Alexandria at the Canopic mouth of the Nile, the place destined to be a new commercial centre for the eastern Mediterranean world which Alexander had now taken in possession, to rise to an importance which the founder, although obviously acting with intention, can hardly have foreseen (E. Keller, Alex. d. Grosse nach der Schlacht bei Issus, 1904).

Invasion of Persia.

In the spring of 331 Alexander could at last leave the Mediterranean to strike into the heart of the Persian empire, for by his occupation of the Coasts the Persian command of the sea had inevitably collapsed. Returning through Syria, and stopping at Tyre to make final arrangements for the conquered provinces, he traversed Mesopotamia and struck the Tigris some four marches above the site of Nineveh. It was near Nineveh that Darius was waiting with the immense host which a supreme effort could muster from all parts of the empire. The happy coincidence of a lunar eclipse gives us the 20th of September 331 as the exact day upon which the Macedonian army crossed the Tigris. Alexander came within sight of the Persian host without having met with any opposition since he quitted Tyre. He had now to settle the most serious problem which had yet faced him, for in the plains the Persian army was formidable by sheer bulk. But the day showed the Macedonian army equal to the task.

Battle of Arbela.

The last army gathered by an Achaemenian king was shattered in the battle called popularly after the city of Arbela some 60 m. distant, or more precisely after the village of Gaugamela hard by. Darius fled eastwards into Media and again Alexander waited till he had secured the provinces to the south. He followed the Tigris into Babylonia, the central seat of the empire and its richest region, and from Babylon went on to seize the fabulous riches which the Persian kings had amassed in their spring residence, Susa. Thence he at last ascended upon the Iranian plateau. The mountain tribes on the road (the Oxii, Pers, Huzha), accustomed to exact blackmail even from the king's train, learnt by a bitter lesson that a stronger hand had come to wield the empire. Alexander entered Persis, the cradle of the Achaemenian house, and came upon fresh masses of treasure in the royal city, Persepolis. He destroyed the royal palace by fire, an act which has been variously estimated by historians. Ostensibly a solemn revenge for the burning of Greek temples by Xerxes, it has been justified as a symbolical act calculated to impress usefully the imagination of the East, and condemned as a senseless and vainglorious work of destruction.

With the spring of 330 Alexander was prepared for further pursuit. Darius fled northwards from Ecbatana upon his approach. At Ecbatana new masses of treasure were seized, but when once the necessary measures which its disposal and the occupation of the Median capital entailed were taken, Alexander continued the pursuit. It was an exciting chase of king by king, in which each covered the ground by incredible exertions, shedding their slower-going followers as they went, past Rhagae (Rai) and the Caspian gates, till early one morning Alexander came in sight of the broken train which still clung to the fallen king. He had become a puppet in the hands of his cousin Bessus and the Persian magnates with him (see DARIUS III.), and at this extremity they stabbed him and allowed Alexander to become master only of his corpse (summer 330).

The pursuit had brought Alexander into that region of mountains to the south of the Caspian which connects western Iran with the provinces to the east of the great central desert. To conquer this remaining portion of the empire, Alexander now went on through the mountain belt, teaching the power of his arms to the hillsmen, Tapyri and Mardi, till he came, passing through Zadracarta (Asterabad), to Parthia and thence to Aria. In these further provinces of Iran the Macedonian invader had for the first time to encounter a serious national opposition, for in the west the Iranian rule had been merely the supremacy of an alien power over native populations indifferent or hostile. Here the ruling race was at home. In Asia Alexander learnt that Bessus, had taken the diadem as Darius' successor in Bactria, but so soon as he marched against him Aria rose in his rear, and Alexander had to return in all haste to bring the revolt under. Nor did he, when this was accomplished, again strike directly at Bactria, but made a wide turning movement through Seistan over Kandahar into the Kabul valley. It was on the way, in Seistan at Prophthasia (mod. Farrah?), that the alienation between Alexander and his Macedonian followers, which becomes sensible in the latter part of his career, first showed itself in an ugly form. Alexander had come to merge the characters of Macedonian king and Hellenic Captain-general, with which he had set out, in that of Oriental despot (Spieker. Hof u. Hofordnung Al. d. Gr., 1904). He wore on occasions of state the Persian dress. (According to pseudo-Plutarch, de fort. Al. i. 8, it was the simpler Persian dress, not the Median.) A discontent began to work among the Macedonians, and at Prophthasia the commander of the Macedonian cavalry Philotas, the son of Parmenio, and certain others were arraigned before the army on the charge of conspiring against the king's life. They were condemned and put to death. Not satisfied with procuring this, Alexander had Parmenio himself, who had been left in command in Media, put to death by secret orders. It is perhaps the worst crime, because the most cold-blooded and ungenerous, which can be laid to his charge. By the winter of 329-328 Alexander had reached the Kabul valley at the foot of the Paropamisadae (Hindu Kush).

The ordinarily received chronology makes Alexander reach the Kabul valley in the winter of 330-329. That to fit the actions and distances covered by Alexander into such a scheme, assuming that he went by Seistan and Kandahar, would involve physical impossibilities has been pointed out by Count Yorck v. Wartenburg and Mr D. G. Hogarth. Kaerst and Beloch continue to give the ordinary chronology untroubled.

Invasion of Northern India.

In the spring of 328 Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush into Bactria and followed the retreat of Bessus across the Oxus and into Sogdiana (Bokhara). Here Bessus was at last caught and treated with the barbaric cruelty which the rule of the old Persian monarchy prescribed for rebels. Till the spring of 327 Alexander was moving to and fro in Bactria and Sogdiana, beating down the recurrent rebellions and planting Greek cities. Just as in 335 he had crossed the Danube, so he now made one raid across the frontier river, the Jaxartes (Sir Daria), to teach the fear of his name to the outlying peoples of the steppe (summer 328). And meanwhile the rift between Alexander and his European followers continued to show itself in dark incidents--the murder of Clitus at Maracanda (Samarkand), when Alexander struck down an old friend, both being hot with wine; the claim that Alexander should be approached with prostration (proskynesis), urged in the spring of 327, and opposed boldly by the philosopher Callisthenes, Aristotle's nephew, who had come in the king's train; the conspiracy of the pages at Bactria, which was made an occasion for putting Callisthenes to death. It was now that Alexander completed the conquest of the provinces north of the Hindu Kush by the reduction of the last mountain strongholds of the native princes. In one of them he captured Roxana, the daughter of Oxyartes, whom he made his wife. Before the summer of 327 he had once more crossed the Hindu Kush on his way to India (for the campaigns in the N.E. see F. von Schwarz, Alex. d. Grossen Feldzuge in Turkestan, 1893, v.).

Whilst the heavier troops moved down the Kabul valley to Pencelaotis (Charsadda) under Perdiccas and Hephaestion, Alexander with a body of lighter-armed troops and cavalry pushed up the valleys which join the Kabul from the north--through the regions now known as Bajour, Swat and Buner, inhabited by Indian hill peoples, as fierce then against the western intruder as their Pathan successors are against the British columns. The books give a number of their ``cities'' reduced by Alexander--walled mountain villages which can in some cases be identified more or less certainly with places where the clans are established to-day. The crowning exploit was the reduction of Aornus,5 a stronghold perched on a precipitous summit above the Indus, which it was said that Heracles had failed to take. How much of the story of Alexander's discovery of the sacred mountain of the Nysa and the traces of Dionysus is due to the invention of Aristobulus and Clitarchus (Arrian did not find it in Ptolemy) we cannot say. Meantime Perdiccas and Hephaestion had built a bridge over the Indus, and by this in the spring of 326 Alexander passed into the Punjab (at Ohind, 16 m. above Attock, according to Foucher, Notes sur la geogr. anc. du Gandhara, 1902). The country into which he came was dominated by three principalities, that of Ambhi (Gr. Omphis, Curt. viii. 12. 6) between the Indus and the Hydaspes (Jhelum, Jehlam), centred in the great city of Takkasila (Gr. Taxila), that of the Paurara rajah (Gr. Porus) between the Hydaspes and Acesines (Chenab), and that of Abhisara (Gr. Abisares) between the same two rivers higher up, on the confines of Kashmir (Stein, Rajatarangini, transl. bk. i. 180, v. 217). The kings of Taxila and Porus were at enmity, and for this cause the invader could reckon upon Omphis as a firm ally. Porus was prepared to contest the passage of the Hydaspes with all his strength. Abisares preferred to play a double game and wait upon events. Alexander reached the Hydaspes just as the rains broke, when the river was already swollen. Porus held the opposite bank with a powerful army, including 200 elephants. Alexander succeeded in taking a part of his forces across the river higher up during a night of torrential rain, and then he fought the fourth and last of his pitched battles in Asia, the one which put to proof more shrewdly than any of the others the quality of the Macedonian army as an instrument of war, and yet again emerged victorious. Porus fell sorely wounded into his hands.6 Porus had saved his honour, and now Alexander tried, and not in vain, to gain him as a friend. When he continued his progress eastwards across the Acesines, Porus was an active ally. Alexander moved along close under the hills. After crossing the Hydraotes (Ravi) he once more came into contact with hostile tribes, and the work of storming petty towns began again. Then the Hyphasis (Beas) was reached, and here the Macedonian army refused to go any farther. It was a bitter mortification to Alexander, before whose imagination new vistas had just opened out eastwards, where there beckoned the unknown world of the Ganges and its splendid kings. For three days the will of king and people were locked in antagonism; then Alexander gave way; the long eastward movement was ended; the return began.

The return.

Alexander left the conquered portion of India east of the Indus to be governed under Porus, Omphis of Taxila, and Abisares, the country west of the Indus under Macedonian governors, and set out to explore the great river to its mouth (for the organization of the Indian provinces, see especially Niese, vol. i. pp. 500 f.). The fleet prepared on the Hydaspes sailed in October, while a land army moved along the bank. The confluence of the Hydaspes and Acesines passed, the Macedonians were once more in a region of hostile tribes with towns to be stormed. It was at one of these, a town of the Malli, that a memorable incident occurred, such as characterized the personality of Alexander for all succeeding time. He leapt from the wall with only three companions into the hostile town, and, before the army behind him could effect an entrance, lay wounded almost to death.7 He recovered and beat down the resistance of the tribes, leaving them annexed to the Macedonian satrapy west of the Indus. Below the confluence of the Punjab rivers into the single stream of the Indus the territory of loose tribes was succeeded by another group of regular principalities, under the rajahs called by the Greeks Musicanus, Oxycanus and Sambus. These opposed a national resistance to the Macedonians, the fires of which were fanned by the Brahmins, but still the strong arm of the western people prevailed. The rajah of Patala at the apex of the Indus delta abandoned his country and fled. It was the high summer of 325 when Alexander reached Patala. From here he explored both arms of the delta to the ocean, now seen by the Macedonians for the first time. He had determined that the Indus fleet should be used to explore this new world and try to find a waterway between the Indus and the Persian Gulf. A great part of the land-forces had been already sent off under Craterus in the earlier summer to return west by Kandahar and Seistan; the fleet was to sail under the Greek Nearchus from the Indus mouth with the winter monsoon; Alexander himself with the rest of the land-forces set out in October to go by the coast of Baluchistan, through the appalling sand-wastes of the Mekran.8

He would seem to have kept down to the coast until the headland of Ras Malan was reached, scattering before him the bands of Arabitae and Oritae who were the inhabitants of this well-provisioned tract. For the 150 miles between Ras Malan and Pasni Alexander was compelled by the natural barriers to march inland, and it was here that his troops sank under the horrors of heat and thirst and sand. The coast once regained, the way was easy; no such desert had to be traversed, when Alexander again struck inland for the chief city of the Gedrosians (Pura), and thence made his way into Carmania. Here the spent troops rested; here the army of Craterus joined them, and Nearchus came to announce his safe arrival at the entrance of the Persian Gulf.9

The machine of empire had not functioned altogether smoothly while the king had been absent, and on Alexander's re-appearance many incapables and rogues in high office had to be replaced by better men. In Carmania, in Persis, complaints from the provinces continued to reach him, as well as the news of disorders in Macedonia and Greece. New orders and appointments served to bring the empire into hand again, and at Susa in the spring of 324 Alexander rested, the task of conquering and compassing the Achaemenian realm achieved. The task of its internal reorganization now began to occupy him--changes, for instance, in the military system which tended to assimilate Macedonians and Orientals. The same policy of fusion was furthered by the great marriage festival at Susa, when Alexander took two more wives from the Persian royal house, married a number of his generals to Oriental princesses, and even induced as many as he could of the rank-and-file to take Asiatic wives. This policy did not allay the discontent of the Macedonian army, and when Alexander in the summer of 324 moved to the cooler region of Media, an actual mutiny of the Macedonians broke out on the way at Opis on the Tigris. It was occasioned by the discharge of the Macedonian veterans, and only the personal magnetism of Alexander and his threat to entrust himself altogether to the Orientals availed to quell it. At Ecbatana the death of Hephaestion for a time plunged Alexander into a passion of mourning. But by the winter (324-323) he was again active, bringing the hill- tribes on the S.W. border of Media, the Cossaei, into subjection. In the spring of 323 he moved down to Babylon, receiving on the way embassies from lands as far as the confines of the known world, for the eyes of all nations were now turned with fear or wonder to the figure which had appeared with so superhuman an effect upon the world's stage. The embassy from Rome, however, is almost certainly a later, and an inevitable, invention. The exploration of the waterways round about the empire was Alexander's immediate concern, the discovery of the presumed connexion of the Caspian with the Northern Ocean, the opening of a maritime route from Babylon to Egypt round Arabia. The latter enterprise Alexander designed to conduct in person; under his supervision was prepared in Babylon an immense fleet, a great basin dug out to contain 1000 ships, and the water- communications of Babylonia taken in hand. Innovations were carried out in the tactical system of the army which were to modify considerably the methods of future battle-fields. At last all was ready; the 20th of the month Daesius (? June 5) was fixed for the king's setting forth.

Illness and death.

On the 15th and 16th Alexander caroused deep into the night at the house of the favourite Medius. On the 17th he developed fever; for a time he treated it as a momentary impediment to the expedition; but on the 27th his speech was gone, and the Macedonian army were suffered to pass man by man through his chamber to bid him farewell. On the 28th (? June 13) Alexander died.10

His son by Roxana, the so-called ALEXANDER ``AEGUS,'' was born a few months later. He and his uncle Philip, as joint kings, were placed under the guardianship of Perdiccas, Peithon and Antipater in succession. After the death of Antipater (319) Roxana fled with him to Epirus, and was afterwards taken back to Macedonia, together with Olympias, by Polyperchon. All three fell into the hands of Cassander; Alexander and his mother were in 310-309 put to death by order of Cassander (Justin xiv. 6, xv. 2). The meaningless surname of Aegus, still given in some books to this Alexander, is derived simply from a modern misreading of the text of the Astronomical Canon, AIGOU for ALLOU.

Character and policy.

Alexander the Great is one of the instances of the vanity of appealing from contemporary disputes to ``the verdict of posterity''; his character and his policy are estimated to-day as variously as ever. Certain features--the high physical courage, the impulsive energy, the fervid imagination--stand out clear; beyond that disagreement begins. That he was a great master of war is admitted by most of those who judge his character unfavourably, but even this has been seriously questioned (e.g. by Beloch, Griech. Gesch. iii. (i.), p. 66). There is a dispute as to his real designs. That he aimed at conquering the whole world and demanded to be worshipped as a god is the traditional view. Droysen denies the former, and Niese maintains that his ambition was limited by the bounds of the Persian empire and that the claim to divine honours is fabulous (Historische Zeitschr. lxxix., 1897, 1 f.). It is true that our best authority, Arrian, fails to substantiate the traditional view satisfactorily; on the other hand those who maintain it urge that Arrian's interests were mainly military, and that the other authorities, if inferior in trustworthiness, are completer in range of vision. Of those, again, who maintain the traditional view, some, like Niebuhr and Grote, regard it as convicting Alexander of mad ambition and vainglory, whilst to Kaerst Alexander only incorporates ideas which were the timely fruit of a long historical development. The policy of fusing Greeks and Orientals again is diversely judged. To Droysen and Kaerst it accords with the historical conditions; to Grote and to Beloch it is a betrayal of the prerogative of Hellenism.

Some notion of the personal appearance of Alexander may be got from the literature and the surviving monuments. He is described as of an athletic frame, though not taller than the common, and a white and ruddy complexion. The expression of his eyes had something ``liquid and melting'' (ton ommaton ten diachusin kai ugroteta), and the hair which stood up over his forehead gave the suggestion of a lion. He had a way of carrying his head somewhat aslant. (See especially Plut. Alex. 4; de Alex. fort. ii. 2.) The greatest masters of the time executed portraits of him, Lysippus in sculpture, Apelles in painting and Pyrgoteles in graven gems. Among surviving monuments, we have no completely certified portraits except the Tivoli herm (now in the Louvre) and the coins struck by his successors. The herm is a dry work and the head upon the coins shows various degrees of idealization. There are, however, a considerable number of works which can make out a better or worse claim either to be portraits of Alexander or to reproduce his type, and a large field of discussion is therefore open as to their values and classification (F. Kopp, Uber das Bildnis Alexanders d. Grossen (1892); K. J. Ujfalvy, Le Type physique d'Alexandre le Grand (1902); T. Schreiber, Studien uber das Bildnis Alexanders d. Grossen (1903); J. J. Bernoulli, Die erhaltenen Darstellungen Alexanders d. Grossen (1905). Alexander shaved clean, and set the fashion in this respect for the Graeco-Roman world for the next 500 years.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The campaigns and life of Alexander did not lack contemporary historians, some of them eye-witnesses and even associates. They included the philosopher Callisthenes, put to death by Alexander in 327, whose history went up to the death of Darius, Alexander's general Ptolemy, afterwards king in Egypt, Nearchus who commanded the fleet that sailed from the Indus to the Persian Gulf, Onesicritus who served as pilot in the same fleet, Aristobulus who was with Alexander in India, Clitarchus, a contemporary, if not an eye-witness, important from the fact that his highly coloured version of the life of Alexander became the popular authority for the succeeding centuries. Besides the historical narrative, there were works mainly geographical or topographical left by persons like Baeton and Diognetus, whom Alexander had employed (as bematistai) to survey the roads over which he passed. All such original sources have now perished. The fragments are collected in the Didot edition of Arrian by Karl Muller. Not reckoning scattered notices, we depend principally opon five later compositions, Diodorus, book xvii. (c. 20 B.C.), the work of Quintus Curtius (c. A.D. 42), Plutarch's (c. 45-125 A.D.) Life of Alexander, Arrian's Anabasis and Indica (c. A.D. 150), and the relevant books of Justin's abridgment (2nd cent. A.D.) of the history of Trogus (c. 10 B.C.?). To these we may add the Latin Itinerarium Alexandri, a skeleton outline of Alexander's campaigns dedicated to the emperor Constantius (A.D. 324-361), printed at the end of the Didot edition of Arrian, and the Epitome Rerum Gestarum Alexandri magni, an abridgment made in the 4th or 5th century of a lost Latin work of uncertain date, combining history with elements taken from the Romance (edited by O. Wagner, Leipzig, 1900). The relation of these works to the various original sources constitutes the critical problem before the modern historian in reference to the history of Alexander. See Droysen vol. i. appendix i.; A. Schoene, De rerum Alexandri Magni scriptorum imprimis Arriani & Plutarchi fontibus (1870); Fraenkel, Die Geschichtschreiber Alex. d. Grossen (1883); O. Maas, Kleitarch und Diodor (Petersburg, 1894); Kaerst, Ferechungen zur Gesch. Alex. d. Grossen (1887), and Gesch. d. hellenist. Zeitalters (vol. i., 1901 ), pp. 421 f.; F. L. Schoenle, Diodorstudien ( 1891 ); E. Schwartz, articles ``Aristobulos (14),'' ``Arrianus,'' ``Quintus Curtius,'' ``Diodorus'' in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie.

For modern views of Alexander see Thirlwall, History of Greece; Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient History (Eng. trans. rev. by author, 1852) Grote, History of Greece; Droysen, Histoire de l'Hellenisme (translation by Bouche-Leclerq); Ad. Holm, History of Greece (Eng. trans., 1898); B. Niese, Gesch. der griech. u. maked. Staaten (vol. i.); Kaerst, Gesch. des hellenist. Zeitalters (1901); J. Beloch, Griechische Gesch. (vol. iii., 1904); J. B. Bury, History of Greece (1902); A. von Gutschmid, Geschichte Irans (1888). Among the mass of monographs and special articles, reference may be made to Freeman, Historical Essays, 2nd series, pp. 182 f.; Dodge, Alexander (in a series called Great Captains) 1890; Mahaffy, Problems in Greek History (1892, ch. viii.; D. G. Hogarth, Philip and Alexander of Macedon (1897), a striking effort of historical imagination to reconstruct Alexander as a man of the real world: Benjamin I. Wheeler, Alexander the Great (1900) in the ``Heroes of the Nations Series.'' The purely military aspect of Alexander's campaigns is treated in general histories of warfare (Rustow-Kochly, Bauer, Delbruck, Verdy du Vernois), and in special monographs by Hogarth, Journ. of Philol. vol. xvii., 1888, pp. 1 foll.; H. Droysen, Untersuchungen uber A. des Gr. Heerwesen (1885), and Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, Kurze Ubersicht der Feldzuge A. de Gr. (1897). For further references to the literature on Alexander, see Kaerst's article in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie (1894). (E. R. B.)

1 The use of the surname is proved as far back as the 1st century B.C. (Nepos, De Reg. 2).

2 See Bauer,``Die Schlacht bei Issus'' in Jahreshefte d.osterr. archaol. Instit. ii. pp. 105 f.; A. Janke. Auf Alex. d. grossen Pfaden; Gruhn, Das Schlachtfeld von Issus; Lammert in Berl. Philol. Wochenschr. (1905), col. 1596 f.

3 Pridik, De Alex. Mog. epist. commercio (Dorpat, 1893); Schwartz, art. ``Curtius'' in Pauly-Wissowa, col. 1884.

4 The story of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem rests on no better authority than a later Jewish romance.

5 The best opinion now confirms Abbott's identification of Aornus with Mahaban--Deane, Journ. R. Asiat. Soc. (Oct. 1896), p. 673; them, Report of an Archaeological Tour with the Buner Field Force (Lahore, 1898), pp. 45-48.

6 Beside V. Smith (cited below) see Schubert, ``Die Porusschlacht,'' in Rhein. Mus. lvi., 1901, p. 543.

7 There seems nothing to fix the exact spot of this town; the common identification with Multan is, according to Raverty and V. Smith, certainly wrong.

8 For the indian campaigns of Alexander see especially McCrindle, Invasion of India by Alexander the Great (1896); Vincent A. Smith, Early History of India (1904), and the references there given to the researches of Sir T. H. Holdich, Raverty and Foucher; A. Anspach, De Alex. Magni exped. ind. (1903).

9 Tomaschek, ``Topographische Erlauterung der Kustenfahrt Nearchs'' in the Sitzungsberichte der kaiserl. Akad. d. Wissensch. of Vienna (Philosoph.-histor. Klasse, vol. cxxi.); Major P. M. Sykes, Ten Thousand Miles in Persia (1902), pp. 166 f.

10 For Alexander's funeral, see F. Jacoby in Rhein. Mus. (1903), pp. 461 f.

The Romance of Alexander.

The figure of Alexander naturally impressed itself upon the imagination of the world which his career had shaken. Even in India we are told that he was held in honour by the native kings who took his farthest provinces in possession. But Eastern tradition, so tenacious of the old myths of primitive man, has a short memory for actual history, and five centuries later Alexander was only remembered in Iran as the accursed destroyer of the sacred books, whose wisdom he had at the same time pilfered by causing translations to be made into ``Roman.'' That the East to-day has so much to tell about Alexander is only due to the fact that old mythical stories of gods or heroes who go travelling through lands of monsters and darkness, of magical fountains and unearthly oceans, became attached to his name in the popular literature of the Roman empire, and this mythical Alexander was reintroduced in the 7th century A.D. into the farther East, where the historical Alexander was almost forgotten. The romance of Alexander is found written in the languages of nearly all peoples from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, but all these versions are derived, mediately or immediately, from the Greek original which circulated under the false name of Callisthenes. The Greek pseudo-Callisthenes (otherwise Aisopos we possess in three recensions, based all upon a book produced in Egypt in the 2nd century A.D. But this book itself was a farrago of heterogeneous elements--pieces of genuine history, ancient stories once told in Babylon of Gilgamesh or Etanna, literary forgeries of the days soon after Alexander, like the oldest part of the ``Testament of Alexander,'' variations due to Egyptian patriotic sentiment, like that which made Alexander the son of the last Pharaoh, Nectanebus. As the story was reproduced, variations were freely introduced according to the bent of different times and peoples; in the Persian version Alexander (Iskander) became a son of Darius; among the Mahommedans he turned into a prophet, hot against idols; the pen of Christian monks made him an ascetic saint.

The Alexander romance found its way into Europe through the medium of Latin, but originated mainly from the versions of the pseudo-Callisthenes, not from the more sober narrative of Quintus Curtius. The pseudo-Callisthenes, in a recension which has not been preserved, was translated into Latin by Julius Valerius about the end of the 3rd century, and an epitome of this translation, also in Latin, was made some time before the 9th century, and is introduced by Vincent de Beauvais into his Speculum historiale. Much of the legend is a running travesty of the true history of the conqueror. The first book deals with his birth and early exploits. The trace of Alexandrian influence is to be found in the pretence that his actual father was Nectanebus, a fugitive king of Egypt. The latter was a great magician, able, by operating upon waxen figures of the armies and ships of his enemies, to obtain complete power over their real actions. Obliged, however, to flee to Pella in Macedonia, he established himself as an astrologer, and as such was consulted by the childless Olympias. Having promised that Zeus Ammon would visit her in the form of a dragon, he himself assumed the disguise. In due course Alexander was born, and Philip's suspicions were overcome by a second appearance of the dragon, which was held to prove the divine fatherhood. The child was small and somewhat deformed, but of great courage and intelligence. When he was twelve years old he was instructed in starcraft by Nectanebus, who was killed by a fall into a pit, into which he had been playfully pushed by Alexander. The first book also relates his conquests in Italy, Africa, Syria and Asia Minor; his return to Macedonia and the submission of Greece. The second book continues the history of his conquests, and the third contains the victory over Porus, the relations with the Brahmins, the letter to Aristotle on the wonders of India, the histories of Candace and the Amazons, the letter to Olympias on the marvels of Farther Asia, and lastly the account of Alexander's death in Babylon.

The most wide-spread Latin version of the story, however, was the Historia de proeliis,1 printed at Strassburg in 1486, which began to supersede the Epitome of Julius Valerius in general favour about the end of the 13th century. It is said to have been written by the Neapolitan arch-presbyter Leo, who was sent by Johannes and Marinus, dukes of Campania (941-965) to Constantinople, where he found his Greek original. Auxiliary sources for the medieval romance-writers were:--the opuscule (4th century) known as Alexandri magni iter ad Paradisum, a fable of Eastern origin directed against ambition; the Itinerarium Alexandri (340), based partly on Julius Valerius and dedicated to Constans, son of the emperor Constantine; the letter of Alexander to Aristotle (Epist. de situ et mirabilibus Indiae), and the correspondence between Alexander and the king of the Brahmins, Dindimus, both of which are often contained in MSS. of the Epitome; and the treatise (based on a lost history of Alexander by Onesicritus), De gentibus Indiae et Bragmanibus, ascribed without certainty to Palladius (d. c. 430), successively bishop of Helenopolis and Aspona.

The Ethiopic versions are of great interest as a striking example of literary ``accommodation.'' Not only is the whole atmosphere Christian in colouring, but we actually find the Greek gods in the guise of Enoch, Elijah, &c., while Philip is a Christian martyr, and Alexander himself a great apostle, even a saint; quotations from the Bible are frequent. Syriac and Armenian versions were made in the 5th century. Persians and Arabs told the deeds of Iskander; and Firdousi made use of the story in the Shahnama. Another early Persian poet, Nizami, made the story specially his own. The crusaders brought back fresh developments; Gog and Magog (partly Arab and partly Greek) and some Jewish stories were then added. In the 11th century Simeon Seth, protovestiarius at the Byzantine court, translated the fabulous history from the Persian back into Greek.

The Alexander legend was the theme of poetry in all European languages; six or seven German poets dealt with the subject, and it may be read in French, English, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Flemish and Bohemian.

French.--The earliest known French romance of Alexander, by Alberic of Besancon (or more properly Briancon), was, until the discovery of a fragment of 100 lines at Florence in 1852, known only through the German adaptation by Lamprecht the preacher, who wrote towards the end of the 12th century, and by the version made by a Poitevin poet named Simon in decasyllabic lines. Alberic followed the epitome of Julius Valerius. He had some knowledge of authentic history, and rejected the more marvellous elements of the story. The French feudal romance, Li Romans d'Alexandre, was written in the 12th century by Lambert li Tors of Chateaudun, Alexandre de Bernai, surnamed de Paris, and others. It contained 20,000 lines, and was written in twelve-syllabled lines, whence the term ``alexandrine'' verse. The authors endowed Alexander with the fashionable virtues of the chivalric hero, making him especially the type of lavish generosity. They used as their sources Valerius, the letter to Aristotle and the Iter ad Paradisum, adding much of their own. Pierre de Saint Cloud, the writer of the fourth section of the romance, was evidently acquainted with the Historia de proeliis. The incident of the Fuerre de Gadres (Foray of Gaza), interpolated in the second section, is assigned to a certain Eustache. The redaction of the whole work is due to Alexandre de Bernai, who replaced the original assonance by rhyme. According to all the traditions of romance it was necessary to avenge the death of Alexander. At the end of the 12th century Gui de Cambrai and Jean le Nevelon (or Nevelaux or Venelais), each wrote a Vengeance d'Alexandre. Jean le Nevelon relates how Alior, the son of Alexander and Candace, avenged his father's death on Antipater and others. Between 1310 and 1315 Jacques de Longuyon (or Langhion) introduced into the account of the Indian war Les Voeux du paon, a romanesque and fantastic episode very loosely connected with Alexander. It is interesting for its connexion with the 15th-century romance of Perceforest, since in it Alexander visits Britain, where he bestows Scotland on Gadifer and England on Betis (otherwise Perceforest). Les Voeux du paon enjoyed great popularity, and had two sequels, Le Restor du paon, written before 1338 by Jean Brisebarre de Douai, and Le Parfait du paon, written in 1340 by Jean de la Mote. Florimont, a 12th-century poem by Aimon de Varenne, relates to a fictitious personage said to have been the grandfather of Alexander. This poem gave rise to two prose romances--La Conqueste de Grece faicte par Philippe de Madien, by Perrinet du Pin, first printed in 1527, and Histoire du roi Florimond (1528). Quintus Curtius was largely used for the Alexandreis (c. 1180) of Gaultier de Lille or de Chatillon (Galtherus ab Insulis or de Castellione). It is a Latin poem in ten books of hexameters, and contains a curious admixture of Biblical history. It was translated at the end of the next century into Flemish by J. van Maerlant and into German by Ulrich von Eschenbach.

Of the French prose versions of the Historia de proeliis may be noticed the late romance, L'Histoire du noble et vaillant roy Alixandre le Grant (1506). After an account of the ancient history of Macedonia and of the intrigue of Nectanebus we are told how Philip dies, and how Alexander subdues Rome and receives tribute from all European nations. He then makes his Persian expedition; the Indian campaign gives occasion for descriptions of all kinds of wonders. The conqueror visits a cannibal kingdom and finds many marvels in the palace of Porus, among them a vine with golden branches, emerald leaves and fruit of other precious stones. In one country he meets with women who, after the burial in the winter, become alive again in the spring full of youth and beauty. Having reached the ends of the earth and conquered all nations, he aspires to the dominion of the air. He obtains a magic glass cage, yoked with eight griffins, flies through the clouds, and, thanks to enchanters who know the language of birds, gets information as to their manners and customs, and ultimately receives their submission. The excessive heat of the upper regions compels him to descend, and he next visits the bottom of the sea in a kind of diving-bell. The fish crowd round him and pay homage. Alexander returns to Babylon, is crowned with much pomp and mass is celebrated. He dies by poison soon afterwards.

English Versions.--The Alexander cycle was no less popular in Great Britain. The letter from Alexander to Aristotle and his correspondence with Dindimus are found in Early English versions dating from the 11th century. These are printed by O. Cockayne in his Narratiunculae Anglice conscriptae (1861). The Monk (De Cas. ill. vir.) in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales prefaces his account of Alexander with the statement that his story is so common

That every wight that hath discrecioun Hath herd somewhat or all of his fortune. There are two considerable fragments of an English alliterative romance on the subject written in the west midland dialect, and dating from the second half of the 14th century. The first, The Gestes of the Worthy King and Emperor Alisaunder of Macedoine (ed. W. W. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1877, with William of Palermo) contains an account of the wars of Philip, of Nectanebus and of the education of Alexander. A second fragment (ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1878) contains Alexander's visit to the Gymnosophists and his correspondence with Dindimus. Another alliterative poem in the northern dialect, of 15th-century origin, is based on the Historia de proeliis, and was edited by Skeat for the E.E.T.S. (1886) as The Wars of Alexander. Earlier than any of these is the rhyming Lyfe of Alisaunder (c. 1330) which is printed in H. Weber's Metrical Romances (vol. i., 1810). It is written in unusually picturesque and vigorous language, and is based on the Roman de toute chevalerie, a French compilation made about 1250 by a certain Eustace or Thomas of Kent. Fragments of another rhyming poem (pr. c. 1550) are preserved in the British Museum. The Scots Buik of the most noble and vailyzeand Conqueror Alexander the Great, printed by Alexander Arbuthnot (d. 1585) about 1580, reprinted in 1831 for the Bannatyne Club, is not really a life. It contains three episodes of the cycle, the ``Forray of Gadderis'' (not taken from the Fuerre de Gadres but from the Assaut de Tyr in the Romans d'Alixandre), ``The Avowes of Alexander,'' and ``The Great Battel of Effesoun,'' taken from the Voeux du paon. Many passages in John Barbour's Bruce are almost identical with this book, and it is suggested by G. Neilson (John Barbour, Poet and Translator, London, 1900) that Barbour was the author, although the colophon states that it was written in 1438. Bruce at Bannockburn makes the same oration as Alexander at ``Effesoun.'' A Buke of the Conqueror Alexander the Great by Sir Gilbert Hay (fl. 1456) is in MS. at Taymouth Castle.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The best sketch of the Alexander romance literature is by Paul Meyer. Alexandre le grand dans la litterature francaise au moyen age (2 vols., Paris, 1886). The first volume contains some French texts, and the second a detailed discussion of the various versions from the pseudo-Callisthenes downwards. See also J. Zacher, Pseudo-Callisthenes, Forschungen zur . . . . Alexandersage (Halle, 1867), and for Oriental versions, T. Noldeke, ksl. Akad. d. Wissenschaben, Phil.-hist. Klasse, vol. 38: Vienna, 1890). For early printed versions see Brunet, Manuel du libraire, s.v. ``Alexandre.''

The text of the pseudo-Callisthenes was edited by C. W. Muller from three MSS. in the Bibl. Nat. and printed in the Arrian of the Coll. Didot (Paris, 1846), and by H. Meusel (Leipzig, 1871) from a Leiden MS. A. Mai edited Julius Valerius (Milan, 1817) and the Itinerarium Alexandri (Class. Auct. vol. vii.; Milan, 1835); J. Zacher, the Epitome Halle, 1867) and Alex. iter ad Paradisum (Regensburg, 1859); the Oxford MS. of the Epitome was edited by G. Cilli (Strassburg, 1903); G. Landgraf, Die ``Vita Alexandri'' . . . des Archpresbyter Leo (Historia de proeliis), (Erlangen, 1885); Alexander's letter to Aristotle and his correspondence with Dindimus are included in the Teubner edition of Julius Valerius (ed. B. Kubler, Leipzig, 1888). A newly discovered anonymous Epitome was edited by O. Wagner (Leipzig, 1900).

The fragment by Alberic was edited by P. Heyse (Berlin, 1856); Lamprecht's German text by H. Weismann (Frankfort, 1850) and by C. Kinzel (Halle, 1884); the Alexandreis of Gaultier de Lille, by F. A. W. Muldener (Leipzig, 1863); an Icelandic prose version (c. 1250) of the same, Alexanders Saga, by C. R. Unger (Christiania, 1848); Li Romans d'Alexandre, by H. Michelant (Stuttgart, 1846); the Ethiopic version by E. A. T. Wallis Budge (1896, 2 vols., with English translation); the Syriac text of pseudo-Callisthenes by Budge (Cambridge, 1889); cp. K. F. Weymann, Die athiopische und arabische Ubersetzungen des Pseudo-Kallisthenes (Kirchhain, 1901).

Besides the English editions quoted in the text, the alliterative English poems were partially edited by J. Stevenson for the Roxburghe Club (1849). There is a great deal of information on the various texts in H. L. Wood's Catalogue of Romances in the British Museum (1883, vol. i. pp. 94 et seq.). See also A. Hermann, Untersuchungen uber das Scottische Alexanderbuch (1893); and Unters. uber das med. Gedicht, The Wars of Alexander (Berlin, 1889). Among other works see E. Ronde, Der griechische Roman (2nd ed. Leipzig, 1900); B. Meissner, Alexander u. Gilgamos (Leipzig, 1894); F. Kampers, ``Alex. d. Grosse und die Idee des Weltimperiums in Prophetic und Sage'' (in H. Granert's Studien, &c., Freiburg, 1901); Adolf Ausfeld, Der griechische Alexanderroman (Leipzig, 1907), edited after the author's death by W. Kroll; Wilhelm Hertz, ``Aristoteles in den Alex. Dichtungen d. Mittelalters'' (Kgl. Acad. d. Wissenschaften, Munich, 1891); H. Becker, Die Brahmanen in d. Alex. Sage (Konigsberg, 1889). (M. BR.)

1 Nativitas et victoriae Alexandri magni regis was the original title.

ALEXANDER, tagus or despot of Pherae in Thessaly, ruled from 369 to 358 B.C. His tyranny caused the Aleuadae of Larissa to invoke the aid of Alexander II. of Macedon, whose intervention was successful, but after his withdrawal Alexander treated his subjects as cruelly as before. The Thessalians now applied to Thebes; Pelopidas, who was sent to their assistance, was treacherously seized and thrown into prison (368), and it was necessary to send Epaminondas with a large army to secure his release. Alexander's conduct caused renewed intervention; in 364 he was defeated at Cynoscephalae by the Thebans, although the victory was dearly bought by the loss of Pelopidas, who fell in the battle. Alexander was at last crushed by the Thebans, compelled to acknowledge the freedom of the Thessalian cities and to limit his rule to Pherae, and forced to join the Boeotian league. He was murdered by his wife's brother at her instigation. Ancient accounts agree in describing Alexander as a typically cruel and suspicious tyrant.

ALEXANDER (1461-1506), king of Poland and grand- duke of Lithuania, fourth son of Casimir IV., king of Poland, was elected grand-duke of Lithuania on the death of his father in 1492, and king of Poland on the death of his brother John Albert in 1501. His extreme impecuniosity made him from the first subservient to the Polish senate and nobles (szlachta), who deprived him of the control of the mint--then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue of the Polish kings--curtailed his prerogative, and generally endeavoured to reduce him to a subordinate position. This ill-timed parsimony reacted injuriously upon Polish politics. Thus, for want of funds, Alexander was unable to assist the Grand Master of the Order of the Sword against Muscovite aggression, or prevent Tsar Ivan III. from ravaging Lithuania with the Tatars. The utmost the king could do was to garrison Smolensk and other fortresses and employ his wife Helena, the tsar's daughter, to mediate a truce between his father-in-law and himself. During his reign Poland suffered much humiliation from the attempts of her subject principalities, Prussia and Moldavia, to throw off her yoke. Only the death of Stephen, the great hospodar of Moldavia, enabled Poland still to hold her own on the Danube; while the liberality of Pope Julius II., who issued no fewer than 29 bulls in favour of Poland and granted Alexander Peter's Pence and other financial help, enabled the Polish king to restrain somewhat the arrogance of the Teutonic Order. In Alexander the characteristic virtues of the Jagiellos, patience and generosity, degenerated into slothfulness and extravagance. Frequently he was too poor to pay the expenses of his own table. But he never felt at home in Poland, and bestowed his favour principally upon his fellow-countrymen, the most notable of whom was the wealthy Lithuanian magnate Michael Glinsky, who justified his master's confidence by his great victory over the Tatars at Kleck (August 5, 1506), the news of which was brought to Alexander on his deathbed.

See V. Czerny, The Reigns of John Albert and Alexander Jagiello (Pol.) (Cracow, 1882).

ALEXANDER, the name of eight popes:--

ALEXANDER I. was bishop of Rome from about 106 to 115. He has been identified, without any foundation, with Alexander, a martyr of the Via Nomentana, whose day is the 3rd of May.

ALEXANDER II. (Anselmo Baggio), pope from 1061 to 1073, was a native of Milan. As bishop of Lucca he had been an energetic coadjutor with Hildebrand in endeavouring to suppress simony, and to enforce the celibacy of the clergy. His election, which Hildebrand had arranged in conformity with the decree of 1059 (see NICHOLAS II.), was not sanctioned by the imperial court of Germany. This court, faithful to the practice observed by it in the preceding elections, nominatod another candidate, Cadalus, bishop of Parma, who was proclaimed at the council of Basel under the name of Honorius II., marched to Rome, and for a long time jeopardized his rival's position. At length, however, he was abandoned by the Germanic court and deposed by a council held at Mantua; and Alexander's position remained unchallenged. Alexander was succeeded by his associate Hildebrand, who took the title of Gregory VII. (L. D.*)

ALEXANDER III. (Orlando Bandinelli), pope from 1159 to 1181, was a Siennese, and as a teacher of canon law in Bologna composed the Stroma or the Summa Magistri Rolandi, one of the earliest commentaries on the Decretum Gratiani. In October 1150 Eugenius III. created him cardinal deacon SS. Cosmae and Damiani; later he became cardinal priest of St Mark's. Probably about this time he composed his Sentences, based on the Introductio ad theologiam of Abelard. In 1153 he became papal chancellor, and was the leader of the cardinals opposed to Frederick Barbarossa. On the 7th of September 1159 he was chosen the successor of Adrian IV., a minority of the cardinals, however, electing the cardinal priest Octavian, who assumed the name of Victor IV. This antipope, and his successors Paschal III. (1164-1168) and Calixtus III. (1168-1178), had the imperial support; but after the defeat of Legnano, Barbarossa finally (in the peace of Venice, 1177) recognized Alexander as pope. On the 12th of March 1178 Alexander returned to Rome, which he had been compelled to leave twice, namely, from 1162 until the 23rd of November 1165, and again in 1167. The first period he spent in France, the latter chiefly in Gaeta, Benevento, Anagni and Venice. In March 1179 Alexander held the third Lateran synod, a brilliant assemblage, reckoned by the Roman church as the eleventh oecumenical council; its acts embody several of the pope's proposals for the betterment of the condition of the church, among them the present law requiring that no one may be elected pope without the votes of two-thirds of the cardinals. This synod marks the summit of Alexander's power. Besides checkmating Barbarossa, he had humbled Henry II. of England in the affair of Thomas Becket, he had confirmed the right of Alphonso I. of Portugal to the crown, and even as a fugitive had enjoyed the favour and protection of Louis VII. of France. Nevertheless, soon after the close of the synod the Roman republic forced Alexander to leave the city, which he never re-entered; and on the 29th of September 1179 some nobles set up the antipope Innocent III. By the judicious use of money, however, Alexander got him into his power, so that he was deposed in January 1180. In 1181 Alexander excommunicated William the Lion of Scotland and put the kingdom under the interdict. The great pope died at Civita Castellana on the 30th of August 1181.

See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie, 3rd ed., i. 340-344; Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon, 2nd ed., 1481. The most elaborate biography is H. Reuter, Geschichte Alexanders III. und der Kirche seiner Zeit (3 vols., 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1860). (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER IV. (Rinaldo), pope from 1254 to 1261, was, like Innocent III. and Gregory IX., a member of the family of the counts of Segni. His uncle Gregory IX. made him cardinal deacon in 1227 and cardinal bishop of Ostia in 1231. On the death of Innocent IV. he was elected pope at Naples on the 12th of December 1254. He is described as a stout man, kindly, cheerful, but of no great brilliancy. He succeeded Innocent IV. as guardian of Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen, promising him his benevolent protection; but in less than a fortnight he conspired against him and bitterly opposed Conradin's uncle Manfred. Alexander fulminated with excommunication and interdict against the party of Manfred, but in vain; nor could he enlist the kings of England and Norway in a crusade against the Hohenstaufen. Rome itself became too Ghibelline for the pope, who withdrew to Viterbo, where he died on the 25th of May 1261. His pontificate was signalized by efforts to unite the Greek and Latin churches, by the establishment of the Inquisition in France, by favours shown to the mendicant orders, and by an attempt to organize a crusade against the Tatars.

The registers of Alexander IV. are published by Bourel de la Ronciere and others in the Bibliotheque des Ecoles francaises d'Athenes et de Rome, Paris, 1895 ff. (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER V. (Peter Philarges), pope 1409-1410, was born in Crete of unknown parents and entered the order of St Francis, for which, as for the other mendicant orders, he later manifested his affection in a striking manner. He was a member in turn of the universities of Oxford and Paris, and finally settled in Lombardy, where, thanks to the favour of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, he became bishop, first of Piacenza, then of Vincenza, then of Novara, and afterwards archbishop of Milan. On being created cardinal by Innocent VII. he devoted all his energies from 1408 onwards to the realization of the union of the church, in spite of the two rival popes. He was one of the promoters of the council of Pisa, and after that assembly had declared Gregory XII. and Benedict NIII. deposed, the cardinals assembled in conclave thought they could not do better than crown with the tiara this cosmopolitan prelate, who had an equal mastery of the Latin and Greek languages, and was renowned not only for his learning in theology but for his affability (June 26, 1409). As a matter of fact, the only effect of this election was to aggravate the schism by adding a third to the number of rival pontiffs. During his short reign of ten months Alexander V.'s aim was to extend his obedience with the assistance of France, and, notably, of the duke Louis II. of Anjou, upon whom he conferred the investiture of the kingdom of Sicily, together with the title of gonfalonier of the church. He proclaimed and promised rather than effected a certain number of reforms: the abandonment of the rights of ``spoils'' and ``procurations,'' the re-establishment of the system of canonical election in the cathedral churches and principal monasteries, &c. But death came upon him almost without warning at Bologna, in the night of the 3rd-4th May 1410. A rumour went about that he had been poisoned by the cardinal Baldassare Cossa, impatient to be his successor, who succeeded him in fact under the name of John XXIII. The crime has, however, never been proved, though a Milanese physician, who performed the task of dissecting the corpse of Peter Philarges, seems to have thought that he found traces of poison. (N. V.)

ALEXANDER VI. (Rodrigo Borgia) (1431-1503), pope from 1492 to his death, is the most memorable of the corrupt and secular popes of the Renaissance. He was born (January 1, 1431) at Xativa, near Valencia in Spain, and his father's surname was Lanzol or Llancol; that of his mother's family, Borgia or Borja, was assumed by him on the elevation of his maternal uncle to the papacy as Calixtus III. (April 8, 1455). He studied law at Bologna, and after his uncle's election he was created successively bishop, cardinal and vice-chancellor of the church, an act of nepotism characteristic of the age. He served in the Curia under five popes and acquired much administrative experience, influence and wealth, although no great power; he was economical in his habits; on occasion he displayed great splendour and lived in a fine palace. His manners were agreeable and his appearance fascinating, but, like many other prelates of the day, his morals were far from blameless, his two dominant passions being greed of gold and love of women, and he was devotedly fond of the children whom his mistresses bore him. Although ecclesiastical corruption was then at its height, his riotous mode of life called down upon him a very severe reprimand from Pope Pius II., who succeeded Calixtus III. in 1458. Of his many mistresses the one for whom his passion lasted longest was a certain Vannozza (Giovanna) dei Cattani, born in 1442, and wife of three successive husbands. The connexion began in 1470, and she bore him many children whom he openly acknowledged as his own: Giovanni, afterwards duke of Gandia (born 1474), Cesare (born 1476), Lucrezia (born 1480), and Goffredo or Giuffre (born 1481 or 1482). His other children--Girolamo, Isabella and Pier Luigi--were of uncertain parentage. Before his elevation to the papacy Cardinal Borgia's passion for Vannozza somewhat diminished, and she subsequently led a very retired life. Her place in his affections was filled by the beautiful Giulia Farnese (Giulia Bella), wife of an Orsini, but his love for his children by Vannozza remained as strong as ever and proved, indeed, the determining factor of his whole career. He lavished vast sums on them and loaded them with every honour. A characteristic instance of the corruption of the papal court is the fact that Borgia's daughter Lucrezia (see BORGIA, LUCREZIA) lived with his mistress Giulia, who bore him a daughter Laura in 1492.

On the death of Pope Innocent VIII. the three likely candidates for the Holy See were Cardinals Borgia, Ascanio Sforza and Giuliano della Rovere; at no previous or subsequent election were such immense sums of money spent on bribery, and Borgia by his great wealth succeeded in buying the largest number of votes, including that of Sforza, and to his intense joy he was elected on the 10th of August 1492, assuming the name of Alexander VI. Borgia's elevation did not at the time excite much alarm, except in some of the cardinals who knew him, and at first his reign was marked by a strict administration of justice and an orderly method of government in satisfactory contrast with the anarchy of the previous pontificate, as well as by great outward splendour. But it was not long before his unbridled passion for endowing his relatives at the expense of the church and of his neighbours became manifest. For this object he was ready to commit any crime and to plunge all Italy into war. Cesare, then a youth of sixteen and a student at Pisa, was made archbishop of Valencia, his nephew Giovanni received a cardinal's hat, and for the duke of Gandia and Giuffre the pope proposed to carve fiefs out of the papal states and the kingdom of Naples. Among the fiefs destined for the duke of Gandia were Cervetri and Anguillara, lately acquired by Virginio Orsini, head of that powerful and turbulent house, with the pecuniary help of Ferdinand of Aragon, king of Naples (Don Ferrante). This brought the latter into conflict with Alexander, who determined to revenge himself by making an alliance with the king's enemies, especially the Sforza family, lords of Milan. In this he was opposed by Cardinal della Rovere, whose candidature for the papacy had been backed by Ferdinand. Della Rovere, feeling that Rome was a dangerous place for him, fortified himself in his bishopric of Ostia at the Tiber's mouth, while Ferdinand allied himself with Florence, Milan, Venice, and the pope formed a league against Naples (April 25, 1493) and prepared for war. Ferdinand appealed to Spain for help; but Spain was anxious to be on good terms with the pope to obtain a title over the newly discovered continent of America and could not afford to quarrel with him.

Alexander meditated great marriages for his children. Lucrezia had been married to the Spaniard Don Gasparo de Procida, but on her father's elevation to the papacy the union was annulled, and in 1493 she was married to Giovanni Sforza. lord of Pesaro, the ceremony being celebrated at the Vatican with unparalleled magnificence. But in spite of the splendours of the court, the condition of Rome became every day more deplorable. The city swarmed with Spanish adventurers, assassins, prostitutes and informers; murder and robbery were committed with impunity, heretics and Jews were admitted to the city on payment of bribes, and the pope himself shamelessly cast aside all show of decorum, living a purely secular and immoral life, and indujging in the chase, dancing, stage plays and indecent orgies. One of his boon companions was Jem, the brother of the sultan Bayezid, detained as a hostage.

The general political outlook in Italy was of the gloomiest, and the country was on the eve of the catastrophe of foreign invasion. At Milan Lodovico Sforza (il Moro) ruled, nominally as regent for the youthful duke Gian Galeazzo, but really with a view to making himself master of the state. He made many alliances to secure his position, but fearing himself isolated he sought help from Charles VIII. of France, and as the king of Naples threatened to come to the aid of Gian Galeazzo, who had married his grand- daughter, he encouraged the French king in his schemes for the conquest of Naples. Alexander carried on a double policy, always ready to seize opportunities to aggrandize his family. But through the intervention of the Spanish ambassador he made peace with Naples in July 1493 and also with the Orsini; the peace was cemented by a marriage between the pope's son Giuffre and Dona Sancha, Ferdinand's grand-daughter. In order to dominate the Sacred College more completely he created twelve new cardinals, among them his own son Cesare, then only eighteen years old, and Alessandro Farnese, the brother of Giulia Bella, one of the pope's mistresses, creations which caused much scandal. On the 25th of January 1494 Ferdinand died and was succeeded by his son Alphonso II. Charles of France now advanced formal claims on the kingdom, and Alexander drew him to his side and authorized him to pass through Rome ostensibly on a crusade against the Turks, without mentioning Naples. But when the French invasion became a reality he was alarmed, recognized Alphonso as king, and concluded an alliance with him in exchange for various fiefs to his sons (July 1494). Preparations for defence were made; a Neapolitan army was to advance through the Romagna and attack Milan, while the fleet was to seize Genoa; but both expeditions were badly conducted and failed, and on the 8th of September Charles crossed the Alps and joined Lodovico il Moro at Milan. The papal states were in a turmoil, and the powerful Colonna faction seized Ostia in the name of France. Charles rapidly advanced southward, and after a short stay in Florence set out for Rome (November 1494). Alexander appealed to Ascanio Sforza for help, and even to the sultan. He tried to collect troops and put Rome in a state of defence, but his position was most insecure, and the Orsini offered to admit the French to their castles. This defection decided the pope to come to terms, and on the 31st of December Charles entered Rome with his troops and the cardinals of the French faction. Alexander now feared that the king might depose him for simony and summon a council, but he won over the bishop of St Malo, who had much influence over the king, with a cardinal's hat, and agreed to send Cesare, as legate, to Naples with the French army, to deliver Jem to Charles and to give him Civitavecchia (January 16, 1495). On the 28th Charles departed for Naples with Jem and Cesare, but the latter escaped to Spoleto. Neapolitan resistance collapsed; Alphonso fled and abdicated in favour of his son Ferdinand II., who also had to fly abandoned by all, and the kingdom was conquered with surprising ease. But a reaction against Charles soon set in, for all the powers were alarmed at his success, and on the 31st of March a league between the pope, the emperor, Venice, Lodovico il Moro and Ferdinand of Spain was formed, ostensibly against the Turks, but in reality to expel the French from Italy. Charles had himself crowned king of Naples on the 12th of May, but a few days later began his retreat northward. He encountered the allies at Fornovo, and after a drawn battle cut his way through them and was back in France by November; Ferdinand II. with Spanish help was reinstated at Naples soon afterwards. The expedition, if it produced no material results, laid bare the weakness of the Italian political system and the country's incapacity for resistance.

Alexander availed himself of the defeat of the French to break the power of the Orsini, following the general tendency of all the princes of the day to crush the great feudatories and establish a centralized despotism. Virginio Orsini, who had been captured by the Spaniards, died a prisoner at Naples, and the pope confiscated his property. But the rest of the clan still held out, and the papal troops sent against them under Guidobaldo duke of Urbino and the duke of Gandia were defeated at Soriano (January 1497). Peace was made through Venetian mediation, the Orsini paying 50,000 ducats in exchange for their confiscated lands; the duke of Urbino, whom they had captured, was left by the pope to pay his own ransom. The Orsini still remained very powerful, and Alexander could count on none but his 3000 Spaniards. His only success had been the capture of Ostia and the submission of the Francophile cardinals Colonna and Savelli.

Now occurred the first of those ugly domestic tragedies for which the house of Borgia remained famous. On the 14th of June the duke of Gandia, lately created duke of Benevento, disappeared; the next day his corpse was found in the Tiber. Alexander, overwhelmed with grief, shut himself up in Castle St Angelo, and then declared that the reform of the church would be the sole object of his life henceforth--a resolution which he did not keep. Every effort was made to discover the assassin, and suspicion fell on various highly placed personages. Suddenly the rumour spread about that Cesare, the pope's second son, was the author of the deed, and although the inquiries then ceased and no conclusive evidence has yet come to light, there is every probability that the charge was well founded. No doubt Cesare, who contemplated quitting the church, was inspired by jealousy. of Gandia's influence with the pope. Violent and revengeful, he now became the most powerful man in Rome, and even his father quailed before him. As he needed funds to carry out his various schemes, the pope began a series of confiscations, of which one of the victims was his own secretary, in order to enrich him. The process was a simple one: any cardinal, nobleman or official who was known to be rich would be accused of some offence; imprisonment and perhaps murder followed at once, and then the confiscation of his property. The disorganization of the Curia was appalling, the sale of offices became a veritable scandal, the least opposition to the Borgia was punished with death, and even in that corrupt age the state of things shocked public opinion. The story of Alexander's relations with Savonarola is narrated under the latter heading; it is sufficient to say here that the pope's hostility was due to the friar's outspoken invectives against papal corruption and to his appeals for a General Council. Alexander, although he could not get Savonarola into his own hands, browbeat the Florentine government into condemning the reformer to death (May 23, 1498). The pope was unable to maintain order in his own dominions; the houses of Colonna and Orsini were at open war with each other, but after much fighting they made peace on a basis of alliance against the pope. Thus further weakened, he felt more than ever that he had only his own kin to rely upon, and his thoughts were ever turned on family aggrandizement. He had annulled Lucrezia's marriage with Sforza in 1497, and, unable to arrange a union between Cesare and the daughter of Frederick, king of Naples (who had succeeded Ferdinand II. the previous year), he induced the latter by threats to agree to a marriage between the duke of Bisceglie, a natural son of Alphonso II., and Lucrezia. Cesare, who renounced his cardinalate, was sent on a mission to France at the end of the year, bearing a bull of divorce for the new king Louis XII., in exchange for which he obtained the duchy of Valentinois (hence his title of Duca Valentino) and a promise of material assistance in his schemes to subjugate the feudal princelings of Romagna; he married a princess of Navarre. Alexander hoped that Louis's help would be more profitable to his house than that of Charles had been and, in spite of the remonstrances of Spain and of the Sforza, he allied himself with France in January 1499 and was joined by Venice. By the autumn Louis was in Italy and expelled Lodovico Sforza from the Milanese. In order to consolidate his possessions still further, now that French success seemed assured, the pope determined to deal drastically with Romagna, which although nominally under papal rule was divided up into a number of practically independent lordships on which Venice, Milan and Florence cast hungry eyes. Cesare, nominated gonfaloniere of the Church, and strong in French favour, proceeded to attack the turbulent cities one by one (for detail see BORGIA CESARE.) But the expulsion of the French from Milan and the return of Lodovico Sforza interrupted his conquests, and he returned to Rome early in 1500. This year was a jubilee year, and crowds of pilgrims flocked to the city from all parts of the world bringing money for the purchase of indulgences, so that Alexander was able to furnish Cesare with funds for his enterprise. In the north the pendulum swung back once more and the French reoccupied Milan in April, causing the downfall of the Sforzas, much to Alexander's gratification. But there was no end to the Vatican tragedies, and in July the duke of Bisceglie, whose existence was no longer advantageous, was murdered by Cesare's orders; this left Lucrezia free to contract another marriage. The pope, ever in need of money, now created twelve new cardinals, from whom he received 120,000 ducats, and fresh conquests for Cesare were considered. But while a crusade was talked of, the real object was central Italy, and in the autumn Cesare, favoured by France and Venice, set forth with 10,000 men to complete his interrupted enterprise. The local despots of Romagna were dispossessed and an administration was set up, which, if tyrannical and cruel, was at least orderly and strong, and aroused the admiration of Machiavelli (q.v..) On his return to Rome (June 1501) he was created duke of Romagna. Louis XII., having succeeded in the north, determined to conquer southern Italy as well, and concluded a treaty with Spain for the division of the Neapolitan kingdom, which was ratified by the pope on the 25th of June, Frederick being formally deposed. The French army proceeded to invade Naples, and Alexander took the opportunity, with the help of the Orsini, to reduce the Colonna to obedience. In his absence he left Lucrezia as regent, offering the astounding spectacle of a pope's natural daughter in charge of the Holy See. Shortly afterwards he induced Alphonso d'Este, son of the duke of Ferrara, to marry her, thus establishing her as heiress to one of the most important principalities in Italy (January 1502). About this time a Borgia of doubtful parentage was born, Giovanni, described in some papal documents as Alexander's son and in others as Cesare's.

As France and Spain were quarrelling over the division of Naples and the Campagna barons were quiet, Cesare set out once more in search of conquests. In June he seized Camerino and Urbino, the news of which capture filled the pope with childish joy. But his military force was uncertain, for the condottieri were not to be trusted. His attempt to draw Florence into an alliance failed, but in July Louis of France again invaded Italy and was at once bombarded with complaints from the Borgia's enemies. Alexander's diplomacy, however, turned the tide, and Cesare, in exchange for promising to assist the French in the south, was given a free hand in central Italy. A new danger now arose in the shape of a conspiracy against him on the part of the deposed despots, the Orsini and some of his own condottieri. At first the papal troops were defeated and things looked black for the house of Borgia. But a promise of French help at once forced the confederates to come to terms, and Cesare by an act of treachery seized the ringleaders at Senigallia, and put Oliverotto da Fermo and Vitellozzo Vitelli to death (Dec. 31, 1502). As soon as Alexander heard the news he decoyed Cardinal Orsini to the Vatican and cast him into a dungeon, where he died. His goods were confiscated, his aged mother turned into the street and numbers of other members of the clan in Rome were arrested, while Giuffre Borgia led an expedition into the Campagna and seized their castles. Thus the two great houses of Orsini and Colonna, who had long fought for predominance in Rome and often flouted the pope's authority, were subjugated, and a great step achieved towards consolidating the Borgia's power. Cesare then returned to Rome, where his father wished him to assist Giuffre in reducing the last Orsini strongholds; this for some reason he was unwilling to do, much to Alexander's annoyance, but he eventually marched out, captured Ceri and made peace with Giulio Orsini, who surrendered Bracciano. Three more high personages fell victims to the Borgia's greed this year, viz. Cardinal Michiel, who was poisoned in April, J. da Santa Croce, who had helped to seize Cardinal Orsini, and Troches or Troccio, one of the family's most faithful assassins; all these murders brought immense sums to the pope. About Cardinal Ferrari's death there is more doubt; he probably died of fever, but the pope immediately confiscated his goods.

The war between France and Spain for the possession of Naples dragged on, and Alexander was ever intriguing, ready to ally himself with whichever power promised at the moment most advantageous terms. He offered to help Louis on condition that Sicily be given to Cesare, and then offered to help Spain in exchange for Siena, Pisa and Bologna. Cesare was preparing for another expedition into central Italy in July 1503, when, in the midst of all these projects and negotiations, both he and his father were taken ill with fever. The occurrence was of course attributed to poison, although quite without foundation, being merely due to malaria, at that time very prevalent in Rome. On the 18th of August Alexander died at the age of 72. His death was followed by scenes of wild disorder, and Cesare, being himself ill, could not attend to business, but sent Don Michelotto, his chief bravo, to seize the pope's treasures before the demise was publicly announced. When the body was exhibited to the people the next day it was in a shocking state of decomposition, which of course strengthened the suspicion of poison. At the funeral a brawl occurred between the soldiers and the priests, and the coffin having been made too short the body without the mitre was driven into it by main force and covered with an oil-cloth. Alexander's successor on the chair of St Peter was Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, who assumed the name of Pius III.

Alexander VI. has become almost a mythical character, and countless legends and traditions are attached to his name. As a matter of fact he cannot be regarded in any sense as a great man. His career shows no great political ideas, and none of his actions indicate genius. His one thought was family aggrandizement, and while it is unlikely that he meditated making the papacy hereditary in the house of Borgia, he certainly gave away its temporal estates to his children as though they belonged to him. The secularization of the church was carried to a pitch never before dreamed of, and it was clear to all Italy that he regarded the papacy as an instrument of worldly schemes with no thought of its religious aspect. During his pontificate the church was brought to its lowest level of degradation. The condition of his subjects was deplorable, and if Cesare's rule in Romagna was an improvement on that of the local tyrants, the people of Rome have seldom been more oppressed than under the Borgia. Alexander was not the only person responsible for the general unrest in Italy and the foreign invasions, but he was ever ready to profit by them. Even if we do not accept all the stories of his murders and poisonings and immoralities as true, there is no doubt that his greed for money and his essentially vicious nature led him to commit a great number of crimes. For many of his misdeeds his terrible son Cesare was responsible, but of others the pope cannot be acquitted. The one pleasing aspect of his life is his patronage of the arts, and in his days a new architectural era was initiated in Rome with the coming of Bramante. Raphael, Michelangelo and Pinturicchio all worked for him, and a curious contrast, characteristic of the age, is afforded by the fact that a family so steeped in vice and crime could take pleasure in the most exquisite works of art.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The chief contemporary authorities for this reign are: the diary of Alexander's master of ceremonies, Johannes Burchardus, edited by L. Thuasne (Paris, 1883-1884), which is characterized by accuracy and extraordinary candour often amounting to gross indecency; the despatches of Giustiniani, the Venetian ambassador, edited by P. Villari (Florence, 1876), which show great insight and are based on the most accurate information; and Paolo Cappelli's ``Diarii'' in E. Alberi's Relazioni, series ii., iii. Among modern works the most important are: F. Gregorovius's Geschichte der Stadt Rom (3rd ed., Stuttgart, 1881), a work of immense research and admirable synthesis, giving a very unfavourable view of the Borgia; A. von Reumont's Geschichte der Stadt Rom (Berlin, 1867-1870), also a valuable book; M. Creighton's History of the Papacy (London, 1897) is very learned and accurate, but the author is more lenient towards Alexander; F. Gregorovius's Lucrezia Borgia (Stuttgart, 1874) contains a great deal of information on the Borgia family; P. Villari's Machiavelli (English translation, new ed., 1892) deals with the subject at some length. Of the Catholic writers L. Pastor, Geschichte der Papste (Freiburg i. B, 1886) should be consulted, for although the author tries to extenuate the pope to some extent, on the whole he is fair. (L. V.*)

ALEXANDER VII. (Fabio Chigi), pope from 1655 to 1667, was born at Siena on the 13th of February 1599. He was successively inquisitor at Malta, vice-legate at Ferrara and nuncio in Cologne (1639-1651). Though expected to take part in the negotiations which led in 1648 to the peace of Westphalia, he refused to deliberate with heretics, and protested against the treaties when completed. Innocent X. subsequently made him cardinal secretary of state. When Innocent died, Chigi, the candidate favoured by Spain, was elected pope on the 7th of April 1655. The conclave believed he was strongly opposed to the nepotism then prevalent. In the first year of his reign Alexander VII. forbade his relations even to visit Rome; but in 1656 he gave them the best-paid civil and ecclesiastical offices, also palaces and princely estates. Alexander disliked business of state, preferring literature and philosophy; a collection of his Latin poems appeared at Paris in 1656 under the title Philomathi Labores Juveniles. He also encouraged architecture, and in particular constructed the beautiful colonnade in the piazza of St Peter's. He favoured the Jesuits, especially in their conflict with the Jansenists, forbade in 1661 the translation of the Roman Missal into French, and in 1665 canonized Francis of Sales. His pontificate was marked by protracted controversies with France and Portugal. He died on the 22nd of May 1667. (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER VIII. (Pietro Ottoboni), pope from 1689 to 1691, was born in 1610 of a noble Venetian family, was created cardinal, and then successively bishop of Brescia and datary. The ambassador of Louis XIV. succeeded in procuring his election on the 6th of October 1689 as successor to Innocent XI.; nevertheless, after months of negotiation Alexander finally condemned the declaration made in 1682 by the French clergy concerning the liberties of the Gallican church. Charities on a large scale and unbounded nepotism exhausted the papal treasury. He bought the books and manuscripts of Queen Christina of Sweden for the Vatican library. Alexander condemned in 1690 the doctrines of so-called philosophic sin, taught in the Jesuit schools. He died on the 1st of February 1691. (W. W. R.*)

ALEXANDER I. (ALEKSANDER PAVLOVICH) (1777-1825), emperor of Russia, son of the grand-duke Paul Petrovich, afterwards Paul I., and Maria Fedorovna, daughter of Frederick Eugene of Wurttemberg, was born on the 28th of December 1777. The strange contradictions of his character make Alexander one of the most interesting as he is one of the most important figures in the history of the 19th century. Autocrat and ``Jacobin,'' man of the world and mystic, he was to his contemporaries a riddle which each read according to his own temperament. Napoleon thought him a ``shifty Byzantine,'' and called him the Talma of the North, as ready to play any conspicuous part. To Metternich he was a madman to be humoured. Castlereagh, writing of him to Lord Liverpool, gives him credit for ``grand qualities,'' but adds that he is ``suspicious and undecided.'' His complex nature was, in truth, the outcome of the complex character of his early environment and education. Reared in the free-thinking atmosphere of the court of Catherine II. he had imbibed from his Swiss tutor, Frederic Cesar de Laharpe, the principles of Rousseau's gospel of humanity; from his military governor, General Soltikov, the traditions of Russian autocracy; while his father had inspired him with his own passion of military parade, and taught him to combine a theoretical love of mankind with a practical contempt for men. These contradictory tendencies remained with him through life, revealed in the fluctuations of his policy and influencing through him the fate of the world. Another element in his character discovered itself when in 1801 he mounted the throne over the body of his murdered father: a mystic melancholy liable at any moment to issue in extravagant action. At first, indeed, this exercised but little influence on the emperor's life. Young, emotional, impressionable, well-meaning and egotistic, Alexander displayed from the first an intention of playing a great part on the world's stage, and plunged with all the ardour of youth into the task of realizing his political ideals. While retaining for a time the old ministers who had served and overthrown the emperor Paul, one of the first acts of his reign was to appoint a secret committee, called ironically the ``Comite du salut public,'' consisting of young and enthusiastic friends of his own--Victor Gavovich Kochubey, Nikolai Nikolaevich Novosiltsov, Paul Alexandrovich Strogonov and Adam Czartoryski--to draw up a scheme of internal reform. Their aims, inspired by their admiration for English institutions, were far in advance of the possibilities of the time, and even after they had been raised to regular ministerial positions but little of their programme could be realized. For Russia was not ripe for liberty; and Alexander, the disciple of the revolutionist Laharpe, was--as he himself said--but ``a happy accident'' on the throne of the tsars. He spoke, indeed, bitterly of ``the state of barbarism in which the country had been left by the traffic in men.'' ``Under Paul,'' he said, ``three thousand peasants had been given away like a bag of diamonds. If civilization were more advanced, I would abolish this slavery, if it cost me my head.''1 But the universal corruption, he complained, had left him no men; and the filling up of the government offices with Germans and other foreigners merely accentuated the sullen resistance of the ``old Russians'' to his reforms. That Alexander's reign, which began with so large a promise of amelioration, ended by riveting still tighter the chains of the Russian people was, however, due less to the corruption and backwardness of Russian life than to the defects of the tsar himself. His love of liberty, though sincere, was in fact unreal. It flattered his vanity to pose before the world as the dispenser of benefits; but his theoretical liberalism was mated with an autocratic will which brooked no contradiction. ``You always want to instruct me!'' he exlaimed to Derzhavin, the minister of justice, ``but I am the autocratic emperor, and I will this, and nothing else!'' ``He would gladly have agreed,'' wrote Adam Czartoryski, ``that every one should be free, if every one had freely done only what he wished.'' Moreover, with this masterful temper was joined an infirmity of purpose which ever let ``I dare not wait upon I would,'' and which seized upon any excuse for postponing measures the principles of which he had publicly approved. The codification of the laws initiated in 1801 was never carried out during his reign; nothing was done to improve the intolerable status of the Russian peasantry; the constitution drawn up by Speranski, and passed by the emperor, remained unsigned. Alexander, in fact, who, without being consciously tyrannical, possessed in full measure the tyrant's characteristic distrust of men of ability and independent judgment, lacked also the first requisite for a reforming sovereign: confidence in his people; and it was this want that vitiated such reforms as were actually realized. He experimented in the outlying provinces of his empire; and the Russians noted with open murmurs that, not content with governing through foreign instruments, he was conferring on Poland, Finland and the Baltic provinces benefits denied to themselves. In Russia, too, certain reforms were carried out; but they could not survive the suspicious interference of the autocrat and his officials. The newly created council of ministers, and the senate, endowed for the first time with certain theoretical powers, became in the end but the slavish instruments of the tsar and his favourites of the moment. The elaborate system of education, culminating in the reconstituted, or new-founded, universities of Dorpat, Vilna, Kazan and Kharkov, was strangled in the supposed interests of ``order'' and of orthodox piety; while the military colonies which Alexander proclaimed as a blessing to both soldiers and state were forced on the unwilling peasantry and army with pitiless cruelty. Even the Bible Society, through which the emperor in his later mood of evangelical zeal proposed to bless his people, was conducted on the same ruthless lines. The Roman archbishop and the Orthodox metropolitans were forced to serve on its committee side by side with Protestant pastors; and village popes, trained to regard any tampering with the letter of the traditional documents of the church as mortal sin, became the unwilling instruments for the propagation of what they regarded as works of the devil.

Alexander's grandiose imagination was, however, more strongly attracted by the great questions of European politics than by attempts at domestic reform which, on the whole, wounded his pride by proving to him the narrow limits of absolute power. On the morrow of his accession he had reversed the policy of Paul, denounced the League of Neutrals, and made peace with England (April 1801), at the same time opening negotiations with Austria. Soon afterwards at Memel he entered into a close alliance with Prussia, not as he boasted from motives of policy, but in the spirit of true chivalry, out of friendship for the young king Frederick William and his beautiful wife. The development of this alliance was interrupted by the short-lived peace of October 1801; and for a while it seemed as though France and Russia might come to an understanding. Carried away by the enthusiasm of Laharpe, who had returned to Russia from Paris, Alexander began openly to proclaim his admiration for French institutions and for the person of Bonaparte. Soon, however, came a change. Laharpe, after a new visit to Paris, presented to the tsar his Reflexions on the True Nature of the Consulship for Life, which, as Alexander said, tore the veil from his eyes, and revealed Bonaparte ``as not a true patriot,'' but only as ``the most famous tyrant the world has produced.'' His disillusionment was completed by the murder of the duc d'Enghien. The Russian court went into mourning for the last of the Condes, and diplomatic relations with Paris were broken off.

The events of the war that followed belong to the general history of Europe; but the tsar's attitude throughout is personal to himself, though pregnant with issues momentous for the world. In opposing Napoleon, ``the oppressor of Europe and the disturber of the world's peace,'' Alexander in fact already believed himself to be fulfilling a divine mission. In his instructions to Novosiltsov, his special envoy in London, the tsar elaborated the motives of his policy in language which appealed as little to the common sense of Pitt as did later the treaty of the Holy Alliance to that of Castlereagh. Yet the document is of great interest, as in it we find formulated for the first time in an official despatch those exalted ideals of international policy which were to play so conspicuous a part in the affairs of the world at the close of the revolutionary epoch, and issued at the end of the 19th century in the Rescript of Nicholas II.2 and the conference of the Hague. The outcome of the war, Alexander argued, was not to be only the liberation of France, but the universal triumph of ``the sacred rights of humanity.'' To attain this it would be necessary ``after having attached the nations to their government by making these incapable of acting save in the greatest interests of their subjects, to fix the relations of the states amongst each other on more precise rules, and such as it is to their interest to respect.'' A general treaty was to become the basis of the relations of the states forming ``the European Confederation''; and this, though ``it was no question of realizing the dream of universal peace, would attain some of its results if, at the conclusion of the general war, it were possible to establish on clear principles the prescriptions of the rights of nations.'' ``Why could not one submit to it,'' the tsar continued, ``the positive rights of nations, assure the privilege of neutrality, insert the obligation of never beginning war until all the resources which the mediation of a third party could offer have been exhausted, having by this means brought to light the respective grievances, and tried to remove them? It is on such principles as these that one could proceed to a general pacification, and give birth to a league of which the stipulations would form, so to speak, a new code of the law of nations, which, sanctioned by the greater part of the nations of Europe, would without difficulty become the immutable rule of the cabinets, while those who should try to infringe it would risk bringing upon themselves the forces of the new union.''3

Meanwhile Napoleon, little deterred by the Russian autocrat's youthful idealogy, never gave up hope of detaching him from the coalition. He had no sooner entered Vienna in triumph than he opened negotiations with him; he resumed them after Austerlitz. Russia and France, he urged, were ``geographical allies''; there was, and could be, between them no true conflict of interests; together they might rule the world. But Alexander was still determined ``to persist in the system of disinterestedness in respect of all the states of Europe which he had thus far followed,'' and he again allied himself with Prussia. The campaign of Jena and the battle of Eylau followed; and Napoleon, though still intent on the Russian alliance, stirred up Poles, Turks and Persians to break the obstinacy of the tsar. A party too in Russia itself, headed by the tsar's brother the grand-duke Constantine, was clamorous for peace; but Alexander, after a vain attempt to form a new coalition, summoned the Russian nation to a holy war against Napoleon as the enemy of the orthodox faith. The outcome was the rout of Friedland (June 13 and 14, 1807). Napoleon saw his chance and seized it. Instead of making heavy terms, he offered to the chastened autocrat his alliance, and a partnership in his glory.

The two emperors met at Tilsit on the 25th of June. Alexander, dazzled by Napoleon's genius and overwhelmed by his apparent generosity, was completely won. Napoleon knew well how to appeal to the exuberant imagination of his new-found friend. He would divide with Alexander the empire of the world; as a first step he would leave him in possession of the Danubian principalities and give him a free hand to deal with Finland; and, afterwards, the emperors of the East and West, when the time should be ripe, would drive the Turks from Europe and march across Asia to the conquest of India. A programme so stupendous awoke in Alexander's impressionable mind an ambition to which he had hitherto been a stranger. The interests of Europe were forgotten. ``What is Europe?'' he exclaimed to the French ambassador. ``Where is it, if it is not you and we?''4

The brilliance of these new visions did not, however, blind Alexander to the obligations of friendship; and he refused to retain the Danubian principalities as the price for suffering a further dismemberment of Prussia. ``We have made loyal war,'' he said, ``we must make a loyal peace.'' It was not long before the first enthusiasm of Tilsit began to wane. Napoleon was prodigal of promises, but niggard of their fulfilment. The French remained in Prussia, the Russians on the Danube; and each accused the other of breach of faith. Meanwhile, however, the personal relations of Alexander and Napoleon were of the most cordial character; and it was hoped that a fresh meeting might adjust all differences between them. The meeting took place at Erfurt in October 1808, and resulted in a treaty which defined the common policy of the two emperors. But Alexander's relations with Napoleon none the less suffered a change. He realized that in Napoleon sentiment never got the better of reason, that as a matter of fact he had never intended his proposed ``grand enterprise'' seriously, and had only used it to preoccupy the mind of the tsar while he consolidated his own power in central Europe. From this moment the French alliance was for Alexander also not a fraternal agreement to rule the world, but an affair of pure policy. He used it, in the first instance, to remove ``the geographical enemy'' from the gates of St Petersburg by wresting Finland from the Swedes (1809); and he hoped by means of it to make the Danube the southern frontier of Russia. Events were in fact rapidly tending to the rupture of the Franco-Russian alliance. Alexander, indeed, assisted Napoleon in the war of 1809, but he declared plainly that he would not allow Austria to be crushed out of existence; and Napoleon complained bitterly of the inactivity of the Russian troops during the campaign. The tsar in his turn protested against Napoleon's encouragement of the Poles. In the matter of the French alliance he knew himself to be practically isolated in Russia, and he declared that he could not sacrifice the interest of his people and empire to his affection for Napoleon. ``I don't want anything for myself,'' he said to the French ambassador, ``therefore the world is not large enough to come to an understanding on the affairs of Poland, if it is a question of its restoration.''5 The treaty of Vienna, which added largely to the grand-duchy of Warsaw, he complained had ``ill requited him for his loyalty,'' and he was only mollified for the time by Napoleon's public declaration that he had no intention of restoring Poland, and by a convention, signed on the 4th of January 1810 but not ratified, abolishing the Polish name and orders of chivalry.

But if Alexander suspected Napoleon, Napoleon was no less suspicious of Alexander; and, partly to test his sincerity, he sent an almost peremptory request for the hand of the grand- duchess Anne, the tsar's youngest sister. After some little delay Alexander returned a polite refusal, on the plea of the princess's tender age and the objection of the dowager empress to the marriage. Napoleon's answer was to refuse to ratify the convention of the 4th of January, and to announce his engagement to the archduchess Marie Louise in such a way as to lead Alexander to suppose that the two marriage treaties had been negotiated simultaneously. From this time the relation between the two emperors gradually became more and more strained. The annexation of Oldenburg, of which the duke was the tsar's uncle, to France in December 1810, added another to the personal grievances of Alexander against Napoleon; while the ruinous reaction of ``the continental system'' on Russian trade made it impossible for the tsar to maintain a policy which was Napoleon's chief motive for the alliance. An acid correspondence followed, and ill-concealed armaments, which culminated in the summer of 1812 in Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Yet, even after the French had passed the frontier, Alexander still protested that his personal sentiments towards the emperor were unaltered; ``but,'' he added, ``God Himself cannot undo the past.'' It was the occupation of Moscow and the desecration of the Kremlin, the sacred centre of Holy Russia, that changed his sentiment for Napoleon into passionate hatred. In vain the French emperor, within eight days of his entry into Moscow, wrote to the tsar a letter, which was one long cry of distress, revealing the desperate straits of the Grand Army, and appealed to ``any remnant of his former sentiments.'' Alexander returned no answer to these ``fanfaronnades.'' ``No more peace with Napoleon!'' he cried, ``He or I, I or He: we cannot longer reign together!''6

The campaign of 1812 was the turning-point of Alexander's life; and its horrors, for which his sensitive nature felt much of the responsibility, overset still more a mind never too well balanced. At the burning of Moscow, he declared afterwards, his own soul had found illumination, and he had realized once for all the divine revelation to him of his mission as the peacemaker of Europe. He tried to calm the unrest of his conscience by correspondence with the leaders of the evangelical revival on the continent, and sought for omens and supernatural guidance in texts and passages of scripture. It was not, however, according to his own account, till he met the Baroness de Krudener--a religious adventuress who made the conversion of princes her special mission--at Basel, in the autumn of 1813, that his soul found peace. From this time a mystic pietism became the avowed force of his political, as of his private actions. Madame de Krudener, and her colleague, the evangelist Empaytaz, became the confidants of the emperor's most secret thoughts; and during the campaign that ended in the occupation of Paris the imperial prayer-meetings were the oracle on whose revelations hung the fate of the world.

Such was Alexander's mood when the downfall of Napoleon left him the most powerful sovereign in Europe. With the memory of Tilsit still fresh in men's minds, it was not unnatural that to cynical men of the world like Metternich he merely seemed to be disguising ``under the language of evangelical abnegation'' vast and perilous schemes of ambition. The puzzled powers were, in fact, the more inclined to be suspicious in view of other, and seemingly inconsistent, tendencies of the emperor, which yet seemed all to point to a like disquieting conclusion. For Madame de Krudener was not the only influence behind the throne; and, though Alexander had declared war against the Revolution, Laharpe was once more at his elbow, and the catchwords of the gospel of humanity were still on his lips. The very proclamations which denounced Napoleon as ``the genius of evil,'' denounced him in the name of ``liberty,'' and of ``enlightenment.'' A monstrous intrigue was suspected for the alliance of the eastern autocrat with the Jacobinism of all Europe, which would have issued in the substitution of an all-powerful Russia for an all-powerful France. At the congress of Vienna Alexander's attitude accentuated this distrust. Castlereagh, whose single-minded aim was the restoration of ``a just equilibrium'' in Europe, reproached the tsar to his face for a ``conscience'' which suffered him to imperil the concert of the powers by keeping his hold on Poland in violation of his treaty obligation.7

Yet Alexander was sincere. Even the Holy Alliance, the pet offspring of his pietism, does not deserve the sinister reputation it has since obtained. To the other powers it seemed, at best ``verbiage'' and ``exalted nonsense,'' at worst an effort of the tsar to establish the hegemony of Russia on the goodwill of the smaller signatory powers. To the Liberals, then and afterwards it was clearly a hypocritical conspiracy against freedom. Yet to Alexander himself it seemed the only means of placing the ``confederation of Europe'' on a firm basis of principle8 and, so far from its being directed against liberty he declared roundly to all the signatory powers that ``free constitutions were the logical outcome of its doctrines.'' Europe, in fact, owed much at this time to Alexander's exalted temper. During the period when his influence was supreme, the fateful years, that is, between the Moscow campaign and the close of the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, it had been used largely in the interests of moderation and liberty. To him mainly it was due that France was saved from dismemberment, and received a constitution which, to use his own words, ``united crown and representatives of the people in a sense of common interests.''9 By his wise intervention Switzerland was saved from violent reaction, and suffered to preserve the essential gains of the Revolution. To his protection it was due that the weak beginnings of constitutional freedom in Germany were able for a while to defy the hatred of Austria. Lastly, whatever its ultimate outcome, the constitution of Poland was, in its inception, a genuine effort to respond to the appeal of the Poles for a national existence.

From the end of the year 1818 Alexander's views began to change. A revolutionary conspiracy among the officers of the guard, and a foolish plot to kidnap him on his way to the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (q.v.), are said to have shaken the foundations of his Liberalism. At Aix he came for the first time into intimate contact with Metternich, and the astute Austrian was swift to take advantage of the psychological moment. From this time dates the ascendancy of Metternich over the mind of the Russian emperor and in the councils of Europe. It was, however, no case of sudden conversion. Though alarmed by the revolutionary agitation in Germany, which culminated in the murder of his agent, the dramatist Kotzebue (q.v.), Alexander approved of Castlereagh's protest against Metternich's policy of ``the governments contracting an alliance against the peoples,'' as formulated in the Carlsbad decrees, 1819, and deprecated any intervention of Europe to support ``a league of which the sole object is the absurd pretensions of absolute power.''10 He still declared his belief in ``free institutions, though not in such as age forced from feebleness, nor contracts ordered by popular leaders from their sovereigns, nor constitutions granted in difficult circumstances to tide over a crisis. ``Liberty,'' he maintained, ``should be confined within just limits. And the limits of liberty are the principles of order.''11

It was the apparent triumph of the principles of disorder in the revolutions of Naples and Piedmont, combined with increasingly disquieting symptoms of discontent in France, Germany and among his own people, that completed Alexander's conversion. In the seclusion of the little town of Troppau, where in October of 1820 the powers met in conference, Metternich found an opportunity for cementing his influence over Alexander which had been wanting amid the turmoil and feminine intrigues of Vienna and Aix. Here, in confidence begotten of friendly chats over afternoon tea, the disillusioned autocrat confessed his mistake. ``You have nothing to regret,'' he said sadly to the exultant chancellor, ``but I have!''12 The issue was momentous. In January Alexander had still upheld the ideal of a free confederation of the European states, symbolized by the Holy Alliance, against the policy of a dictatorship of the great powers, symbolized by the Quadruple Treaty; he had still protested against the claims of collective Europe to interfere in the internal concerns of the sovereign states. On the 19th of November he signed the Troppau Protocol, which consecrated the principle of intervention and wrecked the harmony of the concert. (See TROPPAU, CONGRESS OF.)

At Laibach, whither in the spring of 1821 the congress had been adjourned, Alexander first heard of the revolt of the Greeks. From this time until his death his mind was torn between his anxiety to realize his dream of a confederation of Europe and his traditional mission as leader of the Orthodox crusade against the Turks. At first, under the careful nursing of Metternich, the former motive prevailed. He struck the name of Alexander Ypsilanti from the Russian army list, and directed his foreign minister, Count Capo d'Istria, himself a Greek, to disavow all sympathy of Russia with his enterprise; and, next year, a deputation of the Greeks of the Morea on its way to the congress of Verona was turned back by his orders on the road. He made, indeed, some effort to reconcile the principles at conflict in his mind. He offered to surrender the claim, successfully asserted when the sultan had been excluded from the Holy Alliance and the affairs of the Ottoman empire from the deliberations of Vienna, that the affairs of the East were the ``domestic concerns of Russia,'' and to march into Turkey, as Austria had marched into Naples, ``as the mandatory of Europe.''13 Metternich's opposition to this, illogical, but natural from the Austrian point of view, first opened his eyes to the true character of Austria's attitude towards his ideals. Once more in Russia, far from the fascination of Metternich's personality, the immemorial spirit of his people drew him back into itself; and when, in the autumn of 1825, he took his dying empress for change of air to the south of Russia, in order--as all Europe supposed--to place himself at the head of the great army concentrated near the Ottoman frontiers, his language was no longer that of ``the peace-maker of Europe,'' but of the Orthodox tsar determined to take the interests of his people and of his religion ``into his own hands.'' Before the momentous issue could be decided, however, Alexander died at Taganrog on the 1st of December (November 18, O.S.) 1825, ``crushed'', to use his own words, ``beneath the terrible burden of a crown'' which he had more than once declared his intention of resigning. A report, current at the time and often revived, affirmed that he did not in fact die. By some it is supposed that a mysterious hermit named Fomich, who lived at Tomsk until 1870 and was treated with peculiar deference by successive tsars, was none other than Alexander.14

Modern history knows no more tragic figure than that of Alexander. The brilliant promise of his early years; the haunting memory of the crime by which he had obtained the power to realize his ideals; and, in the end, the terrible legacy he left to Russia: a principle of government which, under lofty pretensions, veiled a tyranny supported by spies and secret police; an uncertain succession; an army permeated by organized disaffection; an armed Poland, whose hunger for liberty the tsar had whetted but not satisfied; the quarrel with Turkey, with its alternative of war or humiliation for Russia; an educational system rotten with official hypocrisy; a Church in which conduct counted for nothing, orthodoxy and ceremonial observance for everything; economical and financial conditions scarce recovering from the verge of ruin; and lastly, that curse of Russia,--serfdom.

In private life Alexander displayed many lovable qualities. All authorities combine in praising his handsome presence and the affability and charm of his address, together with a certain simplicity of personal tastes, which led him in his intercourse with his friends or with the representatives of friendly powers to dispense with ceremonial and etiquette. His personal friendship, too, once bestowed, was never lightly withdrawn. By nature he was sociable and pleasure-loving, he proved himself a notable patron of the arts and he took a conspicuous part in all the gaieties of the congress of Vienna. In his later years, however, he fell into a mood of settled melancholy; and, though still accessible to all who chose to approach him with complaints or petitions, he withdrew from all but the most essential social functions, and lived a life of strenuous work and of Spartan simplicity. His gloom had been increased by domestic misfortune. He had been married, in 1793, without his wishes being consulted, to the beautiful and amiable Princess Maria Louisa of Baden (Elizabeth Feodorovna), a political match which, as he regretfully confessed to his friend Frederick William of Prussia, had proved the misfortune of both; and he consoled himself in the traditional manner. The only child of the marriage, a little grand-duchess, died on the 12th of May 1808; and their common sorrow drew husband and wife closer together. Towards the close of his life their reconciliation was completed by the wise charity of the empress in sympathizing deeply with him over the death of his beloved daughter by Madame Narishkine.

See also EUROPE; RUSSIA; FRANCE; TURKEY; VIENNA, CONGRESS OF; NAPOLEON; METTERNICH; CAPO D'ISTARIA.

AUTHORITIES.--F. de Martins, Recueil des traites conclus par la Russie, &c. (St Petersb., 1874, &c.); Wellington Despatches Castlereagh Correspondence; Prince Adam Czartoryski, Memoires et correspondance avec l'empereur Alexandre I. (Paris, 1887, 2 vols.). P. Bailleu (ed). Briefwechsel Konig Friedrich Wilhelm's III. und der Konigin Luise mit Kaiser Alexander I. (Leipzig, 1900); Laharpe, Le Gouverneur d'un Prince (F. C de Laharpe et Alexandre I. de Russie) 1902; Serge Tatischeff, Alexandre I. et Napoleon d'apres leur correspondance inedite (Paris, 1901); Joseph de Maistre, Memoires historiques et correspondance diplomatique, ed. A. Blanc (2nd ed., 1859); Comtesse de Choiseul-Gouffier, Memoires historiques sur l'empereur Alexandre (1829), and Reminiscences sur l'empereur Alexandre I., &c. (Paris, 1862); Rulemann Friedrich Eylert, Charakterzuge und historische Fragmente aus dem Leben Konig Friedrich Wilhelm's III. (1846); H. L. Empaytaz, Notice sur Alexandre Empereur de Russie (2nd ed., Paris, 1840); Comte A. de la Garde- Chambonas, Souvenirs du Congres de Vienne; publ. avec introd. et notes par le Cte. Fleury (1901).

LIVES.--The principal life of Alexander I. is that, in Russian, by Nikolai Karlovich Schilder, Imperator Aleksander, &c. (4 vols., St Petersb., 1897, 1898). See also Bogdanovich, History of the Government of the Emperor Alexander I. (St Petersburg, 1869-1871, Nikolaus I. Band i. Kaiser Alexander I. und die Ergebnisse seiner Lebensarbeit (Berl., 1904), a valuable study based upon much new material from the state archives of St Petersburg, Paris, Berlin and Vienna; A. Vandal, Napoleon et Alexandre I.: l'alliance Russe sous le premier empire (3 vols., Paris, 1891-1896); A. N. Pypin, Political and Literary Movements under Alexander I. (Russian, 2nd ed. St Petersburg, 1885; German, Berlin, 1894). Among the numerous less authoritative biographies may be mentioned Ivan Golovin, Histoire d'Alexandre I. (Leipzig, 1859), and C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I. (3 vols., 1875). This last contains much valuable information, but the references in footnotes are often wanting in precision, and it has no index. (W. A. P.)

1 Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 4, 1807. Tatischeff, p. 226.

2 Circular of Count Muraviev, Aug. 24, 1898.

3 Instructions to M. Novosiltsov, Sept. 11, 1804. Tatiseheff, p. 82.

4 Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 18, 1807. Tatischeff, p. 232.

5 Coulaincourt to Napoleon, 4th report, Aug. 3, 1809. Tatischeff, p. 496.

6 Alexander speaking to Colonel Michaud. Tatischeff, p. 612.

7 Castlereagh to Liverpool, Oct. 2, 1814. F.O. Papers. Vienna VII.

8 Martens IV. oart i. p. 49.

9 Etat des negociations actueelles, &c., mem. prepared by order of the Tsar, July 16, 1815, enclosed in Castlereagh to Liverpool, F.O. Cont. papers. Congress Paris, Castlereagh, 22.

10 Despatch of Lieven, Nov. 30 (Dec. 12), 1819, and Russ. Circular of Jan. 27, 1820. Martens IV. part i. p. 270.

11 Apercu des idees de l'Empereur, Martens IV. part i. p. 269.

12 Metternich Mem.

13 Martens IV. part i. pp. 307, &c.

14 See W. Gasiorowski, Tragic Russia, translated by Viscount de Busancy (London, 1908).

ALEXANDER II. (1818-1881), emperor of Russia, eldest son of Nicholas I., was born on the 29th of April 1818. His early life gave little indication of his subsequent activity, and up to the moment of his accession in 1855 no one ever imagined that he would be known to posterity as a great reformer. In so far as he had any decided political convictions, he seemed to be animated with that reactionary spirit which was predominant in Europe at the time of his birth, and continued in Russia to the end of his father's reign. In the period of thirty years during which he was heir-apparent, the moral atmosphere of St Petersburg was very unfavourable to the development of any originality of thought or character. It was a time of government on martinet principles, under which all freedom of thought and all private initiative were as far as possible suppressed vigorously by the administration. Political topics were studiously avoided in general conversation, and books or newspapers in which the most keen-scented press-censor could detect the least odour of political or religious free-thinking were strictly prohibited. Criticism of existing authorities was regarded as a serious offence. The common policeman, the insignificant scribe in a public office, and even the actors in the ``imperial'' theatres, were protected against public censure as effectually as the government itself; for the whole administration was considered as one and indivisible, and an attack on the humblest representative of the imperial authority was looked on as an indirect attack on the fountain from which that authority flowed. Such was the moral atmosphere in which young Alexander Nicolaevich grew up to manhood. He received the education commonly given to young Russians of good family at that time--a smattering of a great many subjects, and a good practical acquaintance with the chief modern European languages. Like so many of his countryman he displayed great linguistic ability, and his quick ear caught up even peculiarities of dialect. His ordinary life was that of an officer of the Guards, modified by the ceremonial duties incumbent on him as heir to the throne. Nominally he held the post of director of the military schools, but he took little personal interest in military affairs. To the disappointment of his father, in whom the military instinct was ever predominant, he showed no love of soldiering, and gave evidence of a kindliness of disposition and a tender-heartedness which were considered out of place in one destined to become a military autocrat. These tendencies had been fostered by his tutor Zhukovsky, the amiable humanitarian poet, who had made the Russian public acquainted with the literature of the German romantic school, and they remained with him all through life, though they did not prevent him from being severe in his official position when he believed severity to be necessary. In 1841 he married the daughter of the grand-duke Louis II. of Hesse, Maximilienne Wilhelmine Marie, thenceforward known as Maria Alexandrovna, who bore him six sons and two daughters. He did not travel much abroad, for his father, in his desire to exclude from Holy Russia the subversive ideas current in Western Europe, disapproved foreign tours, and could not consistently encourage in his own family what he tried to prevent among the rest of his subjects. He visited England, however, in 1839, and in the years immediately preceding his accession he was entrusted with several missions to the courts of Berlin and Vienna. On the 2nd of March 1855, during the Crimean War, he succeeded to the throne on the death of his father.

The first year of the new reign was devoted to the prosecution of the war, and after the fall of Sevastopol, to negotiations for peace. Then began a period of radical reforms, recommended by public opinion and carried out by the autocratic power. The rule of Nicholas, which had sacrificed all other interests to that of making Russia an irresistibly strong military power, had been tried by the Crimean War and found wanting. A new system must, therefore, be adopted. All who had any pretensions to enlightenment declared loudly that the country had been exhausted and humiliated by the war, and that the only way of restoring it to its proper position in Europe was to develop its natural resources and to reform thoroughly all branches of the administration. The government found, therefore, in the educated classes a new-born public spirit, anxious to assist it in any work of reform that it might think fit to undertake. Fortunately for Russia the autocratic power was now in the hands of a man who was impressionable enough to be deeply influenced by the spirit of the time, and who had sufficient prudence and practical common-sense to prevent his being carried away by the prevailing excitement into the dangerous region of Utopian dreaming. Unlike some of his predecessors, he had no grand, original schemes of his own to impose by force on unwilling subjects, and no pet crotchets to lead his judgment astray; and he instinctively looked with a suspicious, critical eye on the panaceas which more imaginative and less cautious people recommended. These traits of character, together with the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, determined the part which he was to play. He moderated, guided and in great measure realized the reform aspirations of the educated classes.

Emancipation of the serfs.

Though he carefully guarded his autocratic rights and privileges, and obstinately resisted all efforts to push him farther than he felt inclined to go he acted for several years somewhat like a constitutional sovereign of the continental type. At first he moved so slowly that many of the impatient, would-be reformers began to murmur at the unnecessary delay. In reality not much time was lost. Soon after the conclusion of peace important changes were made in the legislation concerning industry and commerce, and the new freedom thus accorded produced a large number of limited liability companies. At the same time plans were formed for constructing a great network of railways, partly for the purpose of developing the natural resources of the country, and partly for the purpose of increasing its powers of defence and attack. Then it was found that further progress was blocked by a great obstacle, the existence of serfage: and Alexander II. showed that, unlike his father, he meant to grapple boldly with the difficult and dangerous problem. Taking advantage of a petition presented by the Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian provinces, praying that their relations with the serfs might be regulated in a more satisfactory way--meaning in a way more satisfactory for the proprietors--he authorized the formation of committees ``for ameliorating the condition of the peasants,'' and laid down the principles on which the amelioration was to be effected. This was a decided step and it was followed by one still more significant. Without consulting his ordinary advisers, his majesty ordered the minister of the interior to send a circular to the provincial governors of European Russia, containing a copy of the instructions forwarded to the governor-general of Lithuania, praising the supposed generous, patriotic intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that perhaps the landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar desire. The hint was taken, of course, and in all provinces where serfage existed emancipation committees were formed. The deliberations at once raised a host of important, thorny questions. The emancipation was not merely a humanitarian question capable of being solved instantaneously by imperial ukaz. It contained very complicated problems affecting deeply the economic, social and political future of the nation. Alexander II. had little of the special knowledge required for dealing successfully with such problems, and he had to restrict himself to choosing between the different measures recommended to him. The main point at issue was whether the serfs should become agricultural labourers dependent economically and administratively on the landlords, or should be transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors. The emperor gave his support to the latter project, and the Russian peasantry accordingly acquired rights and privileges such as are enjoyed by no other peasantry in Europe. In the numerous other questions submitted to him be{sic} began by consulting carefully the conflicting authorities, and while leaning as a rule rather to the side of those who were known as ``Liberals,'' he never went so far as they desired, and always sought some middle course by which conflicting interests might be reconciled. On the 3rd of March 1861, the sixth anniversary of his accession, the emancipation law was signed and published. Other reforms followed in quick succession during the next five or six years: army and navy organization, a new judicial administration on the French model, a new penal code and a greatly simplified system of civil and criminal procedure, an elaborate scheme of local self-government for the rural districts and the large towns, with elective assemhljes possessing a restricted right of taxation, and a new rural and municipal police under the direction of the minister of the interior. These new institutions were incomparably better than the old ones which they replaced, but they did not work such miracles as inexperienced enthusiasts expected. Comparisons were made, not with the past, but with an ideal state of things which never existed in Russia or elsewhere. Hence arose a general feeling of disappointment, which acted on different natures in different ways. Some of the enthusiasts sank into a sceptical, reactionary frame of mind; while others, with deeper convictions or capable of more lasting excitement, attributed the failure to the fact that only half- measures and compromises had been adopted by the government. Thus appeared in the educated classes two extreme groups: on the one hand, the discontented Conservatives, who recommended a return to a more severe disciplinarian regime; and on the other, the discontented Radicals, who would have been satisfied with nothing less than the adoption of a throughgoing socialistic programme. Between the two extremes stood the discontented Moderates, who indulged freely in grumbling without knowing how the unsatisfactory state of things was to be remedied. For some years the emperor, with his sound common-sense and dislike of exaggeration, held the balance fairly between the two extremes; but long years of uninterrupted labour, anxiety and disappointment weakened his zeal for reform, and when radicalism assumed more and more the form of secret societies and revolutionary agitation, he felt constrained to adopt severe repressive measures.

Nihilism.

The revolutionary agitation was of a very peculiar kind. It was confined to a section of the educated classes, and emanated from the universities and higher technical schools. At the beginning of the reform period there had been enthusiasm for scientific as opposed to classical education. Russia required, it was said, not classical scholars, but practical, scientific men, capable of developing her natural resources. The government, in accordance with this view, had encouraged scientific studies until it discovered to its astonishment that there was some mysterious connexion between natural science and revolutionary tendencies. Many of the young men and women, who were supposed to be qualifying as specialists in the various spheres of industrial and commercial enterprise, were in reality devoting their time to considering how human society in general, and Russian society in particular, could be reconstructed in accordance with the latest physiological, biological and sociological principles. Some of these young people wished to put their crude notions immediately into practice, and as their desire to make gigantic socialist experiments naturally alarmed the government, their activity was opposed by the police. Many of them were arrested and imprisoned or exiled to distant provinces, but the revolutionary work was continued with unabated zeal. Thus arose a struggle between the youthful, hot-headed partisans of revolutionary physical science and the zealous official guardians of political order--a struggle which has made the strange term Nihilism (q.v.) a familiar word not only in Russia but also in western Europe. The movement gradually assumed the form of terrorism, and aimed at the assassination of prominent officials, and even of the emperor himself, and the natural result was that the reactionary tendencies of the government were strengthened.

Foreign policy.

In foreign policy Alexander II. showed the same qualities of character as in internal affairs, ever trying prudently to steer a middle course. When he came to the throne a peace policy was imposed on him by circumstances. The Crimean War was still going on, but as there was no doubt as to the final issue, and the country was showing symptoms of exhaustion, he concluded peace with the allies as soon as he thought the national honour had been satisfied. Prince Gorchakov could then declare to Europe, ``La Russie ne boude pas elle se recueille''; and for fifteen years he avoided foreign complications, so that the internal strength of the country might be developed, while the national pride and ambition received a certain satisfaction by the expansion of Russian influence and domination in Asia. Twice, indeed, during that period the chancellor ran the risk of provoking war. The first occasion was in 1863, when the Western powers seemed inclined to interfere in the Polish question, and the Russian chancery declared categorically that no interference would be tolerated. The second occasion was during the Franco-German War of 1870-71, when the cabinet of St Petersburg boldly declared that it considered itself no longer bound by the Black Sea clause of the treaty of Paris. On both these occasions hostilities were averted. Not so on the next occasion, when Russia abandoned her attitude of recueillement. When the Eastern question was raised in 1875 by the insurrection of Herzegovina, Alexander II. had no intention or wish to provoke a great European war. No doubt he was waiting for an opportunity of recovering the portion of Bessarabia which had been ceded by the treaty of Paris, and he perceived in the disturbed state of Eastern Europe a possibility of obtaining the desired rectification of frontier, but he hoped to effect his purpose by diplomatic means in conjunction with Austria. At the same time he was anxious to obtain for the Christians of Turkey some amelioration of their condition, and to give thereby some satisfaction to his own subjects. As autocratic ruler of the nation which had long considered itself the defender of the Eastern Orthodox faith and the protector of the Slav nationalities, he could not remain inactive at such a crisis, and he gradually allowed himself to drift into a position from which he could not retreat without obtaining some tangible result. Supposing that the Porte would yield to diplomatic pressure and menace so far as to make some reasonable concessions, he delivered his famous Moscow speech, in which he declared that if Europe would not secure a better position for the oppressed Slavs he would act alone. The diplomatic pressure failed and war became inevitable. During the campaign he displayed the same perseverance and the same moderation that he had shown in the emancipation of the serfs. To those who began to despair of success, and advised him to conclude peace on almost any terms so as to avoid greater disasters, he turned a deaf ear, and brought the campaign to a successful conclusion; but when his more headstrong advisers urged him to insist on terms which would probably have produced a conflict with Great Britain and Austria, he resolved, after some hesitation, to make the requisite concessions. In this resolution he was influenced by the discovery that he could not rely on the expected support of Germany, and the discovery made him waver in his devotion to the German alliance, which had been the main pivot of his foreign policy; but his personal attachment to the emperor William prevented him from adopting a hostile attitude towards the empire he had helped to create.

The patriotic excitement produced by the war did not weaken the revolutionary agitation. The struggle between the Terrorists and the police authorities became more and more intense, and attempts at assassination became more and more frequent. Alexander II. succumbed by degrees to the mental depression produced originally by the disappointments which he experienced in his home and foreign policy; and in 1880, when he had reigned twenty-five years, he entrusted to Count Loris-Melikov a large share of the executive power. In that year the empress died, and a few weeks afterwards he married secretly a Princess Dolgoruki, with whom he had already entertained intimate relations for some years. Early in 1881, on the advice of Count Loris-Melikov, he determined to try the effect of some moderate liberal reforms on the revolutionary agitation, and for this purpose he caused a ukaz to be prepared creating special commissions, composed of high officials and private personages who should prepare reforms in various branches of the administration. On the very day on which this ukaz was signed--13th of March 1881--he fell a victim to a Nihilist plot. When driving in one of the central streets of St Petersburg, near the Winter Palace, he was mortally wounded by the explosion of some small bombs and died a few hours afterwards. (D. M. W.)

ALEXANDER III. (1845-1894), emperor of Russia, second son of Alexander II., was born on the 10th of March 1845. In natural disposition he bore little resemblance to his soft-hearted, liberal minded father, and still less to his refined, philosophic, sentimental, chivalrous, yet cunning grand-uncle Alexander I., who coveted the title of ``the first gentleman of Europe.'' With high culture, exquisite refinement and studied elegance he had no sympathy and never affected to have any. Indeed, he rather gloried in the idea of being of the same rough texture as the great majority of his subjects. His straightforward, abrupt manner savoured sometimes of gruffness, while his direct, unadorned method of expressing himself harmonized well with his rough-hewn, immobile features and somewhat sluggish movements. His education was not fitted to soften these peculiarities. During the first twenty years of his life he had no prospect of succeeding to the throne, because he had an elder brother, Nicholas, who seemed of a fairly robust constitution. Even when this elder brother showed symptoms of delicate health it was believed that his life might be indefinitely prolonged by proper care and attention, and precautions had been taken for the succession by his betrothal with Princess Dagmar of Denmark. Under these circumstances the greatest solicitude was devoted to the education of Nicholas as cesarevich, whereas Alexander received only the perfunctory and inadequate training of an ordinary grand- duke of that period, which did not go much beyond primary and secondary instruction, practical acquaintance with French, English and German, and a certain amount of drill. When he became heir-apparent by the death of his elder brother in 1865, he began to study the principles of law and administration under Professor Pobedonostsef, who did not succeed in awakening in his pupil a love of abstract studies or prolonged intellectual exertion, but who influenced the character of his reign by instilling into his mind the belief that zeal for Eastern Orthodoxy ought, as an essential factor of Russian patriotism, to be specially cultivated by every right-minded tsar. His elder brother when on his deathbed had expressed a wish that his affianced bride, Princess Dagmar of Denmark, should marry his successor, and this wish was realized on the 9th of November 1866. The union proved a most happy one and remained unclouded to the end. During those years when he was heir-apparent--1865 to 1881--he did not play a prominent part in public affairs, but he allowed it to become known that he had certain ideas of his own which did not coincide with the principles of the existing government. He deprecated what he considered undue foreign influence in general, and German influence in particular, and he longed to see the adoption of genuine national principles in all spheres of official activity, with a view to realizing his ideal of a homogeneous Russia--homogeneous in language, administration and religion. With such ideas and aspirations he could hardly remain permanently in cordial agreement with his father, who, though a good patriot according to his lights, had strong German sympathies, often used the German language in his private relations, occasionally ridiculed the exaggerations and eccentricities of the Slavophils and based his foreign policy on the Prussian alliance. The antagonism first appeared publicly during the Franco-German War, when the tsar supported the cabinet of Berlin and the cesarevich did not conceal his sympathies with the French. It reappeared in an intermittent fashion during the years 1875-1879, when the Eastern question produced so much excitement in all ranks of Russian society. At first the cesarevich was more Slavophil than the government, but his phlegmatic nature preserved him from many of the exaggerations indulged in by others, and any of the prevalent popular illusions he may have imbibed were soon dispelled by personal observation in Bulgaria, where he commanded the left wing of the invading army. The Bulgarians had been represented in St Petersburg and Moscow not only as martyrs but also as saints, and a very little personal experience sufficed to correct the error. Like most of his brother officers he could not feel any very great affection for the ``little brothers,'' as the Bulgarians were then commonly called, and he was constrained to admit that the Turks were by no means so black as they had been painted. He did not, however, scandalize the believers by any public expression of his opinions, and did not indeed make himself conspicuous in any way during the campaign. Never consulted on political questions, he confined himself to his military duties and fulfilled them in a conscientious and unobtrusive manner. After many mistakes and disappointments, the army reached Constantinople and the treaty of San Stefano was signed, but much that had been obtained by that important document had to be sacrificed at the congress of Berlin. Prince Bismarck failed to do what was confidently expected of him. In return for the Russian support, which had enabled him to create the German empire, it was thought that he would help Russia to solve the Eastern question in accordance with her own interests, but to the surprise and indignation of the cabinet of St Petersburg he confined himself to acting the part of ``honest broker'' at the congress, and shortly afterwards he ostentatiously contracted an alliance with Austria for the express purpose of counteracting Russian designs in Eastern Europe. The cesarevich could point to these results as confirming the views he had expressed during the Franco-German War, and he drew from them the practical conclusion that for Russia the best thing to do was to recover as quickly as possible from her temporary exhaustion and to prepare for future contingencies by a radical scheme of military and naval reorganization. In accordance with this conviction, he suggested that certain reforms should be introduced. During the campaign in Bulgaria he had found by painful experience that grave disorders and gross corruption existed in the military administration, and after his return to St Petersburg he had discovered that similar abuses existed in the naval department. For these abuses, several high-placed personages--among others two of the grand-dukes-- were believed to be responsible, and he called his father's attention to the subject. His representations were not favourably received. Alexander II. had lost much of the reforming zeal which distinguished the first decade of his reign, and had no longer the energy required to undertake the task suggested to him. The consequence was that the relations between father and son became more strained. The latter must have felt that there would be no important reforms until he himself succeeded to the direction of affairs. That change was much nearer at hand than was commonly supposed. On the 13th of March 1881 Alexander II. was assassinated by a band of Nihilists, and the autocratic power passed to the hands of his son.

In the last years of his reign, Alexander II. had been much exercised by the spread of Nihilist doctrines and the increasing number of anarchist conspiracies, and for some time he had hesitated between strengthening the hands of the executive and making concessions to the widespread political aspirations of the educated classes. Finally he decided in favour of the latter course, and on the very day of his death he signed a ukaz, creating a number of consultative commissions which might have been easily transformed into an assembly of notables. Alexander III. determined to adopt the opposite policy. He at once cancelled the ukaz before it was published, and in the manifesto announcing his accession to the throne he let it be very clearly understood that he had no intention of limiting or weakening the autocratic power which he had inherited from his ancestors. Nor did he afterwards show any inclination to change his mind. All the internal reforms which he initiated were intended to correct what he considered as the too liberal tendencies of the previous reign, so that he left behind him the reputation of a sovereign of the retrograde type. In his opinion Russia was to be saved from anarchical disorders and revolutionary agitation, not by the parliamentary institutions and so-called liberalism of western Europe, but by the three principles which the elder generation of the Slavophils systematically recommended--nationality, Eastern Orthodoxy and autocracy. His political ideal was a nation containing only one nationality, one language, one religion and one form of administration; and he did his utmost to prepare for the realization of this ideal by imposing the Russian language and Russian schools on his German, Polish and Finnish subjects, by fostering Eastern Orthodoxy at the expense of other confessions, by persecuting the Jews and by destroying the remnants of German, Polish and Swedish institutions in the outlying provinces. In the other provinces he sought to counteract what he considered the excessive liberalism of his father's reign. For this purpose he clipped the feeble wings of the zemstvo, an elective local administration resembling the county and parish councils in England, and placed the autonomous administration of the peasant communes under the supervision of landed proprietors appointed by the government. At the same time he sought to strengthen and centralize the imperial administration, and to bring it more under his personal control. In foreign affairs he was emphatically a man of peace, but not at all a partisan of the docrrine of peace at any price, and he followed the principle that the best means of averting war is to be well prepared for it. Though indignant at the conduct of Prince Bismarck towards Russia, he avoided an open rupture with Germany, and even revived for a time the Three Emperors' Alliance. It was only in the last years of his reign, when M. Katkov had acquired a certain influence over him, that he adopted towards the cabinet of Berlin a more hostile attitude, and even then he confined himself to keeping a large quantity of troops near the German frontier, and establishing cordial relations with France. With regard to Bulgaria he exercised similar self-control. The efforts of Prince Alexander and afterwards of Stamboloff to destroy Russian influence in the principality excited his indignation, but he persistently vetoed all proposals to intervene by force of arms. In Central Asian affairs he followed the traditional policy of gradually extending Russian domination without provoking a conflict with Great Britain, and he never allowed the bellicose partisans of a forward policy to get out of hand. As a whole his reign cannot be regarded as one of the eventful periods of Russian history; but it must be admitted that under his hard unsympathetic rule the country made considerable progress. He died at Livadia on the 1st of November 1894, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Nicholas II. (D. M. W.)

ALEXANDER I. (c. 1078-1124), king of Scotland, was the fourth son of Malcolm Canmore by his wife (St) Margaret, grand-niece of Edward the Confessor. On the death of his brother Edgar in 1107 he succeeded to the Scottish crown; but, in accordance with Edgar's instructions, he inherited only a part of its possessions. By a partition, the motive of which is not quite certain, the districts south of the Forth and Clyde were erected into an earldom for Alexander's younger brother, David. Alexander, dissatisfied, sought to obtain the whole, but without success. A curious combination of the fierce warrior and the pious churchman, he manifested the one aspect of his character in his ruthless suppression of an insurrection in his northern dominion (thus gaining for himself the title of ``the Fierce''), the other in his munificent foundation of bishoprics and abbeys. Among the latter were those of Scone and Inchcolm. His strong championship of the independence of the Scottish church involved him in struggles with both the English metropolitan sees. He died on the 27th of April 1124, and was succeeded by his brother, David I.

ALEXANDER II. (1198-1249), king of Scotland, son of William the Lion and Ermengarde of Beaumont, was born at Haddington in 1198, and succeeded to the kingdom on the death of his father in 1214. The year after his accession the clans MacWilliam and MacHeth, inveterate enemies of the Scottish crown, broke into revolt; but the insurrection was speedily quelled. In the same year Alexander joined the English barons in their struggle against John, and led an army into England in support of their cause; but on the conclusion of peace after John's death between his youthful son Henry III. and the French prince Louis, the Scottish king was included in the pacification. The reconciliation thus effected was further strengthened by the marriage of Alexander to Henry's sister Joanna in 1221. The next year was marked by the subjection of the hitherto semi-independent district of Argyll. A revolt in Galloway in 1235 was crushed without difficulty; nor did an invasion attempted soon afterwards by its exiled leaders meet with any better fortune. Soon afterwards a claim for homage from Henry of England drew forth from Alexander a counter-claim to the northern English counties. The dispute, however, was settled by a compromise in 1237. A threat of invasion by Henry in 1243 for a time interrupted the friendly relations between the two countries; but the prompt action of Alexander in anticipating his attack, and the disinclination of the English barons for war, compelled him to make peace next year at Newcastle. Alexander now turned his attention to securing the Western Isles, which still owned a nominal dependence on Norway. Negotiations and purchase were successively tried but without success. Alexander next attempted to seduce Ewen, the son of Duncan, lord of Argyll, from his allegiance to the Norwegian king. Ewen refused his overtures, and Alexander sailed forth to compel him. But on the way he was seized with fever at Kerrera, and died there on the 8th of July 1249.

ALEXANDER III. (1241-1285), king of Scotland, son of Alexander II. by his second wife Mary de Coucy, was born in 1241. At the age of eight years the death of his father called him to the throne. The years of his minority were marked by an embittered struggle for the control of affairs between two rival parties, the one led by Walter Comyn, earl of Menteith, the other by Alan Durward, the justiciar. The former was in the ascendant during the early years of the reign. At the marriage of Alexander to Margaret of England in 1251, Henry III. seized the opportunity to demand from his son-in-law homage for the Scottish kingdom, but the claim was refused. In 1255 an interview between the English and Scottish kings at Kelso resulted in the deposition of Menteith and his party in favour of their opponents. But though disgraced, they still retained great influence; and two years later, seizing the person of the king, they compelled their rivals to consent to the erection of a regency representative of both parties. On attaining his majority in 1262, Alexander declared his intention of resuming the projects on the Western Isles which had been cut short by the death of his father thirteen years before. A formal claim was laid before the Norwegian king Haakon. Not only was this unsuccessful, but next year Haakon replied by a formidable invasion. Sailing round the west coast of Scotland he halted off Arran, where negotiations were opened. These were artfully prolonged by Alexander until the autumn storms should begin. At length Haakon, weary of delay, attacked, only to encounter a terrific storm which greatly damaged his ships. The battle of Largs, fought next day, was indecisive. But even so Haakon's position was hopeless. Baffled he turned homewards, but died on the way. The Isles now lay at Alexander's feet, and in 1266 Haakon's successor concluded a treaty by which the Isle of Man and the Western Isles were ceded to Scotland in return for a money payment, Orkney and Shetland alone being retained. Towards the end of Alexander's reign, the death of all his three children within a few years made the question of the succession one of pressing importance. In 1284 he induced the Estates to recognize as his heir-presumptive his grand-daughter Margaret, the ``Maid of Norway''; and next year the desire for a male heir led him to contract a second marriage. But all such hopes were defeated by the sudden death of the king, who was killed by a fall from his horse in the dark while riding to visit the queen at Kinghorn on the 16th of March 1285.

ALEXANDER (ALEXANDER OBRENOVICH) (1876-1903), king of Servia, was born on the 14th of August 1876. On the 6th of March 1889 his father, King Milan, abdicated and proclaimed him king of Servia under a regency until he should attain his majority at eighteen years of age. King Alexander, on the 13th of April 1893, being then in his seventeenth year, made his notable first coup d'etat, proclaimed himself of full age, dismissed the regents and their government, and took the royal authority into his own hands. His action was popular, and was rendered still more so by his appointment of a radical ministry. In May 1894 King Alexander, by another coup d'etat, abolished the liberal constitution of 1889 and restored the conservative one of 1869. His attitude during the Turco-Greek war of 1897 was one of strict neutrality. In 1898 he appointed his father commander-in-chief of the Servian army, and from that time, or rather from his return to Servia in 1894 until 1900, ex-king Milan was regarded as the de facto ruler of the country. But while, during the summer of 1900, Milan was away from Servia taking waters in Carlsbad, and making arrangements to secure the hand of a German princess for his son, and while the premier, Dr Vladan Dyorevich, was visiting the Paris Universal Exhibition, King Alexander suddenly announced to the people of Servia his engagement to Mme Draga Mashin, a widow, formerly a lady-in-waiting to Queen Natalie. The projected union aroused great opposition at first. Ex-King Milan resigned his post; so did the government; and King Alexander had great difficulty in forming a new cabinet. But the opposition subsided somewhat on the publication of Tsar Nicholas's congratulations to the king on his engagement and of his acceptance to act as the principal witness at the wedding. The marriage was then duly celebrated on the 5th of August 1900. Still this union was unpopular and weakened the position of King Alexander in the army and the country. He tried to reconcile political parties by granting from his own initiative a liberal constitution (April 6, 1901), introducing for the first time in the constitutional history of Servia the system of two chambers (skupshtina and senate). This did in a certain measure reconcile the political parties, but did not reconcile the army, which, already dissatisfied with the king's marriage, became still more so at the rumours that one of the two unpopular brothers of Queen Draga, Lieutenant Nicodiye, was to be proclaimed heir- apparent to the throne. Meanwhile the independence of the senate and of the council of state caused growing irritation to King Alexander, which led him to another coup d'etat. He suspended (March 1903) the constitution for half an hour, time enough to publish the decrees by which the old senators and councillors of state were dismissed and replaced by new ones. This arbitrary act naturally increased the dissatisfaction in the country. The general impression was that inasmuch as the senate was packed with men devoted to the royal couple, and inasmuch as the government obtained a large majority at the general elections, King Alexander would not hesitate any longer to proclaim Queen Draga's brother as the heir to the throne. Apparently to prevent this, but in reality to replace Alexander Obrenovich by Peter Karageorgevich, a military conspiracy was organized. The conspirators penetrated into the palace and savagely murdered King Alexander and Queen Draga in the early morning of the 11th of June 1903. (C. MI.)

ALEXANDER, son of Numenius, Greek rhetorician, flourished in the first half of the second century A.D. In addition to general treatises on rhetoric, he wrote a special work Peri ton tes dianoias kai tes lexeos schematon, of which only an abridgment is extant; later epitomes were made in Latin by Aquila Romanus and Julius Rufinianus under the title De Figuris Sententiarum et Elocutionis. Another epitome was made in the fourth century by a Christian for use in Christian schools, containing additional examples from Gregory of Nazianzus.

Text in Spengel, Rhetores Graeci (1856).

ALEXANDER, ARCHIBALD (1772-1851), American Presbyterian divine, was born, of Scottish-Irish descent, in that part of Augusta county which is now Rockbridge county, Virginia, on the 17th of April 1772. After completing his preliminary education in the little school at Lexington, Virginia, which later developed into Washington and Lee University, he came under the influence of the religious movement known as the ``great revival'' (1789-1790) and devoted himself to the study of theology. Licensed to preach in 1791, he was engaged for several years as an itinerant Presbyterian preacher in his native state, and acquired during this period the facility in extemporaneous speaking for which he was remarkable. He was president of Hampden-Sidney College from 1796 to 1807, with a short intermission (in 1801-1802), and in 1807 became pastor of Pine Street Church, Philadelphia. In 1812 he became first professor in the newly established Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey, where he remained until his death at Princeton on the 22nd of October 1851, filling successively the chairs of didactic and polemic theology (1812-1840), and pastoral and polemic theology (1840-1851). He married, in 1802, Janetta Waddel, the daughter of the celebrated blind preacher, James Waddel (1739-1805), whose eloquence was described in William Wirt's Letters of a British Spy (1803). Dr Alexander wrote a considerable number of theological works, which had a large circulation. Among these may be mentioned his Brief Outline of the Evidences of the Christian Religion (1825), which passed through several editions, and was translated into various languages; The Canon of the Old and New Testament Ascertained; or the Bible Complete without the Apocrypha and Unwritten Traditions (1826); A History of the Israelitish Nation (1852), and Outlines of Moral Science (1852), the last two being published posthumously.

See the biography (New York, 1854) by his son James W. Alexander.

ALEXANDER, FRANCIS (1800-1881), American portrait- painter, was born in Windham county, Connecticut, in February 1800. Brought up on a farm, he taught himself the use of colours, and in 1820 went to New York City and studied painting with Alexander Robertson. He spent the winters of 1831 and 1832 in Rome, and then for nearly a decade he lived in Boston, Massachusetts, where he had considerable vogue, and where in 1842 he painted a portrait of Charles Dickens. One of his best portraits is that of Mrs Fletcher Webster in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He died in 1881 in Florence.

ALEXANDER, GEORGE (1858- ), English actor, whose family name was Samson, was born in Reading on the 19th of June 1858, the son of a Scottish manufacturer. He went into business in London after leaving school, but having acted as an amateur he determined to make the stage his profession. His first appearance was at Nottingham in 1879, and after some seasons of provincial experience he made his first London appearance as Caleb Deecie in Two Roses in 1881 with Irving at the Lyceum. He was selected by W. S. Gilbert to support Mary Anderson in Comedy and Tragedy, returned for a time to the Lyceum, where he was Irving's principal associate, especially as Faust (1886) and Macduff (1888); and, after starting successfully under his own management at the Avenue Theatre in 1890 with Dr Bill, in 1891 became manager of the St James's Theatre. There he produced a number of successful plays, notably Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan and The Importance of being Earnest, Pinero's Second Mrs Tanqueray, The Princess and the Butterfiy, His House in Order and The Thunderbolt; C. Haddon Chambers's The Idler; H. A. Jones's Masqueraders; Alfred Sutro's John Glayde's Honour and The Builder of Bridges; Carton's Liberty Hall and The Tree of Knowledge; Anthony Hope's Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau; and Stephen Phillips's Paolo and Francesca, himself playing the leading parts with great distinction. In 1907 he was elected a member of the London County Council as a municipal reformer, but continued to act regularly at the St James's.

ALEXANDER, SIR JAMES EDWARD (1803-1885), British soldier and traveller, was born on the 16th of October 1803. He joined the East India Company's army in 1820, transferring into the British army in 1825. As aide-de-camp to the British envoy to Persia, he was an eye-witness of the fighting in the war between Persia and Russia (1826), and in 1829 was present in the Balkans during the Russo-Turkish war. In 1832-1834 he was in Portugal during the Miguelete war, and in 1835 served in the Kaffir war in South Africa as aide-de-camp to Sir Benjamin D'Urban. Subsequently he conducted an exploring expedition into Namaqualand and Damaraland, and was knighted for his services (1838). From 1841 to 1855 he served in Canada, proceeding thence to the Crimea, and in 1862 held an important command in New Zealand during the Maori war. He retired from the service in 1877, and in 1881 was given the honorary rank of general. He was largely responsible for the preservation and transfer to England of Cleopatra's Needle in 1877. His varied experiences provided material for a large number of books, among which were Travels from India to England (1827); Transatlantic Sketches (1833); An Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa (1838); Passages in the Life of a Soldier (1857); Incidents of the Maori War (1863). He was also the author of a Life of Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington (1840). He died on the 2nd of April 1885.

ALEXANDER, JOHN WHITE (1856- ), American painter, was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, on the 7th of October 1836. He was left an orphan when very young, became an illustrator for Harper's Magazine, studied in Europe, became a pupil of the Royal Academy at Munich, and also worked in Venice, in Holland and in Paris, where he attracted much attention by his exhibition at the Salon of two female portraits entitled ``Gris'' and ``Noir.'' He became a member of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts (Paris), of the National Academy of Design (New York), of the International Society (London), and of the Vienna and Munich Societies of Painters. In 1901 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. He executed decorative panels for the Congressional Library, Washington, D.C., and a large decoration for the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; and his works include numerous portraits and subject pictures.

ALEXANDER, JOSEPH ADDISON (1809-1860), American biblical scholar, the third son of Archibald Alexander, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 24th of April 1809. He graduated at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1826, having devoted himself especially to the study of Hebrew and other oriental languages, and from 1830 to 1833 was adjunct professor of ancient languages and literature there. In 1834 he became an assistant to Dr Charles Hodge, professor of oriental and biblical literature in the Princeton Theological Seminary, and in 1838 became associate professor of oriental and biblical literature there, succeeding Dr Hodge in that chair in 1840 and being transferred in 1851 to the chair of biblical and ecclesiastical history, and in 1859 to that of Hellenistic and New Testament literature, which he occupied until his death at Princeton on the 28th of January 1860. Alexander was a remarkable linquist and exegete. He had been ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1839, and was well known for his pulpit eloquence. He was the author of The Earlier Prophecies of Isaiah (1846), The Later Prophecies of Isaiah (1847), and an abbreviation of these two volumes, Isaiah Illustrated and Explained (2 vols., 1851), The Psalms Translated and Explained (3 vols., 1850), commentaries on Acts (2 vols., 1857), Mark (1858) and Matthew (1860), and two volumes of Sermons (1860).

See The Life of Joseph A. Alexander (2 vols., 2nd ed., New York, 1875) by his nephew, Henry C. Alexander.

His brother, JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER (1804-1859), born in Louisa county, Virginia, on the 13th of March 1804, was a famous Presbyterian preacher. He graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1820, studied theology in the Princeton Seminary, and was pastor of a Presbyterian church in Charlotte county, Virginia, from 1826 to 1828, and of the First Presbyterian church in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1829-1832. From 1833 to 1844 he was professor of belles-lettres and Latin language and literature in the College of New Jersey, from 1844 to 1849 was pastor of the Duane Street Presbyterian church in New York City, from 1849 to 1851 was professor of ecclesiastical history, church government and sacred rhetoric in the Princeton Theological Seminary, and from 1851 until his death, at Red Sweet Springs, Virginia, on the 31st of July 1859, was pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian church in New York City. He wrote numerous magazine articles and published a number of books, including The American Mechanic and Workingman (2 vols., 1847, a coltection of papers to mechanics first printed under the pseudonym of ``Charles Quill''), Thoughts on Family Worship (1847), Sacramental Addresses (1854), The Revival and its Lessons (1859), Thoughts on Preaching (1861), Faith (1862), and many juvenile books for Sunday-school libraries.

See Forty Years' Familiar Letters of James W. Alexander (2 vols., New York, 1860), edited by Dr John Hall (1806-1894) of Trenton, N. J.

ALEXANDER, WILLIAM (1824- ), Protestant archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland, was born at Londonderry on the 13th of April 1824 and educated at Tonbridge Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford. After holding several livings in the north of Ireland he was made bishop of Derry and Raphoe in 1867, and was elevated to the primacy in 1896. He was Bampton lecturer in 1816. An eloquent preacher and the author of numerous theological works, he is best known to literature as a master of dignified and animated verse. His poems were collected in 1887 under the title of St Augustine's Holiday, and other Poems. His wife, Cecil Francis Humphreys (1818-1895), wrote some tracts in connexion with the Oxford movement, but is famous as the author of ``Jesus calls us o'er the tumult,'' ``There is a green hill far away'' and other well-known hymns (nearly four hundred in all). A collection of her verse was published in 1896.

ALEXANDER, WILLIAM LINDSAY (1808-1884), Scottish divine, was born at Leith on the 24th of August 1808. He was educated at the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, where he gained a lasting reputation for classical scholarship. He entered Glasgow Theological Academy under Ralph Wardlaw in September 1827, but in December of the same year he left to become classical tutor at the Blackburn Theological Academy (afterwards the Lancashire Independent College). At Blackburn he stayed till 1831, lecturing on biblical literature, metaphysics, Greek and Latin. After short visits to Germany and London he was invited in November 1834 to become minister of North College Street church (afterwards Argyle Square), Edinburgh, an independent church which had arisen out of the evangelical movement associated with the Haldanes. He deliberately put aside the ambition to become a pulpit orator in favour of the practice of biblical exposition, which he invested with a singular charm and impressiveness. In 1836 he became one of the editors of the Congregational Magazine, to which he contributed articles on biblical literature and theology and on the ``voluntary'' controversy. In 1840 he delivered the Congregational Lecture in London on the ``Connexion and Harmony of the Old and New Testaments.''

Alexander took an active part in the ``voluntary'' controversy which ended in the Disruption, but he also maintained broad and catholic views of the spiritual relations between different sections of the Christian church. In 1845 he visited Switzerland with the special object of inquiring into the religious life of the churches there. He published an account of his journey in a book, Switzerland and the Swiss Churches, which led to an interchange of correspondence between the Swiss and Scottish churches. In 1845 he received the degree of D.D. from the university of St Andrews. In 1861 he undertook the editorship of the third edition of Kitto's Biblical Encyclopaedia with the understanding that the whole work should be thoroughly revised and brought up to date. In January 1870 he became one of the committee of Old Testament revisers, and by his thorough biblical scholarship rendered exceptional service to the board; he enjoyed the work and devoted much time to it for the next fourteen years. In 1877 he became principal of the Edinburgh Theological Hall, a position which he held, in spite of many tempting offers of preferment elsewhere, until his death on the 20th of December 1884.

See his Life and Work by James Ross (1887). (D. Mn.)

ALEXANDER AETOLUS, of Pleuron in Aetolia, Greek poet and man of letters, the only representative of Aetolian poetry, flourished about 280 B.C. When living in Alexandria he was commissioned by Ptolemy Philadelphus to arrange the tragedies and satyric dramas in the library; some ten years later he took up his residence at the court of Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedonia. His reputation as a tragic poet was so high that he was allotted a place in the Alexandrian tragic Pleiad; we only know the title of one play (Astragalistae.) He also wrote short epics, epigrams and elegies, the considerable fragments of which show learning and eloquence.

Meineke, Analecta Alexandrina (1853); Bergk, Poetae Lyrioi Graeci; Couat, La Poesie alexandrine (1882).

ALEXANDER BALAS (i.e. ``lord''), ruler of the Greek kingdom of Syria 150-146 B.C., was a native of Smyrna of humble origin, but gave himself out to be the son of Antiochus IV. Epiphanes and heir to the Syrian throne. His claims were recognized by the Roman senate, Ptolemy Philometor of Egypt and others. At first unsuccessful, he finally defeated the reigning king Demetrius Soter in 150 B.C. Being now undisputed master of Syria, he abandoned himself to a life of debauchery. Demetrius Soter's son profited by the opportunity to regain the throne. Ptolemy Philometor, who was Alexander's father-in-law, went over to his side, and Alexander was defeated in a pitched battle near Antioch in Syria. He fled for refuge to a Nabataean prince, who murdered him and sent his head to Ptolemy, who had been mortally wounded in the engagement.

See 1 Maccab. 10 ff.; Justin xxxv. 1 and 2; Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 2; Appian, Sir. 67; Polybius xxxiii. 14.

ALEXANDER CORNELIUS, Greek grammarian, surnamed POLYHISTOR from his great learning, born at Miletus or Myndus in Caria, flourished about 70 B.C. He was taken prisoner in the Mithridatic war by Sulla, from whom (or from Cornelius Lentulus) he received his freedom and assumed the name Cornelius. He accompanied Crassus on his Parthian campaigns, and perished at the destruction by fire of his house at Laurentum. He is said to have written ``books without number,'' chiefly on historical and geographical subjects. Of the extant fragments (Muller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, iii:) those relating to the Jews are important as containing quotations from lost Jewish authors.

ALEXANDER JANNAEUS, king of the Jews, succeeded his brother Aristobulus in 103 B.C. and died in 76 B.C. His first act was the murder of one of his brothers who claimed the throne, and his reign was disgraced by the cruelties that he perpetrated in order to retain his position. (See JEWS and PHARISEES.)

ALEXANDER NEVSKY, SAINT (1220-1263), grand-duke of Vladimir, was the second son of the grand-duke Yaroslav. His childhood and youth were spent at Great Novgorod, whither his father sent him to rule (1228) with some guardian boyars. In 1239 he married Alexandra, daughter of Prince Bryachislav of Polotsk. At an early age he distinguished himself in constant warfare with the Germans, Swedes and Lithuanians, who tried to wrest Novgorod and Pskov from Russia while she was still suffering from the effects of the terrible Tatar invasion. The most notable of these battles, whereby he won his honorific epithet of Nevsky (i.e. of the Neva), was fought on the banks of the Neva (July 15 1240) against the famous Swedish statesman, Birger Jarl, whom he utterly defeated, besides wounding him with his lance. In the following year the Teutonic Order, in conjunction with the Order of the Sword, succeeded in capturing Pskov; but Alexander recovered it in 1242, advanced into Livonia, and on the 5th of April defeated the knights on the ice of Lake Peipus and compelled them in the ensuing peace to renounce all their conquests. He also prevented the Swedes (in 1256) from settling in South Finland. On the death of his father (1246) Alexander and his younger brother Andrew went on a two years' journey into Mongolia to obtain their yarluiki, or letters of investiture, from the Grand Khan, who then disposed of the fate of all the Russian princes. He returned (1250) as grand-duke of Kiev and Novgorod, while to Andrew was given the far more important grand- duchy of Vladimir. In 1252, however, the Tatars themselves expelled Andrew and placed Alexander on the throne of Vladimir. Alexander henceforth did his best for his country by humbling himself before the Tatars so as to give them no pretext for ravaging the land again. Most of his spare money he devoted to the ransoming of the numerous Russian captives detained at the Golden Horde. But the men of Novgorod, in their semi-independent republic, continued (1255-1257) to give the grand-duke trouble, their chief grievance being the imposition of a Tatar tribute, which they only submitted to in 1259 on the rumour of an impending Tatar invasion. In 1262 the Tatar tribute was felt so grievously all over Russia that preparations were made for a general insurrection, and Alexander, who knew that an abortive rebellion would make the yoke heavier, was obliged to go to the Horde in person to prevent the Tatars from again attacking Russia. He stayed at Sarai, their Volgan capital, all the Winter, and not only succeeded in obtaining a mitigation of the tribute, but also the abolition of the military service previously rendered by the Russians to the Tatars. This was his last service to his country. He died on his way home from the Horde, and in the words of his contemporary, the metropolitan Cyril, ``with him the sun of Russia set.'' The Orthodox Church has canonized the ruler who gave his whole life for Russia and the Orthodox faith. His relics, discovered in 1380, were in 1724 translated by Peter the Great from Vladimir to St Petersburg.

See Sergyei Mikhailovich Solovev, History of Russia (Rus., 2nd ed., St Petersburg, 1897, vol. 3). (R. N. B.)

ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS, pupil of Aristocles of Messene, the most celebrated of the Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle, and styled, by way of pre-eminence, o exegetes (``the expositor''), was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria. He came to Athens towards the end of the 2nd century A.D., became head of the Lyceum and lectured on peripatetic philosophy. The object of his work was to free the doctrine from the syncretism of Ammonius and to reproduce the pure doctrine of Aristotle. Commentaries by Alexander on the following works of Aristotle are still extant:--the Analytica Priora, i.; the Topica; the Meteorologica; the De Sensu; and the Metaphysica, i.-v., together with an abridgment of what he wrote on the remaining books of the Metaphysica. His commentaries were greatly esteemed among the Arabians, who translated many of them. There are also several original writings by Alexander still extant. The most important of these are a work On Fate, in which he argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and one On the Soul, in which he contends that the undeveloped reason in man is material (nous ulikos) and inseparable from the body. He argued strongly against the doctrine of immortality. He identified the active intellect (nous poietikos), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, with God. Several of Alexander's works were published in the Aldine edition of Aristotle, Venice, 1495-1498; his De Fato and De Anima were printed along with the works of Themistius at Venice (1534); the former work, which has been translated into Latin by Grotius and also by Schulthess, was edited by J. C. Orelli, Zurich, 1824; and his commentaries on the Metaphysica by H. Bonitz, Berlin, 1847. J. Nourisson has treated of his doctrine of fate (De la liberte et du hazard, Paris, 1870). In the early Renaissance his doctrine of the soul's mortality was adopted by F. Pomponazzi against the Thomists and the Averroists.

See PERIPATETICS (ad fin.); ALEXANDRISTS; POMPONAZZI, PIETRO; also A. Apelt, ``Die Schrift d. Alex. v. Aphr.,'' Philolegus, xlv., 1886: C. Ruelle, ``Alex. d'Aphr. et le pretendu Alex. d'Alexandrie,'' Rev. des etudes grecques, v., 1892; E. Zeller's Outlines of Gk. Phil. (Eng. trans., ed. 1905, p. 296).

ALEXANDER OF HALES (ALEXANDER HALENSIS), surnamed DOCTOR IRREFRAGABILIS, THEOLOGORUM MONARCHA and FONS VITAE, a celebrated English theologian of the 13th century, was born in Gloucestershire. Trained in the monastery of Hales he was early raised to an archdeaconry. He went, like most of the scholars of his day, to study at Paris, where he took the degree of doctor and became celebrated as a teacher. It is generally held that he taught Bonaventura, Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, but a comparison of dates makes it clear that the two latter could not have been his pupils and that the statement about Bonaventura is open to doubt. In 1222 (or 1231, see Denifle, Chartul. Univers. Paris, Paris, 1889, i. 135) Alexander entered the order of Minorite Friars and thenceforward lived in strict seclusion. He refused, however, to renounce his degree of doctor, and was the first of his order who continued to bear that title after initiation. He died in 1245 and was buried in the convent of the Cordeliers at Paris. His most celebrated work was the Summa Theologiae (Nuremberg, 1452; Venice, 1576; Cologne, 1611), undertaken by the orders of Pope Innocent IV. and approved by Alexander IV., on the report of seventy learned theologians, as a system of instruction for all the schools in Christendom. The form is that of question and answer, and the method is rigidly scholastic. Of small intrinsic value, it is interesting partly as the first philosophical contribution of the Franciscans who were afterwards to take a prominent part in medieval thought (see SCHOLASTICISM), and partly as the first work based on a knowledge of the whole Aristotelian corpus and the Arabian commentators.

See Wadding, Script. ord. minor. (Rome, 1650); for his method B. Haureau, Hist. de philos. scholast. (Paris, 1880); F. Picavet, ``Abelard et A. de H.'' in the Bibliothieque de l'ecole des hautes-etudes (2nd series, Paris, 1896, pp. 222-230); Schwane, Dogmengesch. (Freiburg, 1882); A. Harnack, Dogmengesch. (1890); J. Endres, ``Des A. von H. Leben und psvchol. Lehre'' in Philos. Jahrb. (i. Fulda, 1888, pp. 24-55, 203-296): also Vacant's Dict. de theologie catholique, vol. i.

ALEXANDER OP TRALLES (ALEXANDER TRALLIANUS), Greek physician, born at Tralles in Lydia, lived probably about the middle of the 6th century and practised medicine with success at Rome. The Greek text of his Biblia iatrika was printed at Paris in 1548 and his De Lumbricis at Venice in 1570.

See E. Milward, Trallianus Reviviscens (London, 1734).

ALEXANDER SEVERUS (MARCUS AURELIUS SEVERUS ALEXAXDER) (208-235), Roman emperor from A.D. 222 to 235, was born at Arca Caesarea in Palestine on the 1st of October 208. His father, Gessius Marcianus, held office more than once as an imperial procurator; his mother, Julia Mamaea, was the daughter of Julia Maesa and the aunt of Heliogabalus. His original name was Bassianus, but he changed it in 221 when his grandmother, Maesa, persuaded the emperor Heliogabalus to adopt his cousin as successor and create him Caesar. In the next year, on the 11th of March, Heliogabalus was murdered, and Alexander was proclaimed emperor by the Praetorians and accepted by the senate. He was then a mere lad, amiable, well-meaning, but entirely under the dominion of his mother, a woman of many virtues, who surrounded him with wise counsellors, watched over the development of his character and improved the tone of the administration, but on the other hand was inordinately jealous, and alienated the army by extreme parsimony, while neither she nor her son had a strong enough hand to keep tight the reins of military discipline. Mutinies became frequent in all parts of the empire; to one of them the life of the jurist and praetorian praefect Ulpian was sacrificed; another compelled the retirement of Dio Cassius from his command) On the whole, however, the reign of Alexander was prosperous till he was summoned to the East to face the new power of the Sassanians (see PERSIA: History.) Of the war that followed we have very various accounts; Mommsen leans to that which is least favourable to the Romans. According to Alexander's own despatch to the senate he gained great victories. At all events, though the Persians were checked for the time, the conduct of the Roman army showed an extraordinary lack of discipline. The emperor returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph (233), but next year he was called to face German invaders in Gaul, where he was slain (on the 18th or 19th of March 235), together with his mother, in a mutiny which was probably led by Maximinus, a Thracian legionary, and at any rate secured him the throne. Alexander was the last of the Syrian princes. During his reign, acting, as he did in most things, under the influence of his mother, he did much to improve the morals and condition of the people. His advisers were men like the famous jurist Ulpian, the historian Dio Cassius and a select board of sixteen senators; a municipal council of fourteen assisted the city praefect in administering the affairs of the fourteen districts of Rome. The luxury and extravagance that had formerly been so prevalent at the court were put down; the standard of the coinage was raised; taxes were lightened; literature, art and science were encouraged; the lot of the soldiers was improved; and, for the convenience of the people, loan offices were instituted for lending money at a moderate rate of interest. In religious matters Alexander preserved an open mind. In his private chapel he had busts of Orpheus, Abraham, Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus Christ. It is said that he was desirous of erecting a temple to the founder of Christianity, but was dissuaded by the pagan priests. There is no doubt that, had Alexander's many excellent qualities been supported by the energy and strength of will necessary for the government of a military empire, he would have been one of the greatest of the Roman emperors.

See Lampridius, Alexander Severus; Dio Cassius lxxviii. 30, lxxix. 17, lxxx. 1; Herodian vi. 1-18; Porrath, Der Kaiser Alex. Sev. (1876); Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie, ii. 2526 foll. (Groebe); monograph by R. V. Nind Hopkins, Cambridge Historical Essays, No. xiv. (1907).

ALEXANDER THE PAPHLAGONIAN, a celebrated impostor and worker of false oracles, was born at Abonouteichos (see INEBOLI) in Paphlagonia in the early part of the 2nd century A.D. The vivid narrative of his career given by Lucian might be taken as fictitious but for the corroboration of certain coins of the emperors Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius (J. H. Eckhel, Doctrina Nummorum veterum, ii. pp. 383, 384) and of a statue of Alexander, said by Athenagoras (Apology, c. 26) to have stood in the forum of Parium. After a period of instruction in medicine by a doctor who also, according to Lucian, was an impostor, he succeeded in establishing an oracle of Aesculapius at his native town. Having circulated a prophecy that the son of Apollo was to be born again, he contrived that there should be found in the foundations of the temple to Aesculapius, then in course of construction at Abonouteichos, an egg in which a small live snake had been placed. In an age of superstition no people had so great a reputation for credulity as the Paphlagonians, and Alexander had little difficulty in convincing them of the second coming of the god under the name of Glycon. A large tame snake with a false human head, wound round Alexander's body as he sat in a shrine in the temple, gave ``autophones'' or oracles unasked, but the usual methods practised were those of the numerous oracle-mongers of the time, of which Lucian gives a detailed account, the opening of sealed inquiries by heated needles, a neat plan of forging broken seals, and the giving of vague or meaningless replies to difficult questions, coupled with a lucrative blackmailing of those whose inquiries were compromising. The reputation of the oracle, which was in origin medical, spread, and with it grew Alexander's skilled plans of organized deception. He set up an ``intelligence bureau'' in Rome, instituted mysteries like those of Eleusis, from which his particular enemies the Christians and Epicureans were alike excluded as ``profane,'' and celebrated a mystic marriage between himself and the moon. During the plague of A.D. 166 a verse from the oracle was used as an amulet and was inscribed over the doors of houses as a protection, and an oracle was sent, at Marcus Aurelius' request, by Alexander to the Roman army on the Danube during the war with the Marcomanni, declaring that victory would follow on the throwing of two lions alive into the river. The result was a great disaster, and Alexander had recourse to the old quibble of the Delphic oracle to Croesus for an explanation. Lucian's own close investigations into Alexander's methods of fraud led to a serious attempt on his life. The whole account gives a graphic description of the inner working of one among the many new oracles that were springing up at this period. Alexander had remarkable beauty and the striking personality of the successful charlatan, and must have been a man of considerable intellectual abilities and power of organization. His income is said by Lucian to have reached an enormous figure. He died of gangrene of the leg in his seventieth year.

See Lucian, 'Alexandros e pseudomantis; Samuel Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1904): and F. Gregorovius, The Emperor Hadrian, trans. by M. E. Robinson (1898).

ALEXANDERS (botanical name, Smyrnium Olusatrum, natural order Umbelliferae), a stout herbaceous plant with a furrowed, much-branched stem 1-3 ft. high, and large compound leaves with broad sheathing stalks, and broad, cut or lobed segments. The small yellow flowers are borne in compound umbels. The plant is a native of the Mediterranean region, and was formerly cultivated as a pot-herb. It is now found apparently wild in Great Britain and Ireland, growing in waste places, especially near the sea and amongst ruins.

In England the plant is sometimes popularly termed ``alisander''; in North America Thaspium aureum is sometimes called ``alexanders.'' ``Alexander's foot,'' botanical name Anacyclus Pyrethrum, is the pellitory of Spain.

ALEXANDERSBAD, a watering-place of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, romantically situated in the Fichtelgebirge, near Wunsiedel, at a height of 1900 ft. above the sea. Pop. 1200. Its waters, which are ferruginous and largely charged with carbonic acid gas, are of use in nervous and rheumatic disorders. In the neighbourhood is the Luisenburg (or Luxburg), so called after a visit paid by Queen Louise of Prussia in 1805, a hill covered by majestic granite rocks, commanding a grand view of the whole range of the Fichtelgebirge.

ALEXANDRE, NOEL (NATALIS ALEXANDER) (1639-1724), French theologian and ecclesiastical historian, was born at Rouen on the 19th of January 1639. In his 15th year he joined the Dominicans, and shortly after his ordination was appointed professor of philosophy at the convent of Saint-Jacques in Paris. The success of his subsequent lectures at the Sorbonne led to his selection by Colbert as tutor to his son, Jacques Nicolas Colbert, afterwards archbishop of Rouen. Alexandre obtained the degree of doctor in divinity from the Sorbonne in 1675 and for twelve years taught philosophy, theology and ecclesiastical law to the members of the Saint-Jacques community. He played a prominent part in ecclesiastical affairs and preached several times before Louis XIV., who granted him an annual pension of 800 livres, and in the general assemblies of the French bishops. He became provincial of his order in 1706, but was banished to Chatellerault in 1709 for having subscribed to the Cas de conscience (1703), and was deprived of his pension in 1713 on account of his opposition to the bull Unigenitus. He died in Paris on the 21st of August 1724, having lost his sight some time before owing to his strenuous literary activity. His numerous works are still much valued by ecclesiastical students.

His best-known work, the Selecta historiae ecclesiasticae capita, et in loca ejusdem insignia dissertationes historicae, chronologicae, dogmaticae (26 vols., Paris, 1676-1686), was placed on the Index by Innocent XI., on account of his bold defence of the Gallican claims. In 1689 he brought out at Paris his history of the Old Testament: Selecta historiae Veteris Testamenti capita, &c., in 6 vols. Of the numerous editions of Alexandre's ecclesiastical history the best is that of P. J. D. Mansi, which contains many valuable notes and additions (11 vols., Lucca, 1749) and has been frequently reprinted. Alexandre's principal contribution to theological literature is his Theologia dogmatica et moralis secundum ordinem catechismi concilii Tridentini (10 vols., Paris, 1694), in which he clearly shows himself a disciple of the Thomist school. His Couformite des ceremonies chinoises avec l'idolatrie grecque et romaine and Sept lettres sur les ceremonies de la Chine (both published at Cologne in 1700) are interesting as they mark him out as a pioneer in the study of comparative religion.

See Catalogue complet des oeuvres du Pere Alexandre (Paris, 1716); Quetif-Echard, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum (Paris, 1719-1721), t. ii. p. 810; and full bibliography in A. Vacant, Dict. de theologie (scholarly article by P. Mandounet, cols. 769-772).

ALEXANDRETTA, or ISKANDERUN (med. Scanderoon), a town of N. Syria, situated in the N.E. angle of the Levantine Mediterranean on the S.E. of the gulf to which it gives a title. Pop. about 10,000, two-thirds Moslem. Iskanderun preserves the name, but probably not the exact site, of Alexandria ad Issum, founded by Alexander in 333 B.C., about 23 m. S. of the scene of his victory, to supersede Myriandrus as key of the Syrian Gates (Beilan Pass). The importance of the place ever since has been derived from its relation to this pass, the easiest approach to the open ground of N. Syria of which Antioch and Aleppo have been the successive capitals; and this relation has prevailed over the extreme unhealthiness of the site, which lies on marshy deltaic ground, screened by the horseshoe of Elma Dagh from all purifying influences of N. and E. winds. As the main outlet for the overland trade from Bagdad and India, whose importance was great until the establishment of the Egyptian overland route, the place was a great resort, first of Genoese and Venetian merchants, then of those of West and North European nations. The British Levant (Turkey) Company maintained an agency and factory here for 200 years, till 1825, in spite of appalling mortality among its employes. Alexandretta is still the main port for the Aleppo district, to which a good chaussee leads over the Beilan Pass, and it has a considerable export trade in tobacco, silk, cereals, liquorice, textiles. The health of the place has improved with the draining of the marshes and the provision of a better supply of water, but still leaves much to be desired. The wealthier inhabitants have summer residences at Beilan near the summit of the pass, long a stronghold of freebooting Dere Beys and the scene of the victory won by Ibrahim Pasha in 1832, which opened Cilicia to his advance. There are resident consuls of all the principal powers, and the port is well served by coasting steamers under European and Ottoman flags. The distance by road to Aleppo has been shortened to about 70 m., and Antakia (Antioch) is about 45 m. distant by a branch of the same chaussee. (D. G. H.)

ALEXANDRIA (Arab. Iskenderia), a city and chief seaport of Egypt, and for over a thousand years from its foundation the capital of the country, situated on the Mediterranean in 31 deg. 12' N., 29 deg. 15' E., and 129 m. by rail N.W. of Cairo. The ancient Canopic mouth of the Nile (now dry) was 12 m. E.

I. The Modern City.--The city is built on the strip of land which separates the Mediterranean from Lake Mareotis ( Mariut), and on a T-shaped peninsula which forms harbours east and west. The stem of the T was originally a mole leading to an island (Pharos) which formed the cross-piece. In the course of centuries this mole has been silted up and is now an isthmus half a mile wide. On it a part of the modern city is built. The cape at the western end of the peninsula is Ras et-Tin (Cape of Figs); the eastern cape is known as Pharos or Kait Bey. South of the town--between it and Lake Mareotis--runs the Mahmudiya canal, which enters the western harbour by a series of locks.

The customs house and chief warehouses are by the western harbour, but the principal buildings of the city are in the east and south-east quarters. From the landing-stage, by the customs house, roads lead to the Place Mehemet Ali, the centre of the life of the city and the starting-point of the electric tramways. The place, usually called the Grand Square, is an oblong open space, tree-lined, in the centre of which there is an equestrian statue of the prince after whom it is named. The square is faced with handsome buildings mainly in the Italian style. The most important are the law courts, exchange, Ottoman bank, English church and the Abbas Hilmi theatre. A number of short streets lead from the square to the eastern harbour. Here a sea wall, completed in 1905, provides a magnificent drive and promenade along the shore for a distance of about 3 m. In building this quay a considerable area of foreshore was reclaimed and an evil-smelling beach done away with. From the south end of the square the rue Sherif Pasha--in which are the principal shops--and the rue Tewfik Pasha lead to the boulevard, or rue, de Rosette, a long straight road with a general E. and W. direction. In it are the Zizinia theatre and the municipal palace (containing the public library); the museum lies up a short street to the N. Opened in 1895 this museum possesses an important collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, found not only in the city but in all Lower Egypt and the Fayum. The western end of the boulevard leads to the Place Ibrahim, often called Place Ste Catherine, from the Roman Catholic church at its S.E. side. In a street running S. from the boulevard to the railway station is the mosque of Nebi Daniel, containing the tombs of Said Pasha and other members of the khedivial family. Immediately E. of the mosque is Kom ed-Dik, garrisoned by British troops, one of several forts built for the protection of the city. Except Kom ed-Dik the forts have not been repaired since the bombardment of 1882. Equally obsolete is the old line of fortifications which formerly marked the limits of the city south and east and has now been partly demolished. Throughout the central part of Alexandria the streets are paved with blocks of lava and lighted by electricity.

The north quarter is mainly occupied by natives and Levantines. The narrow winding streets and the Arab bazaars present an Oriental scene contrasting with the European aspect of the district already described. This Arab quarter is traversed by the rue Ras et-Tin, leading to the promontory of than name. Here, overlooking the harbour, is the khedivial yacht club (built 1903) and the palace, also called Ras et-Tin, built by Mehemet Ali, a large but not otherwise noteworthy building. In the district between the Grand Square and the western harbour, one of the poorest quarters of the city, is an open space with Fort Caffareli or Napoleon in the centre. This quarter has been pierced by several straight roads, one of which, crossing the Mahmudiya canal by the Pont Neuf, leads to Gabbari, the most westerly part of the city and an industrial and manufacturing region, possessing asphalt works and oil, rice and paper mills. On either side of the canal are the warehouses of wholesale dealers in cotton, wool, sugar, grain and other commodities. In the southern part of the city are the Arab cemetery, ``Pompey's Pillar'' and the catacombs. ``Pompey's Pillar,'' which stands on the highest spot in Alexandria, is nearly 99 ft. high, including the pedestal. The shaft is of red granite and is beautifully polished. Nine feet in diameter at the base, it tapers to eight feet at the top. The catacombs, a short distance S.W. of the pillar, are hewn out of the rocky slope of a hill, and are an elaborate series of chambers adorned with pillars, statues, religious symbols and traces of painting (see below, Ancient City.) Along the northern side of the Mahmudiya canal, which here passes a little S. of the catacombs, are many fine houses and gardens (Moharrem Bey quarter), stretching eastward for a considerable distance, favourite residences of wealthy citizens. A similar residential quarter has also grown up on the N.E., where the line of the old fortifications has become a boulevard. The district extending outside the E. fortifications, in the direction of Hadra, has been laid out with fine avenues, and contains numerous garden-cafes and pleasure resorts. Thence roads lead to the E. suburb known generally as Ramleh, which stretches along the coast, and is served by a local railway. It begins E. of the racecourse with Sidi Gabr, and does not end till the khedivial estates E. of San Stefano are reached, some 5 m. E. All this space is filled with villas, gardens and hotels, and is a favourite summer resort not only of Alexandrians but also of Cairenes.

The eastern bay is rocky, shallow and exposed, and is now used only by native craft. The harbour is on the W. of Pharos and partly formed by a breakwater (built 1871-1873 and prolonged 1906-1907), 2 m. long. The breakwater starts opposite the promontory of Ras et-Tin, on which is a lighthouse, 180 ft. above the sea, built by Mehemet Ali. Another breakwater starts from the Gabbari side, the opening between the two works being about half a mile. A number of scattered rocks lie across the entrance, but through them two fairways have been made, one 600 ft. wide and 35 ft. deep, the other 300 ft. wide and 30 ft. deep. The enclosed water is divided into an outer and inner harbour by a mole, 1000 yds. long, projecting N.W. from the southern shore. The inner harbour covers 464 acres. It is lined for 2 1/2 m. by quays, affording accommodation for ships drawing up to 28 ft. The outer harbour (1400 acres water area) is furnished with a graving dock, completed in 1905, 520 ft. long, and with quays and jetties along the Gabbari foreshore. Their construction was begun in 1906.

Alexandria is linked by a network of railway and telegraph lines to the other towns of Egypt, and there is a trunk telephone line to Cairo. The city secured in 1906 a new and adequate water-supply, modern drainage works having been completed the previous year. Being the great entrepot for the trade of Egypt, the city is the headquarters of the British chamber of commerce and of most of the merchants and companies engaged in the development of the Delta. About 90% of the total exports and imports of the country pass through the port, though the completion, in 1904, of a broad-gauge railway connecting Cairo and Port Said deflected some of the cotton exports to the Suez Canal route. The staple export is raw cotton, the value of which is about 80% of all the exports. The principal imports are manufactured cotton goods and other textiles, machinery, timber and coal. The value of the trade of the port increased from L. 30,000,000 in 1900 to L. 46,000,000 in 1906. In the same period the tonnage of the ships entering the harbour rose from 2,375,000 to 3,695,000. Of the total trade Great Britain supplies from 35 to 40% of the imports and takes over 50% of the exports. Among the exports sent to England are the great majority of the 80,000,000 eggs annually shipped (see also EGYPT: Commerce.)

The population of the city (1907) was 332,246 or including the suburbs, about 400,000. The foreigners numbered over 90,000. The majority of these were Greeks, Italians, Syrians, Armenians and other Levantines, though almost every European and Oriental nation is represented. The predominant languages spoken, besides the Arabic of the natives, are Greek, French, English and Italian. The labouring population is mainly Egyptian; the Greeks and Levantines are usually shopkeepers or petty traders. In its social life Alexandria is the most progressive and occidental of all the cities of North Africa, with the possible exception of Algiers. (F. R. C.)

II. The Ancient City.--The Greek Alexandria was divided into three regions: (1) the Jews' quarter, forming the north-east portion of the city; (2) Rhacotis, on the west, occupied chiefly by Egyptians; (3) Brucheum, the Royal or Greek quarter, forming the most magnificent portion of the city. In Roman times Brucheum was enlarged by the addition of an official quarter, making up the number of four regiones in all. The city was laid out as a gridiron of parallel streets, each of which had an attendant subterranean canal. Two main streets, lined with colonnades and said to have been each about 200 ft. wide, intersected in the centre of the city, close to the point where rose the Sema (or Soma) of Alexander (i.e. his Mausoleum). This point is very near the present mosque of Nebi Daniel; and the line of the great east-west ``Canopic'' street only slightly diverged from that of the modern Boulevard de Rosette. Traces of its pavement and canal have been found near the Rosetta Gate; but better remains still of streets and canals were exposed in 1899 by the German excavators outside the E. fortifications, which lie well within the area of the ancient city.

Alexandria consisted originally of little more than the island of Pharos, which was joined to the mainland by a mole nearly a mile long and called the Heptastadium. The end of this abutted on the land at the head of the present Grand Square, where rose the ``Moon Gate.'' All that now lies between that point and the modern Ras et-Tin quarter is built on the silt which gradually widened and obliterated this mole. The Ras et-Tin quarter represents all that is left of the island of Pharos, the site of the actual lighthouse having been weathered away by the sea. On the east of the mole was the Great Harbour, now an open bay; on the west lay the port of Eunostos, with its inner basin Kibotos, now vastly enlarged to form the modern harbour.

In Strabo's time, (latter half of 1st century B.C.) the principal buildings were as follows, enumerated as they were to be seen from a ship entering the Great Harbour. (1) The Royal Palaces, filling the N.E. angle of the town and occupying the promontory of Lochias, which shut in the Great Harbouron the east. Lochias, the modern Pharillon, has almost entirely disappeared into the sea, together with the palaces, the ``Private Port'' and the island of Antirrhodus. There has been a land subsidence here, as throughout the N. Delta and indeed all the N.E. coast of Africa; and on calm days the foundations of buildings may be seen, running out far under sea, near the Pharillon. Search was made for relics of these palaces by German explorers in 1898-1899, but without much success. (2) The Great Theatre, on the modern Hospital Hill near the Ramleh station. This was used by Caesar as a fortress, where he stood a siege from the city mob after the battle of Pharsalus. (3)The Poseideion or Temple of the Sea God, close to the theatre and in front of it. (4) The Timonium built by Antony. (5, 6, 7) The Emporium (Exchange), Apostases (Magazines) and Navalia (Docks), lying west of (4), along the sea-front as far as the mole. Behind the Emporium rose (8) the Great Caesareum, by which stood the two great obelisks, later known as ``Cleopatra's Needles,'' and now removed to New York and London. This temple became in time the Patriarchal Church, some remains of which have been discovered: but the actual Caesareum, so far as not eroded by the waves, lies under the houses lining the new sea-wall. (9) The Gymnasium and (10) the Palaestra are both inland, near the great Canopic street (Boulevard de Rosette) in the eastern half of the town, but on sites not determined. (11) The Temple of Saturn: site unknown. (12) The Mausolea of Alexander (Soma) and the Ptolemies in one ring-fence, near the point of intersection of the two main streets. (13) The Museum with its library and theatre in the same region; but on a site not identified. (14) The Serapeum, the most famous of all Alexandrian temples Strabo tells us that this stood in the west of the city; and recent discoveries go far to place it near ``Pompey's Pillar'' (see above) which, however, was an independent monument erected to commemorate Diocletian's siege of the city. We know the names of a few other public buildings on the mainland, but nothing as to their position. On the eastern point of the Pharos island stood the Great Lighthouse, one of the ``Seven Wonders,'' reputed to be 400 ft. high. The first Ptolemy began it, and the second completed it, at a total cost of 800 talents. It is the prototype of all lighthouses (q.v.) in the world. A temple of Hephaestus also stood on Pharos at the head of the mole. In the Augustan age the population of Alexandria was estimated at 300,000 free folk, in addition to an immense number of slaves.

III. History.--

Ancient and medieval period.

Founded in 332 B.C. by Alexander the Great, Alexandria was intended to supersede Naucratis (q.v.) as a Greek centre in Egypt, and to be the link between Macedonia and the rich Nile Valley. If such a city was to be on the Egyptian coast, there was only one possible site, behind the screen of the Pharos island and removed from the silt thrown out by Nile mouths. An Egyptian townlet, Rhacotis, already stood on the shore and was a resort of fishermen and pirates. Behind it (according to the Alexandrian treatise, known as pseudo-Callisthenes) were five native villages scattered along the strip between Lake Mareotis and the sea. Alexander occupied Pharos, and had a walled city marked out by Deinocrates on the mainland to include Rhacotis. A few months later he left Egypt for the East and never returned to his city; but his corpse was ultimately entombed there. His viceroy, Cleomenes, continued the creation of Alexandria. The Heptastadium, however, and the mainland quarters seem to have been mainly Ptolemaic work. Inheriting the trade of ruined Tyre and becoming the centre of the new commerce between Europe and the Arabian and Indian East, the city grew in less than a century to be larger than Carthage; and for some centuries more it had to acknowledge no superior but Rome. It was a centre not only of Hellenism but of Semitism, and the greatest Jewish city in the world. There the Septuagint was produced. The early Ptolemies kept it in order and fostered the development of its museum into the leading Greek university; but they were careful to maintain the distinction of its population into three nations, ``Macedonian'' (i.e. Greek), Jew and Egyptian. From this division arose much of the later turbulence which began to manifest itself under Ptolemy Philopater. Nominally a free Greek city, Alexandria retained its senate to Roman times; and indeed the judicial functions of that body were restored by Septimius Severus, after temporary abolition by Augustus. The city passed formally under Roman jurisdiction in 80 B.C., according to the will of Ptolemy Alexander: but it had been under Roman influence for more than a hundred years previously. There Julius Caesar dallied with Cleopatra in 47 B.C. and was mobbed by the rabble; there his example was followed by Antony, for whose favour the city paid dear to Octavian, who placed over it a prefect from the imperial household. Alexandria seems from this time to have regained its old prosperity, commanding, as it did, an important granary of Rome. This latter fact, doubtless, was one of the chief reasons which induced Augustus to place it directly under the imperial power. In A.D. 215 the emperor Caracalla visited the city; and, in order to repay some insulting satires that the inhabitants had made upon him, he commanded his troops to put to death all youths capable of bearing arms. This brutal order seems to have been carried out even beyond the letter, for a general massacre was the result. Notwithstanding this terrible disaster, Alexandria soon recovered its former splendour, and for some time longer was esteemed the first city of the world after Rome. Even as its main historical importance had formerly sprung from pagan learning, so now it acquired fresh importance as a centre of Christian theology and church government. There Arianism was formulated and there Athanasius, the great opponent of both heresy and pagan rcaction, worked and triumphed. As native influences, however, began to reassert themselves in the Nile valley, Alexandria gradually became an alien city, more and more detached from Egypt; and, losing much of its commerce as the peace of the empire broke up during the 3rd century A.D., it declined fast in population and splendour. The Brucheum, and Jewish quarters were desolate in the 5th century, and the central monuments, the Soma and Museum, fallen to ruin. On the mainland life seems to have centred in the vicinity of the Serapeum and Caesareum, both become Christian churches: but the Pharos and Heptastadium quarters remained populous and intact. In 616 it was taken by Chosroes, king of Persia; and in 640 by the Arabians, under `Amr, after a siege that lasted fourteen months, during which Heraclius, the emperor of Constantinople, did not send a single ship to its assistance. Notwithstanding the losses that the city had sustained, `Amr was able to write to his master, the caliph Omar, that he had taken a city containing ``4000 palaces, 4000 baths, 12,000 dealers in fresh oil, 12,000 gardeners, 40,000 Jews who pay tribute, 400 theatres or places of amusement."

The story of the destruction of the library by the Arabs is first told by Bar-hebraeus (Abulfaragius), a Christian writer who lived six centuries later; and it is of very doubtful authority. It is highly improbable that many of the 700,000 volumes collected by the Ptolemies remained at the time of the Arab conquest, when the various calamities of Alexandria from the time of Caesar to that of Diocletian are considered, together with the disgraceful pillage of the library in A.D. 389 under the rule of the Christian bishop, Theophilus, acting on Theodosius' decree concerning pagan monumcnts (see LIBRARIES: Ancient History). The story of Abulfaragius runs as follows:--

John the Grammarian, a famous Peripatetic philosopher, being in Alexandria at the time of its capture, and in high favour with `Amr, begged that he would give him the royal library. `Amr told him that it was not in his power to grant such a request, but promised to write to the caliph for his consent. Omar, on hearing the request of his general, is said to have replied that if those books contained the same doctrine with the Koran, they could be of no use, since the Koran contained all necessary truths; but if they contained anything contrary to that book, they ought to be destroyed; and therefore, whatever their contents were, he ordered them to be burnt. Pursuant to this order, they were distributed among the public baths, of which there was a large number in the city, where, for six months, they served to supply the fires.

Shortly after its capture Alexandria again fell into the hands of the Greeks, who took advantage of `Amr's absence with the greater portion of his army. On hearing what had happened, however, `Amr returned, and quickly regained possession of the city. About the year 646 `Amr was deprived of his government by the caliph Othman. The Egyptians, by whom `Amr was greatly beloved, were so much dissatisfied by this act, and even showed such a tendency to revolt, that the Greek emperor determined to make an effort to reduce Alexandria. The attempt proved perfectly successful. The caliph, perceiving his mistake, immediately restored `Amr, who, on his arrival in Egypt, drove the Greeks within the walls of Alexandria, but was only able to capture the city after a most obstinate resistance by the defenders. This so exasperated him that he completely demolished its fortifications, although he seems to have spared the lives of the inhabitants as far as lay in his power. Alexandria now rapidly declined in importance. The building of Cairo in 969, and, above all, the discovery of the route to the East by the Cape of Good Hope in 1498, nearly ruined its commerce; the canal, which supplied it with Nile water, became blocked; and although it remained a principal Egyptian port, at which most European visitors in the Mameluke and Ottoman periods landed, we hear little of it until about the beginning of the 19th century.

[Alexandria figured prominently in the military operations of Napoleon's Egyptian expedition of 1798. The French troops stormed the city on the 2nd of July 1798, and it remained in their hands until the arrival of the British expedition of 1801. The battle of Alexandria, fought on the 21st of March of that year, between the French army under General Menou and the British expeditionary corps under Sir Ralph Abercromby, took place near the ruins of Nicopohs, on the narrow spit of land between the sea and Lake Aboukir, along which the British troops had advanced towards Alexandria after the actions of Aboukir on the 8th and Mandora on the 13th.

Battle of 1801.

The British position on the night of the 20th extended across the isthmus, the right resting upon the ruins of Nicopolis and the sea, the left on the lake of Aboukir and the Alexandria canal. The line faced generally south-west towards the city, the reserve division under Major-General (Sir) John Moore on the right, the Guards brigade in the centre, and three other brigades on the left. In second line were two brigades and the cavalry (dismounted). On the 21st the troops were under arms at 3 A.M., and at 3.30 the French attacked and drove in the outposts. The French army now moved forward with great rapidity in their usual formation of columns. The brunt of the attack fell upon the command of Moore, and in particular upon the 28th (Gloucestershire Regiment). The first shock was repulsed, but a French column penetrated in the dark between two regiments of the British and a confused fight ensued in the ruins, in which the 42nd (Black Watch) captured a colour. The front and rear ranks of the 28th were simultaneously engaged, and the conduct of the regiment won for it the distinction of wearing badges both at the front and at the back of their head-dress. Other regiments which assisted in the overthrow of the French column were the 23rd, 40th and 58th. In a second attack the enemy's cavalry inflicted severe losses on the 42nd. Sir Ralph Abercromby was here engaged in personal conflict with some French dragoons, and about this time received a mortal wound, though he remained on the field and in command to the end. The attack on the centre was repulsed by the cool and steady fire of the Guards, and the left wing maintained its position with ease, but the French cavalry for the second time came to close quarters with the reserve. About half-past eight the combat began to wane, and the last shots were fired at ten. The real attack had been pressed home on the British right, and the History of the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment gives no undue praise to the regiments of the reserve in saying that ``the determined attack would have been successful against almost any other troops.'' Technically, the details of the action show that, while not markedly better in a melee than the war-seasoned French, the British infantry had in its volleys a power which no other troops then existing possessed, and it was these volleys that decided the day even more than the individual stubbornness of the men. The 42nd, twice charged by cavalry, had but thirteen men wounded by the sabre. Part of the French losses, which were disproportionately heavy, were caused by the gunboats which lay close inshore and cannonaded the left flank of the French columns, and by a heavy naval gun which was placed in battery near the position of the 28th. The forces engaged on this day mere approximately 14,000 British to about 20,000 French, and the losses were:-- British, 1468 killed, wounded and missing, including Abercromby (who died on the 28th), Moore and three other generals wounded; French, 1160 killed and (?) 3000 wounded. The British subsequently advanced upon Alexandria, which surrendered on the 31st of August. (C. F. A.)

Modern city.

During the anarchy which accompanied Ottoman rule in Egypt from first to last, Alexandria sank to a small town of about 4000 inhabitants; and it owed its modern renascence solely to Mehemet Ali, who wanted a deep port and naval station for his viceregal domain. He restored its water communication with the Nile by making the Mahmudiya canal, finished in 1820; and he established at Ras et-Tin his favourite residence. The Old Eunostus harbour became the port, and a flourishing city arose on the old Pharos island and the Heptastadium district, with outlying suburbs and villa residences along the coast eastwards and the Mareotic shore. Being the starting-point of the ``overland route'' to India, and the residence of the chief foreign consuls, it quickly acquired a European character and attracted not only Frank residents, but great numbers of Greeks, Jews and Syrians. There most of the negotiations between the powers and Mehemet All were conducted; thence started the Egyptian naval expeditions to Crete, the Morea and Syria; and thither sailed the betrayed Ottoman fleet in 1839. It was twice threatened by hostile fleets, the Greek in 1827 and the combined British, French and Russian squadrons in 1828. The latter withdrew on the viceroy's promise that Ibrahim should evacuate the Morea. The fortifications were strengthened in 1841, and remained in an antiquated condition until 1882, when they were renovated by Arabi Pasha. Alexandria was connected with Cairo by railway in 1856. Much favoured by the earlier viceroys of Mehemet Ali's house, and removed from the Mameluke troubles, Alexandria was the real capital of Egypt till Said Pasha died there in 1863 and Ismail came into power. Though this prince continued to develop the city, giving it a municipality in 18661 and new harbour works in 1871-1878, he developed Cairo still more; and the centre of gravity definitely shifted to the inland capital.

Bombardment of 1882.

Fate, however, again brought Alexandria to the front. After a mutiny of soldiers there in 1881, the town was greatly excited by the arrival of an Anglo-French fleet in May 1882, and on the 11th of June a terrible riot and massacre took place, resulting in the death of four hundred Europeans. Since satisfaction was not given for this and the forts were being strengthened at the instigation of Arabi Pasha, the war minister, the British admiral, Sir Beauchamp Seymour (afterwards Lord Alcester), sent an ultimatum on the 10th of July and opened fire on the forts the next day. They were demolished, but as no troops were landed immediately a fresh riot and massacre ensued. As Arabi did not submit, a British military expedition landed at Alexandria on the 10th of August, the sequel being the British occupation of the whole country, the history of which is set forth under EGYPT.

Since the restoration of tranquillity and the establishment of sound political and economic conditions in the Nile valley, Alexandria has greatly expanded. As the British consular report for 1904 says, ``Building . . . for residential and other purposes proceeds with almost feverish rapidity. The cost of living has doubled and the price of land has risen enormously.'' On the E. and S.E. a new town of handsome houses, gardens and boulevards has been called into existence, in the arrangement of which the controlling influence of the municipality is evident (see Modern Gity above).

IV. Antiquities.--Persistent efforts have been made to explore the antiquities of Alexandria. Encouragement and help have been given by the local Archaeological Society, and by many individuals, notably Greeks justly proud of a city which is one of the glories of their national story. The past and present directors of the museum have been enabled from time to time to carry out systematic excavations when opportunity offered; Mr D. G. Hogarth made tentative researches on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies in 1895; and a German expedition worked for two years (1898-1899). But two difficulties face the would-be excavator in Alexandria. First, since the great and growing modern city stands right over the ancient one, it is almost impossible to find any considerable space in which to dig, except at enormous cost. Second, the general subsidence of the coast has sunk the lower-lying parts of the ancient town under water. Unfortunately the spaces still most open are the low grounds to N.E. and S.W., where it is practically impossible to get below the Roman strata.

The most important results were those achieved by Dr G. Botti, late director Of the museum, in the neighbourhood of ``Pompey's Pillar,'' where there is a good deal of open ground. Here substructures of a large building or group of buildings have been exposed, which are perhaps part of the Serapeum. Hard by immense catacombs and columbaria have been opened which may have been appendages of the temple. These contain one very remarkable vault with curious painted reliefs, now lighted by electricity and shown to visitors. The objects found in these researches are in the museum, the most notable being a great basalt bull, probably once an object of cult in the Serapeum. Other catacombs and tombs have been opened in Kore es-Shugafa Hadra (Roman) and Ras et-Tin (painted). The Germans found remains of a Ptolemaic colonnade and streets in the north-east of the city, but little else. Mr Hogarth explored part of an immense brick structure under the mound of Kom ed-Dik, which may have been part of the Paneum, the Mausolea or a Roman fortress. The making of the new foreshore led to the dredging up of remains of the Patriarchal Church; and the foundations of modern buildings are seldom laid without some objects of antiquity being discovered. The wealth underground is doubtless immense; but, despite all efforts, there is not much for antiquarians to see in Alexandria outside the museum and the neighbourhood of ``Pompey's Pillar.'' The native tomb- robbers, well-sinkers, dredgers and the like, however, come upon valuable objects from time to time, which find their way into private collections.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--(1) Modern City. See latest editions of guidebooks to Lower Egypt (Baedeker, Murray, Macmillan). (2) History. See authorities for history of EGYPT. (3) Ancient City and Antiquities. Mahmud Bey el Fallaki, Memoire sur l'antique Alexandrie (1872); T. D. Neroutsos, L'A ncienne A lexandrie ( I 888) D.G. Hogarth and E. F. Benson, Report on Prospects of Research in Alexandria Egypt Expl. Fund Archaeological Report, 1894-1895); Bulletin de la Societe Archeologique d'Alexandrie(1898 foll.); O. Puchstein in Pauly- Wissowa, Realencyclopadie, s.v. ``Alexandria''; U. Wilcken, Observationes ad historiam Egypti Provinciae Romanae (1885); G. Lumbroso, L'Egitto al tempo dei Greci e dei Romani (1882); H. Kiepert, Zur Topographie des alten Alexandria (1872). (D. G. H.)

1 This municipality was superseded by a new municipal body, with extensive powers, created in 1890.

ALEXANDRIA, a city of Madison county, Indiana, U.S.A., about 46 m. N.E. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1890) 715; (1900) 7221, (1002 foreign-born); (1910) 5096. Alexandria is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Lake Erie & Western railways, and by the Indiana Union Traction System (electric). In the city are a Carnegie library and Beulah Park (24 acres), the latter belonging to the Northern Indiana Holiness Association, which there holds summer camp-meetings. The city is in a rich farming country, which produces Indian corn, oats and wheat; and is in the Indiana natural gas region, to which fact it owes its rapid growth as a manufacturing centre. It is one of the principal seats of the glass industry in Indiana-- plate glass, lamp chimneys, mirrors, &c., being manufactured here--and also has mineral wool factories and paper mills. The municipality owns and operates the water-works and the gas-lighting plant. Alexandria was founded in 1836 and was chartered as a city in 1893.

ALEXANDRIA, a city of Louisiana, U.S.A., capital of Rapides Parish, on the S. bank of the Red river in almost the exact geographical centre of the state. Pop. (1890) 2861; (1900) 5648 (3142 negroes); (1910) 11,213. The city is served by the Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company, the St Louis, Watkins & Gulf, the Texas & Pacific, the Louisiana & Arkansas, the Southern Pacific, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and the Missouri Pacific railways. The Red river is navigable to Alexandria during the entire year. Alexandria is on a level plain in the centre of the Louisiana long-leaf pine forests, in which pine is interspersed with various hardwoods. The forests stretch on all sides within a radius of 75 m. In the immediate vicinity of the city, on the Red river, cotton, sugar, alfalfa and garden vegetables are cultivated; south of the Red river is a peculiarly rich farming country watered by Bayou Rapides and Bayou Boeuf. Near the city is the Louisiana Asylum for the Insane. The principal industaes are cotton- pressing and the manufacture of lumber and of cotton-seed products; sugar and molasses, artificial ice, mineral waters and brick are other manufactures. The city owns and operates the water-works and electric-lighting plant; the water-supply is derived from artesian wells. Alexandria was named in honour of Alexander Fulton, on whose grant from Spain the first settlement was made in 1785; it was first incorporated as a town in 1818 and received a city charter in 1882. In the spring of 1863 a Union fleet under Admiral David D. Porter, operating on the Red river, co-operated with land forces under General N. P. Banks in pushing the Confederates westward. Alexandria was occupied on the 7th of May 1863, but the troops were soon withdrawn for the Port Hudson attack. On the 19th of March 1864 it was again occupied by the Union forces, who made it the point of concentration for another land and naval expedition against E. Kirby Smith and Shreveport. After the check of this expedition and its abandonment, Alexandria was again vacated on the 12th-13th of May, when the city was almost entirely burned. The Union gunboats, which had passed up the river toward Shreveport at high water, were caught in its decline above the falls at Alexandria, but they were saved by a splendid piece of engineering (a dam at the falls), constructed by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey (1827-1867), who for this service received the thanks of Congress and the brevet of brigadier-general of volunteers.

ALEXANDRIA, a town of Rumania, situated among the rich corn-lands of the Teleorman department, on the right bank of the river Vedea. Pop. (1900) 13,675. Its chief trade is in grain, despatched by rail to the Danubian port of Zimnicea, or by river to Giurgevo. Alexandria was named after its founder, Alexander John Cuza, prince of Rumania from 1859 to 1866.

ALEXANDRIA, a manufacturing town of Dumbartonshire, Scotland, situated on the right bank of the Leven about 3 m. north of Dumbarton, on the North British and Caledonian railways. It owes its origin almost entirely to the cotton printing and bleaching works of the vicinity, for which there is an abundant supply of excellent water, and contains one of the largest of the Turkey-red dyeing establishments in the Vale of Leven. The public buildings include a public hall, the mechanics' institute with library and lecture-hall, an institute for men, with library and recreation rooms, a similar institution for women, banks and other important commercial offices. Pop. (1891) 7796; (1901) 8007. Alexandria is connected with BONHILL, on the opposite bank of the river, by a bridge which replaced in 1898 one bought three years earlier by the county council from the Smollett family, who have been closely associated with the district since the time of Sir James Smollett, the novelist's grandfather. The industries of Bonhill centre in the calico printing, dyeing and bleaching which find their headquarters in the valley. Population (1891) 3843; (1901) 3333. JAMESTOWN, about 1 m. to the north-east of Alexandria, with a station on the Forth & Clyde railway from Balloch to Stirling (North British), contains some of the largest cotton-printing works in Scotland. Population (1891) 1668; (1901) 2080.

ALEXANDRIA, a city and a port of entry of Alexandria county, Virginia, U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Potomac river, 6 m. below Washington, D.C., with which it is connected by a ferry. Pop. (1890) 14,339; (1900) 14,528, of whom 4533 were negroes; (1910, census), 15,329. Alexandria is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Southern and the Washington Southern railways; by the Washington, Alexandria & Mount Vernon electric railway; and by several lines of river and coasting steamboats. It is a quaint, old-fashioned city, with quiet, shady streets, and a number of buildings dating back to the 18th century; of these the most interesting is the old Christ Church in which George Washington and Robert E. Lee worshipped. The city has a public library. About 2 1/2 m. W. of Alexandria is the Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Virginia, opened here in 1823 and chartered in 1854; in 1906-1907 the Seminary had a faculty of 7 and 46 students. Alexandria is a distributing and jobbing centre for the north-east counties of Virginia. Among its manufactures are fertilizers, bottles, carbonated beverages, flour, beer, shoes, silk thread, aprons, brooms, leather, bricks, and tiling and structural iron. The total value of its factory product in 1905 was $2,186,658. The municipality owns and operates its gas-lighting plant. Alexandria, first known as Belhaven, was named in honour of John Alexander, who in the last quarter of the 17th century had bought the land on which the city now stands from Robert Howison; the first settlement here was made in 1695. Alexandria was laid out in 1749 and was incorporated in 1779. From 1790 until 1846 Alexandria county was a part of the District of Columbia; at present the city, although within the limits of Alexandria county, is not administratively a part of it. The city was re-chartered in 1852. For some time Alexandria seemed destined to become an important commercial centre, but the rise of Washington created a rival that soon outstripped it, and since the Civil War the city's growth has been comparatively slight. At Alexandria in 1755 General Edward Braddock organized his fatal expedition against Fort Duquesne, and here, in April of the same year, the governors of Virginia, Massachusetts, New Yfork, Pennsylvania and Maryland met (in a house still standing) to determine upon concerted action against the French in America. In March 1785 commissioners from Virginia and Maryland met here to discuss the commercial relations of the two states, finishing their business at Mount Vernon on the 28th with an agreement for freedom of trade and freedom of navigation of the Potomac. The Maryland legislature in ratifying this agreement on the 22nd of November proposed a conference between representatives from all the states to consider the adoption of definite commercial regulations. This led to the calling of the Annapolis convention of 1786, which in turn led to the calling of the Federal convention of 1787. In 1814 Alexandria was threatened by a British fleet, but bought immunity from attack by paying about $100,000. At the opening of the Civil War the city was occupied by Federal troops, and great excitement throughout the North was caused by the killing (May 24, 1861) of Colonel E. E. Ellsworth (1837-1861) by Captain James W. Jackson, a hotel proprietor, from whose building Ellsworth had removed a Confederate flag. After the erection of the state of West Virginia (1863), and until the close of the war, Alexandria was the seat of what was known as the ``Alexandria Government'' (see VIRGINIA).

ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL. Under this title are generally included certain strongly marked tendencies in literature, science and art, which took their rise in the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria. That city, founded by Alexander the Great about the time when Greece, in losing her national independence, lost also her intellectual supremacy, was in every way admirably adapted for becoming the new centre of the world's activity and thought. Its situation brought it into commercial relations with all the nations lying around the Mediterranean, and at the same time rendered it the one communicating link with the wealth and civilization of the East. The great natural advantages it thus enjoyed were artificially increased to an enormous extent by the care of the sovereigns of Egypt. Ptolemy Soter (reigned 323-285 B.C.), to whom, in the general distribution of Alexander's conquests, this kingdom had fallen, began to draw around him from various parts of Greece a circle of men eminent in literature and philosophy. To these he gave every facility for the prosecution of their learned researches. Under the inspiration of his friend Demetrius of Phalerum, the Athenian orator, statesman and philosopher, this Ptolemy laid the foundations of the great Alexandrian library and originated the keen search for all written works, which resulted in the formation of a collection such as the world has seldom seen. He also built, for the convenience of his men of letters, the Museum, in which, maintained by the royal bounty, they resided, studied and taught. This Museum, or academy of science, was in many respects not unlike a modern university. The work thus begun by Ptolemy Soter was carried on vigorously by his descendants, in particular by his two immediate successors, Ptolemy Philadelphus and Ptolemy Euergetes. Philadelphus (285-247), whose librarian was the celebrated Callimachus, bought up all Aristotle's collection of books, and also introduced a number of Jewish and Egyptian works. Among these appears to have been a portion pf the Septuagint. Euergetes (247-222) largely increased the library by seizing on the original editions of the dramatists laid up in the Athenian archives, and by compelling all travellers who arrived in Alexandria to leave a copy of any work they possessed.

The intellectual movement so originated extended over a long period of years. If we date its rise from the 4th century B.C., at the time of the fall of Greece and the foundation of the Graeco- Macedonian empire, we must look for its final dissolution in the 7th century of the Christian era, at the time of the fall of Alexandria and the rise of the Mahommedan power. But this very long period falls into two divisions. The first, extending from about 306 to 30, includes the time from the foundation of the Ptolemaic dynasty to its final subjugation by the Romans; the second extends from 30 to A.D. 642, when Alexandria was destroyed by the Arabs. The characteristic features of these divisions are very clearly marked, and their difference affords an explanation of the variety and vagueness of meaning attaching to the term ``Alexandrian School.'' In the first of the two periods the intellectual activity was of a purely literary and scientific nature. It was an attempt to continue and develop, under new conditions, the old Hellenic culture. This direction of effort was particularly noticeable under the early Ptolemies, Alexandria being then almost the only home in the world for pure literature. During the last century and a half before the Christian era, the school, as it might be called, began to break up and to lose its individuality. This was due partly to the state of government under some of the later Ptolemies, partly to the formation of new literary circles in Rhodes, Syria and elsewhere, whose supporters, though retaining the Alexandrian peculiarities, could scarcely be included in the Alexandrian school. The loss of active life, consequent on this gradual dissolution, was much increased when Alexandria fell under Roman sway. Then the influence of the school was extended over the whole known world, but men of letters began to concentrate at Rome rather than at Alexandria. In that city, however, there were new forces in operation which produced a second grand outburst of intellectual life. The new movement was not in the old direction--had, indeed, nothing in common with it. With its character largely determined by Jewish elements, and even more by contact with the dogmas of Christianity, this second Alexandrian school resulted in the speculative philosophy of the Neo-Platonists and the religious philosophy of the Gnostics and early church fathers.

There appear, therefore, to be at least two definite significations of the title Alexandrian School; or rather, there are two Alexandrian schools, distinct both chronologically and in substance. The one is the Alexandrian school of poetry and science, the other the Alexandrian school of philosophy. The term ``school,'' however, has not the same meaning as when applied to the Academics or Peripatetics, the Stoics or Epicureans. These consisted of a company united by holding in common certain speculative principles, by having the same theory of things. There was nothing at all corresponding to this among the Alexandrians. In literature their activities were directed to the most diverse objects; they have only in common a certain spirit or form. There was among them no definite system of phllosophy. Even in the later schools of philosophy proper there is found a community rather of tendency than of definite result or of fixed principles.

I. Literature.--The general character of the literature of the school appears as the necessary consequence of the state of affairs brought about by the fall of Greek nationality and independence. The great works of the Greek mind had formerly been the products of a fresh life of nature and perfect freedom of thought. All their hymns, epics and histories were bound up with their individuality as a free people. But the Macedonian conquest at Chaeroneia brought about a complete dissolution of this Greek life in all its relations, private and political. The full, genial spirit of Greek thought vanished when freedom, with which it was inseparably united, was lost. A substitute for this originality was found at Alexandria in learned research, extended and multifarious knowledge. Amply provided with means for acquiring information, and under the watchful care of a great monarch, the Alexandrians readily took this new direction in literature. With all the great objects removed which could excite a true spirit of poetry, they devoted themselves to minute researches in all sciences subordinate to literature proper. They studied criticism, grammar, prosody and metre, antiquities and mythology. The results of this study constantly appear in their productions. Their works are never national, never addressed to a people, but to a circle of learned men. Moreover, the very fact of being under the protection and, as it were, in the pay of an absolute monarch was damaging to the character of their literature. There was introduced into it a courtjy element, clear traces of which, with all its accompaniments, are found in the extant works of the school. One other fact, not to be forgotten in forming a general estimate of the literary value of their productions, is, that the same writer was frequently or almost always distinguished in several special sciences. The most renowned poets were at the same time men of culture and science, critics, archaeologists, astronomers or physicians. To such writers the poetical form was merely a convenient vehicle for the exposition of science.

The forms of poetical composition chiefly cultivated by the Alexandrians were epic and lyric, or elegiac. Great epics are wanting; but in their place, as might almost have been expected, are found the historical and the didactic or expository epics. The subjects of the historical epics were generally some of the well-known myths, in the exposition of which the writer could exhibit the full extent of his learning and his perfect command of verse. These poems are in a sense valuable as repertoires of antiquities; but their style is on the whole bad, and infinite patience is required to clear up their numerous and obscure allusions. The best extant specimen is the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius; the most characteristic is the Alexandra or Cassandra of Lycophron, the obscurity of which is almost proverbial.

The subjects of didactic epics were very numerous; they seem to have depended on the special knowledge possessed by the writers, who used verse as a form for unfolding their information. Some, e.g. the lost poem of Callimachus, called Ai'tia, were on the origin of myths and religious observances; others were on special sciences. Thus we have two poems of Aratus, who, though not resident at Alexandria, was so thoroughly imbued with the Alexandrian spirit as to be with reason included in the school; the one is an essay on astronomy, the other an account of the signs of the weather. Nicander of Colophon has also left us two epics, one on remedies for poisons, the other on the bites of venomous beasts. Euphorion and Rhianus wrote mythological epics. The spirit of all their productions is the same, that of learned research. They are distinguished by artistic form, purity of expression and strict attention to the laws of metre and prosody, qualities which, however good in themselves, do not compensate for want of originality, freshness and power.

In their lyric and elegiac poetry there is much worthy of admiration. The specimens we possess are not devoid of talent or of a certain happy art of expression. Yet, for the most part, they either relate to objects thoroughly incapable of poetic treatment, where the writer's endeavour is rather to expound the matter fully than to render it poetically beautiful, or else expend themselves on short isolated subjects, generally myths, and are erotic in character. The earliest of the elegiac poets was Philetas, the sweet singer of Cos. But the most distinguished was Callimachus, undoubtedly the greatest of the Alexandrian poets. Of his numerous works there remain to us only a few hymns, epigrams and fragments of elegies.1 Other lyric poets were Phanocles, Hermesianax, Alexander of Aetolla and Lycophron.

Some of the best productions of the school were their epirams. Of these we have several specimens, and the art of composing them seems to have been assiduously cultivated, as might naturally be expected from the court life of the poets, and their constant endeavours after terseness and neatness of expression. Of kindred character were the parodies and satirical poems, of which the best examples were the Silli of Timon and the Cinaedi of Sotades.

Dramatic poetry appears to have flourished to some extent. There are still extant three or four varying lists of the seven great dramatists who composed the Pleiad of Alexandria. Their works, perhaps not unfortunately, have perished. A ruder kind of drama, the amoebaean verse, or bucolic mime, developed into the only pure stream of genial poetry found in the Alexandrian School, the Idylls of Theocritus. The name of these poems preserves their original idea; they were pictures of fresh country life.

The most interesting fact connected with this Alexandrian poetry is the powerful influence it exercised on Roman literature. That literature, especially in the Augustan age, is not to be thoroughly understood without due appreciation of the character of the Alexandrian school. The historians of this period were numerous and prolific. Many of them, e.g. Cleitarchus, devoted themselves to the life and achievements of Alexander the Great. The best-known names are those of Timaeus and Polybius.

Before the Alexandrians had begun to produce original works, their researches were directed towards the masterpieces of ancient Greek literature. If that literature was to be a power in the world, it must be handed down to posterity in a form capable of being understood. This was the task begun and carried out by the Alexandrian critics. These men did not merely collect works, but sought to arrange them, to subject the texts to criticism, and to explain any allusion or reference in them which at a later date might become obscure. The complete philological examination of any work consisted, according to them, of the following processes:---diorthosis, arrangement of the text; anagnosis, settlement of accents; tenn??, theory of forms, syntax; lxegnsis, explanation either of words or things; and finally, krisis, judgment on the author and his work, including all questions as to authenticity and integrity. To perform their task adequately required from the critics a wide circle of knowledge; and from this requirement sprang the sciences of grammar, prosody, lexicography, mythology and archaeology. The service rendered by these critics is invaluable. To them we owe not merely the possession of the greatest works of Greek intellect, but the possession of them in a readable state. The most celebrated critics were Zenodotus; Aristophanes of Byzantium, to whom we owe the theory of Greek accents; Crates of Mallus; and Aristarchus of Samothrace, confessedly the coryphaeus of criticism. Others were Lycophron, Callimachus, Eratosthenes and many of a later age, for the critical school long survived the literary. Dionysius Thrax, the author of the first scientific Greek grammar, may also be mentioned. These philological labours were of great indirect importance, for they led immediately to the study of the natural sciences, and in particular to a more accurate knowledge of geography and history. Considerable attention began to be paid to the ancient history of Greece, and to all the myths relating to the foundation of states and cities. A large collection of such curious information is contained in the Bibliotheca of Apollodorus, a pupil of Aristarchus who flourished in the 2nd century B.C. Eratosthenes was the first to write on mathematical and physical geography; he also first attempted to draw up a chronological table of the Egyptian kings and of the historical events of Greece. The sciences of mathematics, astronomy and medicine were also cultivated with assiduity and success at Alexandria, but they can scarcely be said to have their origin there, or in any strict sense to form a part of the peculiarly Alexandrian literature. The founder of the mathematical school was the celebrated Euclid (Eucleides); among its scholars were Archimedes; Apollonius of Perga, author of a treatise on Conic Sections; Eratosthenes, to whom we owe the first measurement of the earth; and Hipparchus, the founder of the epicyclical theory of the heavens, afterwards called the Ptolemaic system, from its most famous expositor, Claudius Ptolemaeus. Alexandria continued to be celebrated as a school of mathematics and science long after the Christian era. The science of medicine had distinguished representatives in Herophilus and Erasistratus, the two first great anatomists.

AUTHORITIES.--Muller and Donaldson, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece; W. Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur; Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought from the Age of Alexander to the Roman Empire; Couat, La Poesie alexandrine; and especially Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandninerzeit. Nicolai's Gricchische Literaturgeschichte, though somewhat out of date, is useful for bibliography.

II. Philosophy.--Although it is not possible to divide literatures with absolute rigidity by centuries, and although the intellectual life of Alexandria, particularly as applied to science, long survived the Roman conquest, yet at that period the school, which for some time had been gradually breaking up, seems finally to have succumbed. The later productions in the field of pure literature bear the stamp of Rome rather than of Alexandria. But in that city for some time past there had been various forces secretly working, and these, coming in contact with great spiritual changes in the world around, produced a second outburst of intellectual activity, which is generally known as the Alexandrian school of philosophy. The doctrines of this school were a fusion of Eastern and Western thought, and combined in varying proportions the elements of Hellenistic and Jewish philosophy. Traces of this eclectic tendency are discoverable as far back as 280 B.C., but for practical purposes the dates of the school may be given as from about 30 B.C. to A.D. 529. The city of Alexandria had gradually become the neutral ground of Europe, Asia and Africa. Its population, then as at the present day, was a heterogeneous collection of all races. Alexander had planted a colony of Jews who had increased in number until at the beginning of the Christian era they occupied two-fifths of the city and held some of the highest offices. The contact of Jewish theology with Greek speculation became the great problem of thought. The Jewish ideas of divine authority and their transcendental theories of conduct were peculiarly attractive to the Greek thinkers who found no inspiration in the dry intellectualism into which they had fallen (see NEO-PYTHAGOREANISM). At the same time the Jews of the Dispersion had to some extent shaken off the exclusiveness of their old political relations and were prepared to compare and contrast their old territorial theology with cosmopolitan culture. Further, when the two sides came to consider the results of their intellectual inheritance they found that they had sufficient common ground for the initial compromise. Thus the Hellenistic doctrine of personal revelation could be combined with the Jewish tradition of a complete theology revealed to a special people. The result was the application of a purely philosophical system to the somewhat vague and unorganized corpus of Jewish theology. The matter was Jewish, the arrangement Greek. According to the relative predominance of these two elements arose Gnosticism, the Patristic theology, and the philosophical schools of Neo-Pythagoreanism, Neo-Platonism and eclectic Platonism.

The members of the school may be enumerated under three heads. (1) The beginnings of the eclectic spirit are, according to some authorities, discernible in the Septuagint (280 B.C.) (see Frankel, Historisch-kritische Studien zur Septuaginta, 1841), but the first concrete exemplification is found in Aristobulus (e. 160 B.C.). So far as the Jewish succession is concerned, the great name is that of Philo in the first century of our era. He took Greek metaphysical theories, and, by the allegorical method, interpreted them in accordance with the Jewish Revelation. He dealt with (a) human life as explained by the relative nature of Man and God, (b) the Divine nature and the existence of God, and, (c) the great Logos doctrine as the explanation of the relation between God and the material universe. From these three arguments he developed an elaborate theosophy which was a syncretism of oriental mysticism and pure Greek metaphysic, and may be regarded as representing the climax of Jewish philosophy. (2) The first purely philosophical phenomenon of the Alexandrian school was Neo-Pythagoreanism, the second and last Neo-Platonism. Leaving all detailed descriptions of these schools to special articles devoted to them, it is sufficient here to say that their doctrines were a synthesis of Platonism, Stoicism and the later Aristotelianism with a leaven of oriental mysticism which gradually became more and more important. The world to which they spoke had begun to demand a doctrine of salvation to satisfy the human soul. They endeavoured to deal with the problem of good and evil. They therefore devoted themselves to examining the nature of the soul, and taught that its freedom consists in communion with God, to be achieved by absorption in a sort of ecstatic trance. This doctrine reaches its height in Plotinus, after whom it degenerated into magic and theurgy in its unsuccessful combat with the victorious Christianity. Finally this pagan theosophy was driven from Alexandria back to Athens under Plutarch and Proclus, and occupied itself largely in purely historical work based mainly on the attempt to re-organize ancient philosophy in conformity with the system of Plotinus. This school ended under Damascius when Justinian closed the Athenian schools (A.D. 529). (3) The eddies of Neo-Platonism had a considerable effect on certain Christian thinkers about the beginning of the 3rd century. Among these the most important were Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Clement, as a scholar and a theologian, proposed to unite the mysticism of Neo- Platonism with the practical spirit of Christianity. He combined the principle of pure living with that of free thinking, and held that instruction must have regard to the mental capacity of the hearer. The compatibility of Christian and later Neo-Platonic ideas is evidenced by the writings of Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, and though Neo-Platonism eventually succumbed to Christianity, it had the effect, through the writings of Clement and Origen, of modifying the tyrannical fanaticism and ultra- dogmatism of the early Christian writers.

AUTHORITIES.--Matter, Histoire de l'ecole d'Alexandrie, 2nd ed. (3 vols., 1840-1844); Simon, Histoire de L'ecole d'Ajexandrie (2 vols., 1844-1845); Vacherot, Histoire critique de l'ecole d'Ajexandrie (3 vols., 1846-1851); Kingsley, Alexandria and her Schools (1854); Gfrorer, Philo und die Alexandrinische Theosophie (1835) Dahne, Geschict. Darstellung der Judisch-Alexandrinischen Religionsphilosophie (1834); Histories of Philosophy by Zeller, Uberweg, Windelband, &c., and Bibliography of CHURCH HISTORY, &c.

1 A considerable fragment of his epic Hecale has been discovered in the Rainer papyrus.

ALEXANDRIA TROAS (mod. Eski Stambul), an ancient Greek city of the Troad, situated on the west coast at nearly its middle point, a little south of Tenedos. It was built by Antigonus, perhaps about 310 B.C., and was called by him Antigonia Troas. Early in the next century the name was changed by Lysimachus to Alexandria Troas, in honour of Alexander's memory. As the chief port of north-west Asia Minor, the place prospered greatly in Roman times, and the existing remains sufficiently attest its former importance. Thence St Paul sailed for Europe for the first time, and there occurred later the episode of the raising of Eutychus (Acts xx. 5-12). The site is now covered with valonia oaks, and has been much plundered, e.g by Mahommed IV., who took columns to adorn his new Valideh mosque in Stambul; but the circuit of the old walls can be traced, and in several places they are fairly well preserved. They had a circumference of about six English miles, and were fortified with towers at regular intervals. Remains of some ancient buildings, including a bath and gymnasium, can be traced within this area. Trajan built an aqueduct which can still be traced. The harbour had two large basins, now almost choked with sand. A Roman colony was sent to the place, as Strabo mentions, in the reign of Augustus. The abridged name ``Troas'' (Acts xvi. 8) was probably the current one in later Roman times. (D. G. H.)

ALEXANDRINE VERSE, a name given to the leading measure in French poetry. It is the heroic French verse, used in epic narrative, in tragedy and in the higher comedy. There is some doubt as to the origin of the name; but most probably it is derived from a collection of romances, collected in the 12th century, of which Alexander of Macedon was the hero, and in which he was represented, somewhat like the British Arthur, as the pride and crown of chivalry. Before the publication of this work most of the trouvere romances appeared in octosyllabic verse. There is also a theory that the form was invented by a poet named Alexander. The new work, which was henceforth to set the fashion to French literature, was written in lines of twelve syllables, but with a freedom of pause which was afterwards greatly curtailed. The new fashion, however, was not adopted all at once. The metre fell into disuse until the reign of Francis I., when it was revived by Jean Antoine de Baif, one of the seven poets known as the Pleiades. Jodelle mingled episodical Alexandrines with the vers communs of his tragedies and so introduced them into drama. It was Ronsard, however, who made the verse popular, and gave it vogue in France. From his time it became the recognized vehicle for all great poetry, and the regulation of its pauses became more and more strict. The following is an example of the verse as used by Racine-- Ou suis-je? qu'ai-je fait? || que dois-je faire encore? Quel transport me saisit? || quel chagrin me devore? Two inexorable laws came to be established with regard to the pauses. The first is, that each line should be divided into two equal parts, the sixth syllable always ending with a word. In the earlier use of this metre, on the contrary, it frequently happened that the sixth and seventh syllables belonged to the same word. The other is that, except under the most stringent conditions, there should be none of what the French critics call enjambement, that is, the overlapping of the sense from one line on to the next. Ronsard completely ignored this rule, which was after his time settled by the authority of Malherbe. The latest school of French prosody has given great attention to the breaking up of the Alexandrine, which no longer possesses the rigidity of authoritative form which it held until about 1880, but is often used with a licence no less than when Ronsard wrote.

Michael Drayton, who was twenty-two years of age when Ronsard died, seemed to think that the Alexandrine might be as pleasing to English as it was to French ears, and in this metre he wrote a long poem in twenty-four books called the Polyolbion. The metre, however, failed to catch the English ear. The principal English measure is a line of ten syllables, and the Alexandrine is used only occasionally to give it variety and weight. In ordinary English heroic verse it is but rarely introduced; but in the favourite narrative metre, known as the Spenserian, it comes in regularly as the concluding line of each stanza. In English usage, moreover, it is to be observed that there is no fixed rule as to the position of the pause, though it is true that most commonly the pause occurs at the end of the sixth syllable. Spenser is very free in shifting the pause about; and though the later poets who have used this stanza are not so free, yet, with the exception of Shenstone and of Byron, they do not scruple to obliterate all pause between the sixth and seventh syllables. Thus Thomson (Castle of Indolenee, i. 42):--

And music lent new gladness to the morning air.

The danger in the use of the Alexandrine is that, in attempting to give dignity to his line, the poet may only produce heaviness, incurring the sneer of Pope--

A needless Alexandrine ends the song. That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. The Alexandrine was the dominant metre in Dutch poetry from the 16th to the middle of the 19th century, and about the time of its introduction to Holland it was accepted in Germany by the school of Opitz. In the course of the 17th century, after being used without rhyme by Seckendorf and others, it formed a transitional station on the route to German blank verse, and has since then been rarely employed, except occasionally in rhymed comedy.

ALEXANDRISTS, the name given to those philosophers of the Renaissance, who, in the great controversy on the subject of personal immortality, adopted the explanation of the De Anima given by Alexander of Aphrodisias. According to the orthodox Thomism of the Roman Catholic Church, Aristotle rightly regarded reason as a facility of the individual soul. Against this, the Averroists, led by Agostino Nito (q.v.), introduced the modifying theory that universal reason in a sense individualizes itself in each soul and then absorbs the active reason into itself again. These two theories respectively evolved the doctrine of individual and universal immortality, or the absorption of the individual into the eternal One. The Alexandrists, led by Pietro Pomponazzi, boldly assailed these beliefs and denied that either was rightly attributed to Aristotle. They held that Aristotle considered the soul as a material and therefore a mortal entity which operates during life only under the authority of universal reason. Hence the Alexandrists denied the possibillty of immortality in every shape or form. Since the soul is organically connected with the body, the dissolution of the latter involves the extinction of the former.

ALEXANDRITE, a variety of chrysoberyl (q.v.) discovered in the Urals in 1833, on the day set apart for celebrating the majority of the cesarevich, afterwards the tsar, Alexander II., in whose honour the stone was named by Nils Gustaf Nordenskiold, of Helsingfors. It is remarkable for being strongly dichroic, generally appearing dark green by daylight and raspberry-red by candle-light, or by daylight transmitted through the stone. As red and green are the military colours of Russia, the mineral became highly popular as a gem-stone. The dark green crystals are usually cloudy and cracked, and grouped in triplets presenting a pseudo-hexagonal form. Alexandrite was found originally in the emerald- mine of Takovaya, east of Ekaterinburg in the Urals, and afterwards in the gold-bearing sands of the Sanarka in the southern Urals. Subsequently it was discovered in greater abundance in the gem-gravels of Ceylon. It has been found also in Tasmania. Some of the Ceylon alexandrite exhibits, when suitably cut, the Cat's-eye chatoyance, whence it has been called alexandrite cat's-eye. (F. W. R.*)

ALEXANDROPOL, or ALEXANDRAPOL. (Turk. Gumri), a Russian town and fortified camp in Transcaucasia, government of Erivan, near the junction of the Arpa-chai with the Aras, 48 m. by rail E.N.E. of Kars. Altitude 5080 ft. It has a trade in silk. Here the Russians defeated the Turks in 1853. Pop. (1885) 22,670; (1897) 32,735.

ALEXANDROVSK. (1) A town of N. Russia, in the government of Archangel, on the harbour of Catherine (Ekaterininsk), on the Murman coast, 5 m. from the mouth of Kola Bay. It was opened in 1899 and is a naval station, being free from ice all the year round. It is also called Port Catherine. Pop. (1901) 300. (2) A town of S. Russia, 83 m. S. of Ekaterinoslav, on the railway to the Crimea, near the left bank of the Dnieper, below its rapids. Pop. (1897) 16,393. Opposite it is the island of Khortitsa, upon which was the sich (or syech) or camp of the Zaporozhian cossacks. All its neighbouthood is strewn with kurgans (tumuli).

ALEXIS, Greek comic poet of the Middle Comedy, was born about 394 B.C. at Thurii and taken early to Athens, where he became a citizen. Plutarch says that he lived to the age of 106, and that he died on the stage while being crowned. According to Suidas, who calls him Monander's uncle, he wrote 245 comedies, of which some 130 titles are preserved. The fragments (about 1000 lines) attest the wit and refinement of the author (Koch, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta).

ALEXIS, WILLIBALD, the pseudonym of GEORG WILHELM HEINRICH HARING (1798--1871), German historical novelist. He was born on the 29th of June 1798 at Breslau, where his father, who came of a French refugee family, named Hareng, held a high position in the war department. He attended the Werdersche Gymnasium in Berlin, and then, serving as a volunteer in the campaign of 1815, took part in the siege of the Ardenne fortresses. On his return he studied law at the universities of Berlin and Breslau and entered the legal profession, but he soon abandoned this career and devoted himself to literature. Settling in Berlin he edited, 1827-1835, the Berliner Konversationsblatt, in which for the first two years he was assisted by Friedrich Christoph Forster (1791--1868); and in 1828 was created a doctor of philosophy by the university of Halle. In 1852 he retired to Arnstadt in Thuringia, where after many years of broken health he died on the 16th of December 1871.

Haring made his name first known as a writer by an idyll in hexameters, Die Treibjagd (1820), and several short stories in which the influence of Tieck is observable; but his literary reputation was first established by the historical romance Walladmor (1823), which, published as being ``freely translated from the English of Sir Walter Scott, with a preface by Willibald Alexis,'' so closely imitated the style of the famous Scotsman as really to deceive even Scott's admirers. The work became immediately popular and was translated into several languages, including English. It was followed by Schloss Avalon (1827), with regard to which the author adopted the same tactics and with equal success. These historical novels, however, were of considerable literary merit, and would doubtless have achieved popularity even without the borrowed plumage. Soon afterwards Haring published a number of successful short stories (Gesammelte Novellen, 4 vols., 1830-1831), some books of travel, and in the novels Das Haus Dusterweg (1835) and Zwolf Nachte (1838) showed for a while a leaning towards the ``Young German'' school. In Cabanis (1832), however, a story of the time of Frederick the Great, he entered the field of patriotic- historical romance, in which he so far excelled as to have earned the name of ``der Markische Walter Scott'' (Walter Scott of the Mark). From 1840 onwards he published at short intervals a series of romances, each dealing with some epoch in the history of Brandenburg. Among them may be especially noted Der Roland von Berlin (1840), Der falsche Woldemar (1842), Die Hosen des Herrn von Bredow (1846-1848), Ruhe ist die erste Burgerpflicht (1852), Isegrimm (1854) and Dorothe (1856). In all these the author shows himself as a keen observer of men and things; the characters, situations and natural surroundings are excellently delineated, and the patriotic feeling which pervades them is not overdone. Haring also made a name for himself in the field of criminology by commencing in 1842, in conjunction with the publicist, Julius Eduard Hitzig (1780- 1849), the publication of Der neue Pitaval (continued by A. Vollert, 36 vols., Leipzig, 1842-1865; new edition, 24 vols., Leipzig, 1866-1891), a, collection of criminal anecdotes culled from all nations and all times. This publication attained great popularity, and is to-day of psychological interest and value.

His Gesammelte Werke were published in 20 volumes (Berlin, 1874); the Vaterlandische Romane separately in 8 volumes (Berlin, 1881, 1884), and, since the expiry of the copyright in 1901, in many cheap reprints. Cp. W. Alexis' Erinnerungen, edited by M. Ewert (1900), and essays by Julian Schmidt (Neue Bilaer aus dere geistigen Leben unsrer Zeit, 1873), G. Freytag (Werke, vols. 16 and 23), A. Stern Zur Literatur der Gegenwart, 1880) and T. Fontane (in Bayreuther Blatter, vi., 1883).

ALEXISBAD, a spa of Germany, in the duchy of Anhalt, lying under the Harz mountains, 1000 ft. above the sea, on the railway from Gernrode to Harzgerode. Pop. 1000. It is celebrated for its medicinal waters, of which the Abexisbrunnen, a ferruginous spring, is used for drinking, while the Selkebrunnen supplies the baths, which are of use in feminine disorders. The place was founded in 1810 by Duke Alexius of Anhalt-Bernburg.

ALEXIUS I. (1048-1118), emperor of the East, was the third son of John Comnenus, nephew of Isaac Comnenus, emperor 1057-1059. His father declined the throne on the abdication of Isaac, who was accordingly succeeded by four emperors of other families between that date and 1081. Under one of these emperors, Romanus Diogenes (1067-1071), he served with distinction against the Seljuk Turks. Under Michael Parapinaces (1071-1078) and Nicephorus Botaniates (1078-1081) he was also employed, along with his elder brother Isaac, against rebels in Asia Minor, Thrace and in Epirus (1071). The success of the Comneni roused the jealousy of Botaniates and his ministers, and the Comneni were almost compelled to take up arms in self- defence. Botaniates was forced to abdicate and retire to a monastery, and Isaac declined the crown in favour of his younger brother Alexius, who then became emperor in the 33rd year of his age. His long reign of nearly 37 years was full of difficulties (see ROMAN EMPIRE, LATER). At the very outset he had to meet the formidable attack of the Normans (Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemund), who took Dyrrhachium and Corfu, and laid siege to Larissa in Thessaly. The Norman danger ended for the time with Robert Guiscard's death (1085) and the conquests were recovered. He had next to repel the invasions of Patzinaks (Petchenegs) and Kumans in Thrace, with whom the Manichaean sects of the Paulicians and Bogomilians made Common cause; and thirdly, he had to cope with the fast-growing power of the Turks in Asia Minor. Above all he had to meet the difficulties caused by the arrival of the warriors of the First Crusade, which had been in a great degree initiated owing to the representations of his own ambassadors, though the help which he wanted from the West was simply mercenary forces and not the immense hosts which arrived to his consternation and embarrassment. The first part, under Peter the Hermit, he got rid of by sending them on to Asia Minor, where they were massacred by the Turks (1096). The second and much more serious host of warriors, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, he conducted also into Asia, promising to supply them with provisions in return for an oath of homage, and by their victories recovered for the Empire a number of important cities and islands--Nicaea, Chics, Rhodes, Smyrna, Ephesus, Philadelphia, Sardis, and in fact most of Asia Minor (1097-1099). This is ascribed as a credit to his policy and diplomacy by his daughter, by the Latin historians of the crusade to his treachery and falseness, but during the last twenty years of his life he lost much of his popularity. They were marked by persecution of the followers of the Paulician and Bogomilian heresies (one of his last acts was to burn Basilius, a Bogomilian leader, with whom he had engaged in a theological controversy), by renewed struggles with the Turks (1110-1117), by anxieties as to the succession, which his wife Irene wished to alter in favour of her daughter Anne's husband, Nicephorus Bryennius for whose benefit the special title panhypersebastos (i.e. as it were dugustissimus si quis ahus) was created. This intrigue disturbed even his dying hours. He deserves the credit of having raised the Empire from a condition of anarchy and decay at a time when it was threatened on all sides by new dangers. No emperor devoted himself more laboriously or with a greater sense of duty to the task of ruling.

AUTHORITIES.--Zonaras xviii. 27-29; Anna Comnena's Life; see also Du Cange, Familiae Byzantinae; Friedrich Wilken, Rerum ab Alexio I., Joanne, Manuele et Alexio II. Comnenis Romanorum, Byzantinorum imperatoribus gestarum, tibri iv. Commentatio (Heidelberg, 1811); Finlay, History of Greece (vol. iii., Oxford, 1877); Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited with notes, &c., by Prof. J. B. Bury (London, 1898), where further authorities are cited; F. Chalandon, Essai sur le regne d'Alexis Ier, Comnene (1900). (J. B. B.)

ALEXIUS II. (COMNENUS) (1167-1183), emperor of the East, was the son of Manuel Comnenus and Maria, daughter of Kaymund, prince of Antioch, and was born at Constantinople on the 10th of September 1167. On Manuel's death, Maria, who hid been immured in a convent under the name of Xene, had herself proclaimed regent (1179-1180), and handing over her son to evil counsellors, who encouraged him in every vice, supported the government of Alexius the protosebastos (nephew of Manuel), who was supposed to be her lover. The young Alexius and his friends now tried to form a party against the empress mother and the protosebastos; and his sister Maria, wife of Caesar John, stirred up riots in the streets of the capital. Their party was defeated (May 2, 1182), but Andronicus Comnenus took advantage of these disorders to aim at the crown, entered Constantinople, where he was received with almost divine honours, and overthrew the regents. His arrival was celebrated by a barbarous massacre of the Latins in Constantinople, which he made no attempt to stop. He allowed Alexius to be crowned, but forced him to consent to the death of all his friends, including his mother, his sister and the Caesar, and refused to allow him the smallest voice in public affairs. The betrothal in 1180 of Alexius with Agnes, daughter of Louis VII. of France, a child of nine, was quashed, and he was married to Irene, daughter of Andronicus. The latter was now formally proclaimed as co-emperor, and not long afterwards, on the pretext that divided rule was injurious to the Empire, he caused Alexius to be strangled with a bow-string (October 1183). (J. B. B.)

ALEXIUS III. (ANGELUS), emperor of the East, was the second son of Andronicus Angelus, nephew of Alexius I. In 1195, while his brother Isaac II. was away hunting in Thrace, he was proclaimed emperor by the troops; he captured Isaac at Stagira in Macedonia, put out his eyes, and kept him henceforth a close prisoner, though he had been redeemed by him from captivity at Antioch and loaded with honours. To compensate for this crime and to confirm his position as emperor, he had to scatter money so lavishly as to empty his treasury, and to allow such licence to the officers of the army as to leave the Empire practically defenceless. He consummated the financial ruin of the state. The empress Euphrosyne tried in vain to sustain his credit and his court; Vatatzes, the favourite instrument of her attempts at reform, was assassinated by the emperor's orders. Eastward the Empire was overrun by the Turks; from the north Bulgarians and Vlachs descended unchecked to ravage the plains of Macedonia and Thrace; while Alexius squandered the public treasure on his palaces and gardens. Soon he was threatened by a new and yet more formidable danger. In 1202 the Western princes assembled at Venice, bent on a new crusade. To them Alexius, son of the deposed Isaac, made appeal, promising as a crowning bribe to heal the schism of East and West if they would help him to depose his uncle. The crusaders, whose objective had been Egypt, were persuaded to set their course for Constantinople, before which they appeared in June 1203, proclaiming the emperor Alexius IV. and summoning the capital to depose his uncle. Alexius III., sunk in debauchery, took no efficient measures to resist. His son-in-law, Lascaris, who was the only one to do anything, was defeated at Scutari, and the siege of Constantinople began. On the 17th of July the crusaders, the aged doge Dandolo at their head, scaled the walls and took the city by storm. During the fighting and carnage that followed Alexius hid in the palace, and finally, with one of his daughters, Irene, and such treasures as he could collect, got into a boat and escaped to Develton in Thrace, leaving his wife, his other daughters and his Empire to the victors. Isaac, drawn from his prison and robed once more in the imperial purple, received hs son in state.

Shortly afterwards Alexius made an effort in conjunction with Murtzuphlos (Alexius V.) to recover the throne. The attempt was unsuccessful and, after wandering about Greece, he surrendered with Euphrosyne, who had meanwhile joined him, to Boniface of Montferrat, then master of a great part of the Balkan peninsula. Leaving his protection he sought shelter with Michael, despot of Epirus, and then repaired to Asia Minor,where his son-in-law Lascaris was holding his own against the Latins. Alexius, joined by the sultan of Iconium (Konieh), now demanded the crown of Lascaris, and on his refusal marched against him. Lascaris, however, defeated and took him prisoner. Alexius was relegated to a monastery at Nicaea, where he died on some date unknown.

AUTHORITIES.--Nicetas Acominatus, George Acropolites, Nicephorus Gregoras; and the sources for the Fourth Crusade (see CRUSADES). (J. B. B.)

ALEXIUS V., eastern Roman emperor, was proclaimed emperor on the 5th of February 1204, during the siege of Constantinople by the Latins (Fourth Crusade). His name was Alexius Ducas Murtzuphlos, and he was a connexion of the imperial house of the Angell. His elevation was the result of a revolution in the city against Isaac II. and Alexius IV. He conducted the defence with great bravery till it became hopeless (April 12), whereupon he fled. He would then have made common cause with Alexius III. against the Latins, but was blinded by that ex-monarch and fell into the hands of the crusaders, who put him to death by casting him from the top of the Pillar of Theodosius as the murderer of Alexius IV.

ALEXIUS MIKHAILOVICH (1624-1676), tsar of Muscovy, the son of Tsar Michael Romanov and Eudoxia Stryeshnevaya, was born on the 9th of March 1629. A youth at his father's death (1645), he was committed to the care of the boyarin Boris Ivanovich Morozov, a shrewd and sensible guardian, sufficiently enlightened to recognize the needs of his country, and by no means inaccessible to Western ideas. Morozov's foreign policy was pacificatory. He secured the truce with Poland and carefully avoided complications with the Porte. His domestic policy was severely equitable, and aimed at relieving the public burdens by limiting the privileges of foreign traders and abolishing a great many useless and expensive court offices. On the 17th of January 1648 he procured the marriage of the tsar with Maria Miloslavshaya, himself marrying her sister, Anna, ten days later. The Miloslavskis were typical self-seeking 17th century boyars, whose extortions made them generally detested. In May 1648 the people of Moscow rose against them, and the young tsar was compelled to dismiss both them and their patron Morozov. The successful issue of the Moscow riots was the occasion of disquieting disturbances all over the tsardom culminating in dangerous rebellions at Pskov and Great Novgorod, with which the government was so unable to cope that they surrendered, practically granting the malcontents their own terms. One man only had displayed equal tact and courage at Great Novgorod, the metropolitan Nikon (q.v.), who in consequence became in 1651 the tsar's chief minister. In 1653 the weakness and disorder of Poland, which had just emerged, bleeding at every pore, from the savage Cossack war, encouraged Alexius to attempt to recover from her secular rival the old Russian lands. On the 1st of October 1653 a national assembly met at Moscow to sanction the war and find the means of carrying it on, and in April 1654 the army was blessed by Nikon (now patriarch). The campaign of 1654 was an uninterrupted triumph, and scores of towns, including the important fortress of Smolensk, fell into the hands of the Muscovites. In January 1655 the rout of Ochmatov arrested their progress; but in the summer of the same year, the sudden invasion by Charles X. of Sweden for the moment swept the Polish state out of existence; the Muscovites, unopposed, quickly appropriated nearly everything which was not already occupied by the Swedes, and when at last the Poles offered to negotiate, the whole grand-duchy of Lithuania was the least of the demands of Alexius. Fortunately for Poland, the tsar and the king of Sweden now quarrelled over the apportionment of the spoil, and at the end of May 1656 Alexius, stimulated by the emperor and the other enemies of Sweden, declared war against her. Great things were expected of the Swedish war, but nothing came of it. Dorpat was taken, but countless multitudes were lost in vain before Riga. In the meantime Poland had so far recovered herself as to become a much more dangerous foe than Sweden, and, as it was impossible to wage war with both simultaneously, the tsar resolved to rid himself of the Swedes first. This he did by the peace of Kardis (July 2, 1661), whereby Muscovy retroceded all her conquests. The Polish war dragged on for six years longer and was then concluded by a truce, nominally for thirteen years, which proved the most durable of treaties. By the truce of Andrussowo (February 11, 1667) Vitebsk, Polotsk and Polish Livonia were restored to Poland, but the infinitely more important Smolensk and Kiev remained in the hands of the Muscovite together with the whole eastern bank of the Dnieper. This truce was the achievement of Athanasy Orduin-Nashchokin, the first Russian chancellor and diplomatist in the modern sense, who after the disgrace of Nikon became the tsar's first minister till 1670, when he was superseded by the equally able Artamon Matvyeev, whose beneficent influence prevailed to the end of the reign. It is the crowning merit of the ever amiable and courteous tsar Alexius that he discovered so many great men (like Nikon, Orduin, Matvyeev, the best of Peter's precursors) and suitably employed them. He was not a man of superior strength of character, or he would never have submitted to the dictation of Nikon. But, on the other hand, he was naturally, if timorously, progressive, or he would never have encouraged the great reforming boyarin Matvyeev. His education was necessarily narrow; yet he was learned in his way, wrote verses, and even began a history of his own times. His last years, notwithstanding the terrible rebellion of Stenka Razin, were deservedly tranquil. By his first consort he had thirteen children, of whom two sickly sons and eight healthy daughters survived him. By his second consort, Natalia Naruishkina, he had two children, the tsarevich Peter and the tsarevna Natalia.

See Robert Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs (London, 1905). (R. N. B.)

ALEXIUS PETROVICH (1600-1718), Russian tsarevich, the sole surviving son of Peter I. and Eudoxia Lopukhina, was horn on the 19th of February 1690. The young tsar married the boyarinya Lopukhina at his mother's command. We know nothing of the bride except that she was beautiful, modest and ``brought up in the fear of the Lord.'' She would, doubtless, have made a model tsaritsa of the pre-Petrine period, but, unfortunately, she was no fit wife for such a vagabond of genius as Peter the Great. From the first her society bored Peter unspeakably, and, after the birth of their second short-lived son Alexander, on the 3rd of October 1691, he practically deserted her. The young Alexius was ignored by his father till he was nine years old. Peter was a rare and unwelcome guest in his own family, and a son who loved his mother could have little affection for a father who had ever been that mother's worst persecutor. From his sixth to his ninth year Alexius was educated by the diffuse and pedantic Vyazemsky, but after the removal of his mother to the Suzdal Prokovsky Monastery he was confided to the care of learned foreigners, who taught him history, geography, mathematics and French. In 1703 Alexius was ordered to follow the army to the field as a private in a bombardier regiment. In 1704 he was present at the capture of Narva. At this period the preceptors of the tsarevich had the highest opinion of his ability; but, unfortunately, it was not the sort of ability that his father could make use of. He was essentially a student, with strong leanings towards archaeology and ecclesiology. A monastic library was the proper place for this gentle emotional dreamer, who clung so fondly to the ancient traditions. To a prince of his temperament the vehement activity of his abnormally energetic father was very offensive. He liked neither the labour itself nor its object. Yet Peter, not unnaturally, wished his heir to dedicate himself to the service of new Russia, and demanded from him unceasing labour in order to maintain the brand-new state at the high level of greatness to which it had been raised. Painful relations between father and son, quite apart from the personal antipathies already existing, were therefore inevitable. It was an additional misfortune for Alexius that his father should have been too busy to attend to him just as he was growing up from boyhood to manhood. He was left in the hands of reactionary boyars and priests, who encouraged him to hate his father and wish for the death of the tsar-antichrist. His confessor, Yakov Ignatiev, whom he promised to obey as ``an angel and apostle of God,'' was his chief counsellor in these days.

In 1708 Peter sent Alexius to Smolensk to collect provender and recruits, and thence to Moscow to fortify it against Charles XII. At the end of 1709 he went to Dresden for twelve months for finishing lessons in French and German, mathematics and fortification, and, his education completed, he was married, greatly against his will, to the princess Charlotte of Brunswick- Wolfenbuttel, whose sister espoused, almost simultaneously, the heir to the Austrian throne, the archduke Charles. The wedding was celebrated at Torgau on the 14th of October 1711, in the house of the queen of Poland, and three weeks later the bridegroom was hurried away by his father to Thorn to superintend the provisioning of the Russian troops in Poland. For the next twelve months Alexius was kept constantly on the move. His wife joined him at Thorn in December, but in April 1712 a peremptory ukaz ordered him off to the army in Pomerania, and in the autumn of the same year he was forced to accompany his father on a tour of inspection through Finland. Evidently Peter was determined to tear his son away from a life of indolent ease. Immediately on his return from Finland Alexius was despatched by his father to Staraya Rusya and Ladoga to see to the building of new ships. This was the last commission entrusted to him. On his return to the capital Peter, in order to see what progress his son had made in mechanics and mathematics, asked him to draw something of a technical nature for his inspection. Alexius, in order to escape such an ordeal, resorted to the abject expedient of disabling his right hand by a pistol-shot. In no other way could the tsarevich have offended his father so deeply. He had behaved like a cowardly recruit who mutilates himself to escape military service. After this, Peter seemed for a time to take no further interest in Alexius. He left him entirely to himself. He employed him no more. He no longer pressed him to attend public functions. Alexius rejoiced at this welcome change, but he had cause rather to fear it. It marked the deepening of a hatred which might have been overcome. Alexius was evidently consoling himself with the reflexion that the future belonged to him. He was well aware that the mass of the Russian nation was on his side. Nearly all the prelates were devoted to him. Equally friendly were the great boyar families. All Alexius had to do was to sit still, keep out of his father's way as much as possible and await the natural course of events. But with Peter the present was everything. He could not afford to leave anything to chance. All his life long he had been working incessantly with a single object --the regeneration of Russia. What if his successor refused to tread in his father's footsteps or, still worse, tried to destroy his father's work? By some such process of reasoning as this must the idea of changing the succession to the throne, by setting aside Alexius, have first occurred to the mind of Peter the Great. Nevertheless he made one last effort to reclaim his son. On the 22nd of October 1715 Alexius' consort, the princess Charlotte, died, after giving birth to a son, the grand-duke Peter, afterwards Peter II. On the day of the funeral Peter addressed to Alexius a stern letter of warning and remonstrance, urging him no longer to resemble the slothful servant in the parable, and threatening to cut him off, as though he were a gangrenous swelling, if he did not acquiesce in his father's plans. But it was now that Alexius showed what a poor creature he really was. He wrote a pitiful reply to his father, offering to renounce the succession in favour of his baby half-brother Peter, who had been born the day after the princess Charlotte's funeral. As if this were not enough, in January 1716 he wrote to his father for permission to become a monk. Still Peter did not despair. On the 26th of August 1716 he wrote to Alexius from abroad urging him, if he desired to remain tsarevich, to join him and the army without delay. Rather than face this ordeal Alexius fled to Vienna and placed himself under the protection of his brother-in-law, the emperor Charles VI., who sent him for safety first to the Tirolean fortress of Ahrenberg, and finally to the castle of San Elmo at Naples. He was accompanied throughout his journey by his mistress, the Finnish girl Afrosina. That the emperor sincerely sympathized with Alexius, and suspected Peter of harbouring murderous designs against his son, is plain from his confidential letter to George I. of England, whom he consulted on this delicate affair. Peter's agitation was extreme. The flight of the tsarevich to a foreign potentate was a reproach and a scandal. He must be recovered and brought back to Russia at all hazards. This difficult task was accomplished by Count Peter Tolstoi, the most subtle and unscrupulous of Peter's servants; but terrorized though he was, Alexius would only consent to return on his father solemnly swearing, ``before God and His judgment seat,'' that if he came back he should not be punished in the least, but cherished as a son and allowed to live quietly on his estates and marry Afrosina. On the 31st of January 1718 the tsarevich reached Moscow. Peter had already determined to institute a most searching inquisition in order to get at the bottom of the mystery of the flight. On the 18th of February a ``confession'' was extorted from Alexius which implicated most of his friends, and he then publicly renounced the succession to the throne in favour of the baby grand-duke Peter Petrovich. A horrible reign of terror ensued, in the course of which the ex-tsaritsa Eudoxia was dragged from her monastery and publicly tried for alleged adultery, while all who had in any way befriended Alexius were impaled, broken on the wheel and otherwise lingeringly done to death. All this was done to terrorize the reactionaries and isolate the tsarevich. In April 1718 fresh confessions were extorted from Alexius, now utterly broken and half idiotic with fright. Yet even now there were no actual facts to go upon. Alexius' ``evil designs'' were still in foro conscientiae, and had not been, perhaps never would be, translated into practice. The worst that could be brought against him was that he had wished his father's death. In the eyes of Peter, his son was now a self-convicted and most dangerous traitor, whose life was forfeit. But there was no getting over the fact that his father had sworn ``before the Almighty and His judgment seat'' to pardon him and let him live in peace if he returned to Russia. From Peter's point of view the question was, did the enormity of the tsarevich's crime absolve the tsar from the oath which he had taken to spare the life of this prodigal son? This question was solemnly submitted to a grand council of prelates, senators, ministers and other dignitaries on the 13th of June 1718. The clergy left the matter to the tsar's own decision. The temporal dignitaries declared the evidence to be insufficient and suggested that Alexius should be examined by torture. Accordingly, on the 19th of June, the weak and ailing tsarevich received twenty-five strokes with the knout (as then administered nobody ever survived thirty), and on the 24th fifteen more. It was hardly possible that he could survive such treatment; the natural inference is that he was not intended to survive it. Anyway, he expired two days later in the guardhouse of the citadel of St Petersburg, two days after the senate had condemned him to death for imagining rebellion against his father, and for hoping for the co-operation of the common people and the armed intervention of his brother-in-law, the emperor. This shameful sentence was the outcome of mingled terror and obsequiousness. Abominable, unnatural as Peter's conduct to his unhappy and innocent son undoubtedly was, there is no reason to suppose that he ever regretted it. He argued that a single worthless life stood in the way of the regeneration of Russia, and he therefore deliberately removed it.

See Robert Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs (London, 1905). (R. N. B.)

ALFANI, DOMENICO, italian painter, was born at Perugia towards the close of the 15th century. He was a contemporary of Raphael, with whom he studied in the school of Perugino. The two artists lived on terms of intimate friendship, and the influence of the more distinguished of the two is so clearly traceable in the works of the other, that these have frequently been attributed to Raphael. Towards the close of his life Alfani gradually changed his style and approximated to that of the later Florentine school. The date of his death, according to some, was 1540, while others say he was alive in 1553. Pictures by Alfani may be seen in collections at Florence and in several churches in Perugia.

ALFELD, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hanover, 10 m. W. of Hildesheim, on the river Leine and the Hanover-Cassel main line of railway. Pop. (1900) 4900. It has a handsome church with twin spires, and training colleges for schoolmasters and theological candidates. Its industries are flourishing, and embrace paper-making, agricultural machine- works, iron-founding and flax-spinning.

ALFIERI, VITTORIO, COUNT (1749-1803), Italian dramatist, was born on the 17th of January 1749 at Asti in Piedmont. He lost his father in early infancy; but he continued to reside with his mother, who married a second time, till his tenth year, when he was placed at the academy of Turin. After he had passed a twelvemonth at the academy, he went on a short visit to a relation who dwelt at Coni; and during his stay there he made his first poetical attempt in a sonnet chiefly borrowed from lines in Ariosto and Metastasio, the only poets he had at that time read. When thirteen years of age he was induced to begin the study of civil and canonical law; but the attempt only served to disgust him with every species of application and to increase his relish for the perusal of French romances. By the death of his uncle, who had hitherto taken some charge of his education and conduct, he was left, at the age of fourteen, to enjoy without control his vast paternal inheritance, augmented by the recent accession of his uncle's fortune. He now began to attend the riding-school, where he acquired that rage for horses and equestrian exercise which continued to be one of his strongest passions till the close of his existence.

After some time spent in alternate fits of extravagant dissipation and ill-directed study, he was seized with a desire of travelling; and having obtained permission from the king, he departed in 1766, under the care of an English preceptor. Restless and unquiet, he posted with the utmost rapidity through the towns of Italy; and his improvement was such as was to be expected from his mode of travelling and his previous habits. Hoping to find in foreign countries some relief from the tedium and ennui with which he was oppressed, and being anxious to become acquainted with the French theatre, he proceeded to Paris. But he appears to have been completely dissatisfied with everything he witnessed in France and contracted a dislike to its people, which his intercourse in future years rather contributed to augment than diminish. In Holland he became deeply enamoured of a married lady, who returned his attachment, but who was soon obliged to accompany her husband to Switzerland. Alfieri, whose feelings were of the most impetuous description, was in despair at this separation, and returned to his own country in the utmost anguish and despondency of mind. While under this depression of spirits he was induced to seek alleviation from works of literature; and the perusal of Plutarch's Lives, which he read with profound emotion, inspired him with an enthusiastic passion for freedom and independence. Under the influence of this rage for liberty he recommenced his travels; and his only gratification, in the absence of freedom among the continental states, appears to have been derived from contemplating the wild and sterile regions of the north of Sweden, where gloomy forests, lakes and precipices conspired to excite those sublime and melancholy ideas which were congenial to his disposition. Everywhere his soul felt as if confined by the bonds of society; he panted for something more free in government, more elevated in sentiment, more devoted in love and more perfect in friendship. In search of this ideal world he posted through various countries more with the rapidity of a courier than of one who travels for amusement or instruction. During a journey to London he engaged in an intrigue with a married lady of high rank; and having been detected, the publicity of a rencounter with the injured husband, and of a divorce which followed, rendered it expedient and desirable for him to quit England. He then visited Spain and Portugal, where he became acquainted with the Abbe Caluso, who remained through life the most attached and estimable friend he ever possessed. In 1772 Alfieri returned to Turin. This time he became enamoured of the Marchesa Turinetti di Prie, whom he loved with his usual ardour, and who seems to have been as undeserving of a sincere attachment as those he had hitherto adored. In the course of a long attendance on his mistress, during a malady with which she was afflicted, he one day wrote a dialogue or scene of a drama, which he left at her house. On a difference taking place between them the piece was returned to him, and being retouched and extended to five acts, it was performed at Turin in 1775, under the title of Cleopatra.

From this moment Alfieri was seized with an insatiable thirst for theatrical fame, and the remainder of his life was devoted to its attainment. His first two tragedies, Filippo and Polinice were originally written in French prose; and when he came to versify them in Italian, he found that, from his Lombard origin and long intercourse with foreigners, he expressed himself with feebleness and inaccuracy. Accordingly, with the view of improving his Italian style, he went to Tuscany and, during an alternate residence at Florence and Siena, he completed his Filippo and Polinice, and conceived the plan of various other dramas. While thus employed he became acquainted with the countess of Albany, who then resided with her husband at Florence. For her he formed an attachment which, if less violent than his former loves, appears to have been more permanent. With this motive to remain at Florence, he could not endure the chains by which his vast possessions bound him to Piedmont. He therefore resigned his whole property to his sister, the countess Cumiana, reserving an annuity which scarcely amounted to a half of his original revenues. At this period the countess of Albany, urged by the ill-treatment she received from her husband, sought refuge in Rome, where she at length received permission from the pope to live apart from her tormentor. Alfieri followed the countess to that capital, where he completed fourteen tragedies, four of which were now for the first time printed at Sienna.

At length, however, it was thought proper that, by leaving Rome, he should remove the aspersions which had been thrown on the object of his affections. During the year 1783 he therefore travelled through different states of Italy, and published six additional tragedies. The interests of his love and literary glory had not diminished his rage for horses, which seems to have been at least the third passion of his soul. He came to England solely for the purpose of purchasing a number of these animals, which he carried with him to Italy. On his return he learned that the countess of Albany had gone to Colmar in Alsace, where he joined her, and resided with her under the same roof during the rest of his life. They chiefly passed their time between Alsace and Paris, but at length took up their abode entirely in that metropolis. While here, Alfieri made arrangements with Didot for an edition of his tragedies, but was soon after forced to quit Paris by the storms of the Revolution. He recrossed the Alps with the countess, and finally settled at Florence. The last ten years of his life, which he spent in that city, seem to have been the happiest of his existence. During that long period his tranquillity was only interrupted by the entrance of the Revolutionary armies into Florence in 1799. Though an enemy of kings, the aristocratic feeling of Alfieri rendered him also a decided foe to the principles and leaders of the French Revolution; and he rejected with the utmost contempt those advances which were made with a view to bring him over to their cause. The concluding years of his life were laudably employed in the study of the Greek literature and in perfecting a series of comedies. His assiduous labour on this subject, which he pursued with his characteristic impetuosity, exhausted his strength, and brought on a malady for which he would not adopt the prescriptions of his physicians, but obstinately persisted in employing remedies of his own. His disorder rapidly increased, and he died on the 8th of October 1803.

The character of Alfieri may be best appreciated from the portrait which he has drawn of himself in his own Memoirs of his Life. He was evidently of an irritable, impetuous and almost ungovernable temper. Pride, which seems to have been a ruling sentiment, may account for many apparent inconsistencies of his character. But his less amiable qualities were greatly softened by the cultivation of literature. His application to study gradually tranquillized his temper and softened his manners, leaving him at the same time in perfect possession of those good qualities which he had inherited from nature--a warm and disinterested attachment to his family and friends, united to a generosity, vigour and elevation of character, which rendered him not unworthy to embody in his dramas the actions and sentiments of Grecian heroes.

It is to his dramas that Alfieri is chiefly indebted for the high reputation he has attained. Before his time the Italian language, so harmonious in the Sonnets of Petrarch and so energetic in the Commedia of Dante, had been invariably languid and prosaic in dramatic dialogue. The pedantic and inanimate tragedies of the 16th century were followed, during the iron age of Italian literature, by dramas of which extravagance in the sentiments and improbability in the action were the chief characteristics. The prodigious success of the Merope of Maffei, which appeared in the commencement of the 18th century, may be attributed more to a comparison with such productions than to intrinsic merit. In this degradation of tragic taste the appearance of the tragedies of Alfieri was perhaps the most important literary event that had occurred in Italy during the 18th century. On these tragedies it is difficult to pronounce a judgment, as the taste and system of the author underwent considerable change and modification during the intervals which elapsed between the three periods of their publication. An excessive harshness of style, an asperity of sentiment and total want of Poetical ornament are the characteristics of his first four tragedies, Filippo, Polinice, Antigone and Virginia. These faults were in some measure corrected in the six tragedies which he gave to the world some years after, and in those which he published along with Saul, the drama which enjoyed the greatest success of all his productions--a popularity which may be partly attributed to the severe and unadorned manner of Alfieri being well adapted to the patriarchal simplicity of the age in which the scene of the tragedy is placed. But though there be a considerable difference in his dramas, there are certain observations applicable to them all. None of the plots are of his own invention. They are founded either on mythological fable or history; most of them had been previously treated by the Greek dramatists or by Seneca. Rosmunda, the only one which could be supposed of his own contrivance, and which is certainly the least happy effusion of his genius, is partly founded on the eighteenth novel of the third part of Bandello and partly on Prevost's Memoires d'un homme de qualite. But whatever subject he chooses, his dramas are always formed on the Grecian model and breathe a freedom and independence worthy of an Athenian poet. Indeed, his Agide and Bruto may rather be considered oratorical declamations and dialogues on liberty than tragedies. The unities of time and place are not so scrupulously observed in his as in the ancient dramas; but he has rigidly adhered to a unity of action and interest. He occupies his scene with one great action and one ruling passion, and removes from it every accessory event or feeling. In this excessive zeal for the observance of unity he seems to have forgotten that its charm consists in producing a common relation between multiplied feelings, and not in the bare exhibition of one, divested of those various accompaniments which give harmony to the whole. Consistently with that austere and simple manner which he considered the chief excellence of dramatic composition, he excluded from his scene all coups de theatre, all philosophical reflexions, and that highly ornamented Versification which had been so assiduously cultivated by his predecessors. In his anxiety, however, to avoid all superfluous ornament, he has stripped his dramas of the embellishments of imagination; and for the harmony and flow of poetical language he has substituted, even in his best performances, a style which, though correct and pure, is generally harsh, elaborate and abrupt; often strained into unnatural energy or condensed into factitious conciseness. The chief excellence of Alfieri consists in powerful delineation of dramatic character. In his Filippo he has represented, almost with the masterly touches of Tacitus, the sombre character, the dark mysterious counsels, the suspensa semper et obscura verba, of the modern Tiberius. In Polinice, the characters of the rival brothers are beautifully contrasted; in Maria Stuarda, that unfortunate queen is represented unsuspicious, impatient of contradiction and violent in her attachments. In Mirra, the character of Ciniro is perfect as a father and king, and Cecri is a model of a wife and mother. In the representation of that species of mental alienation where the judgment has perished but traces of character still remain, he is peculiarly happy. The insanity of Saul is skilfully managed; and the horrid joy of Orestes in killing Aegisthus rises finely and naturally to madness in finding that, at the same time, he had inadvertently slain his mother.

Whatever may be the merits or defects of Alfieri, he may be considered as the founder of a new school in the Italian drama. His country hailed him as her sole tragic poet; and his successors in the same path of literature have regarded his bold, austere and rapid manner as the genuine model of tragic composition.

Besides his tragedies, Alfieri published during his life many sonnets, five odes on American independence and the poem of Etruria, founded on the assassination of Alexander I., duke of Florence. Of his prose works the most distinguished for animation and eloquence is the Panegyric on Trajan, composed in a transport of indignation at the supposed feebleness of Pliny's eulogium. The two books entitled La Tirannide and the Essays on Literature and Government are remarkable for elegance and vigour of style, but are too evidently imitations of the manner of Machiavel. His Antigallican, which was written at the same time with his Defence of Louis XVI., comprehends an historical and satirical view of the French Revolution. The posthumous works of Alfieri consist of satires, six political comedies and the Memoirs of his Life--a work which will always be read with interest, in spite of the cold and languid gravity with which he delineates the most interesting adventures and the strongest passions of his agitated life.

See Mem. di Vit. Alfieri; Sismondi, De la lit. du midi de l'Europe; Walker's Memoir on Italian Tragedy; Giorn. de Pisa, tom. lviii.; Life of Alfieri, by Centofanti (Florence, 1842); Vita, Giornuli, Lettere di Alfieri, by Teza (Florence, 1861); Vittorio Alfieri, by Antonini and Cognetti (Turin, 1898).

ALFORD, HENRY (1810-1871), English divine and scholar, was born in London on the 7th of October 1810. He came of a Somersetshire family, which had given five consecutive generations of clergymen to the Anglican church. Alford's early years were passed with his widowed father, who was curate of Steeple Ashton in Wiltshire. He was an extremely precocious lad, and before he was ten had written several Latin odes, a history of the Jews and a series of homiletic outlines. After a peripatetic school course he went up to Cambridge in 1827 as a scholar of Trinity. In 1832 he was 34th wrangler and 8th classic, and in 1834 was made fellow of Trinity. He had already taken orders, and in 1835 began his eighteen years' tenure of the vicarage of Wymeswold in Leicestershire, from which seclusion the twice-repeated offer of a colonial bishopric failed to draw him. He was Hulsean lecturer at Cambridge in 1841-1842, and steadily built up a reputation as scholar and preacher, which would have been enhanced but for his discursive ramblings in the fields of minor poetry and magazine editing. In September 1853 Alford removed to Quebec Chapel, London, where he had a large and cultured congregation. In March 1857 Viscount Palmerston advanced him to the deanery of Canterbury, where, till his death on the 12th of January 1871, he lived the same strenuous and diversified life that had always characterized him. The inscription on his tomb, chosen by himself, is ``Diversorium Viatoris Hierosolymam Proficiscentis.''

Alford was a not inconsiderable artist, as his picture-book, The Riviera (1870), shows, and he had abundant musical and mechanical talent. Besides editing the works of John Donne, he published several volumes of his own verse, The School of the Heart (1835), The Abbot of Muchelnaye (1841), and a number of hymns, the best-known of which are ``Forward! be our watch-word,'' ``Come, ye thankful people, come,'' and ``Ten thousand times ten thousand.'' He translated the Odyssey, wrote a well-known manual of idiom, A Plea for the Queen's English (1863), and was the first editor of the Contemporary Review (1866--1870). His chief fame, however, rests upon his monumental edition of the New Testament in Greek (4 vols.), which occupied him from 1841 to 1861. In this work he first brought before English students a careful collation of the readings of the chief MSS. and the researches of the ripest continental scholarship of his day. Philological rather than theological in character, it marked an epochal change from the old homiletic commentary, and though more recent research, patristic and papyral, has largely changed the method of New Testament exegesis, Alford's work is still a quarry where the student can dig with a good deal of profit.

His Life, written by his widow, appeared in 1873 (Rivington). (A. J. G.)

ALFRED, or AELFRED, known as THE GREAT (848-? 900), king of England, was born in 848 at Wantage, and was the fourth son of King AEthelwulf and his first wife (Osburh). He seems to have been a child of singular attractiveness and promise, and stories of his boyhood were remembered. At the age of five (853) he was sent to Rome, where he was confirmed by Leo IV., who is also stated to have ``hallowed him as king.'' Later writers interpreted this as an anticipatory crowning in preparation for his ultimate succession to the throne of Wessex. That, however, could not have been foreseen in 853, as Alfred had three elder brothers living. It is probably to be understood either of investiture with the consular insignia, or possibly with some titular royalty such as that of the under-kingdom of Kent. In 855 Alfred again went to Rome with his father AEthelwulf, returning towards the end of 856. About two years later his father died. During the short reigns of his two eldest brothers, AEthelbald and AEthelberht, nothing is heard of Alfred. But with the accession of the third brother AEthelred (866) the public life of Alfred begins, and he enters on his great work of delivering England from the Danes. It is in this reign that Asser applies to Alfred the unique title of secundarius, which seems to indicate a position analogous to that of the Celtic tanist, a recognized successor, closely associated with the reigning prince. It is probable that this arrangement was definitely sanctioned by the witenagemot, to guard against the danger of a disputed succession should AEthelred fall in battle. In 868 Alfred married Ealhswith, daughter of AEthelred Mucill, who is called ealdorman of the Gaini, an unidentified district. The same year the two brothers made an unsuccessful attempt to relieve Mercia from the pressure of the Danes. For nearly two years Wessex had a respite. But at the end of 870 the storm burst; and the year which followed has been rightly called ``Alfred's year of battles.'' Nine general engagements were fought with varying fortunes, though the place and date of two of them have not been recorded. A successful skirmish at Englefield, Berks (December 31, 870), was followed by a severe defeat at Reading (January 4, 871), and this, four days later, by the brilliant victory of Ashdown, near Compton Beauchamp in Shrivenham Hundred. On the 22nd of January the English were again defeated at Basing, and on the 22nd of March at Marton, Wilts, the two unidentified battles having perhaps occurred in the interval. In April AEthelred died, and Alfred succeeded to the whole burden of the contest. While he was busied with his brother's exequies, the Danes defeated the English in his absence at an unnamed spot, and once more in his presence at Wilton in May. After this peace was made, and for the next five years the Danes were occupied in other parts of England, Alfred merely keeping a force of observation on the frontier. But in 876 part of the Danes managed to slip past him and occupied Wareham; whence, early in 877, under cover of treacherous negotiations, they made a dash westwards and seized Exeter. Here Alfred blockaded them, and a relieving fleet having been scattered by a storm, the Danes had to submit and withdrew to Mercia. But in January 878 they made a sudden swoop on Chippenham, a royal vill in which Alfred had been keeping his Christmas, ``and most of the people they reduced, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made his way . . . by wood and swamp, and after Easter he . . . made a fort at Athelney, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe'' (Chron..) The idea that Alfred, during his retreat at Athelney, was a helpless fugitive rests upon the foolish legend of the cakes. In reality he was organizing victory. By the middle of May his preparations were complete and he moved out of Athelney, being joined on the way by the levies of Somerset, Wilts and Hants. The Danes on their side moved out of Chippenham, and the two armies met at Edington in Wiltshire. The result was a decisive victory for Alfred. The Danes submitted. Guthrum, the Danish king, and twenty-nine of his chief men accepted baptism. By the next year (879) not only Wessex, but Mercia, west of Watling Street, was cleared of the invader. This is the arrangement known as the peace of Wedmore (878), though no document embodying its provisions is in existence. And though for the present the north-eastern half of England, including London, remained in the hands of the Danes, in reality the tide had turned, and western Europe was saved from the danger of becoming a heathen Scandinavian power. For the next few years there was peace, the Danes being kept busy on the continent. A landing in Kent in 884 or 885,1 though successfully repelled, encouraged the East Anglian Danes to revolt. The measures taken by Alfred to repress this revolt culminated in the capture of London in 885 or 886, and the treaty known as Alfred and Guthrum's peace, whereby the boundaries of the treaty of Wedmore (with which this is often confused) were materially modified in Alfred's favour. Once more for a time there was a lull; but in the autumn of 892 (893) the final storm burst. The Danes, finding their position on the continent becoming more and more precarious, crossed to England in two divisions, amounting in the aggregate to 330 sail, and entrenched themselves, the larger body at Appledore and the lesser under Haesten at Milton in Kent. The fact that the new invaders brought their wives and children with them shows that this was no mere raid, but a deliberate attempt, in concert with the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes, to conquer England. Alfred, 893 (894), took up a position whence he could observe both forces. While he was negotiating with Haesten the Danes at Appledore broke out and struck north-westwards, but were overtaken by Alfred's eldest son, Edward, and defeated in a general engagement at Farnham, and driven to take refuge in Thorney Island in the Hertfordshire Colne, where they were blockaded and ultimately compelled to submit. They then fell back on Essex, and after suffering another defeat at Benfleet coalesced with Haesten's force at Shoebury. Alfred had been on his way to relieve his son at Thorney when he heard that the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes were besieging Exeter and an unnamed fort on the coast of North Devon. Alfred at once hurried westwards and raised the siege of Exeter; the fate of the other place is not recorded. Meanwhile the force under Haesten set out to march up the Thames valley, possibly with the idea of assisting their friends in the west. But they were met by a large force under the three great ealdormen of Mercia, Wilts and Somerset, and forced to head off to the north-west, being finally overtaken and blockaded at Buttington, which some identify with Buttington Tump at the mouth of the Wye, others with Buttington near Welshpool. An attempt to break through the English lines was defeated with loss; those who escaped retreated to Shoebury. Then after collecting reinforcements they made a sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined Roman walls of Chester. The English did not attempt a winter blockade, but contented themselves with destroying all the supplies in the neighbourhood. And early in 894 (895) want of food obliged the Danes to retire once more to Essex. At the end of this year and early in 895 (896) the Danes drew their ships up the Thames and Lea and fortified themselves twenty miles above London. A direct attack on the Danish lines failed, but later in the year Alfred saw a means of obstructing the river so as to prevent the egress of the Danish ships. The Danes realized that they were out-manoeuvred. They struck off north-westwards and wintered at Bridgenorth. The next year, 896 (897), they abandoned the struggle. Some retired to Northumbria, some to East Anglia; those who had no connexions in England withdrew to the continent. The long campaign was over. The result testifies to the confidence inspired by Alfred's character and generalship, and to the efficacy of the military reforms initiated by him. These were (1) the division of the fyrd or national militia into two parts, relieving each other at fixed intervals, so as to ensure continuity in military operations; (2) the establishment of fortified posts (burgs) and garrisons at certain points; (3) the enforcement of the obligations of thanehood on all owners of five hides of land, thus giving the king a nucleus of highly equipped troops. After the final dispersal of the Danish invaders Alfred turned his attention to the increase of the navy, and ships were built according to the king's own designs, partly to repress the ravages of the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes on the coasts of Wessex, partly to prevent the landing of fresh hordes. This is not, as often asserted, the beginning of the English navy. There had been earlier naval operations under Alfred. One naval engagement was certainly fought under AEthelwulf (851), and earlier ones, possibly in 833 and 840. Nor were the new ships a great success, as we hear of them grounding in action and foundering in a storm. Much, too, was needed in the way of civil re-organization, especially in the districts ravaged by the Danes. In the parts of Mercia acquired by Alfred, the shire system seems now to have been introduced for the first time. This is the one grain of truth in the legend that Alfred was the inventor of shires, hundreds and tithings. The finances also would need careful attention; but the subject is obscure, and we cannot accept Asser's description of Alfred's appropriation of his revenue as more than an ideal sketch. Alfred's care for the administration of justice is testified both by history and legend; and the title ``protector of the poor'' was his by unquestioned right. Of the action of the witenagemot we do not hear very much under Alfred. That he was anxious to respect its rights is conclusively proved, but both the circumstances of the time and the character of the king would tend to throw more power into his hands. The legislation of Alfred probably belongs to the later part of the reign, after the pressure of the Danes had relaxed. The details of it cannot be discussed here. Asser speaks grandiosely of Alfred's relations with foreign powers, but little definite information is available. He certainly corresponded with Elias III., the patriarch of Jerusalem, and probably sent a mission to India. Embassies to Rome conveying the English alms to the pope were fairly frequent; while Alfred's interest in foreign countries is shown by the insertions which he made in his translation of Orosius. His relations to the Celtic princes in the southern half of the island are clearer. Comparatively early in his reign the South Welsh princes, owing to the pressure on them of North Wales and Mercia, commended themselves to Alfred. Later in the reign the North Welsh followed their example, and the latter co-operated with the English in the campaign of 893 (894). The Celtic principality in Cornwall, which seems to have survived at least till 926, must long have been practically dependent on Wessex. That Alfred sent alms to Irish as well as to continental monasteries may be accepted on Asser's authority; the visit of the three pilgrim ``Scots'' (i.e. Irish) to Alfred in 891 is undoubtedly authentic; the story that he himself in his childhood was sent to Ireland to be healed by St Modwenna, though mythical, may point to Alfred's interest in that island. The history of the church under Alfred is most obscure. The Danish inroads had told heavily upon it; the monasteries had been special points of attack, and though Alfred founded two or three monasteries and imported foreign monks, there was no general revival of monasticism under him. To the ruin of learning and education wrought by the Danes, and the practical extinction of the knowledge of Latin even among the clergy, the preface to Alfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care bears eloquent testimony. It was to remedy these evils that he established a court school, after the example of Charles the Great; for this he imported scholars like Grimbald and John the Saxon from the continent and Asser from South Wales; for this, above all, he put himself to school, and made the series of translations for the instruction of his clergy and people, most of which still survive. These belong unquestionably to the later part of his reign, not improbably to the last four years of it, during which the chronicles are almost silent. Apart from the lost Handboc or Encheiridion, which seems to have been merely a commonplace-book kept by the king, the earliest work to be translated was the Dialogues of Gregory, a book enormously popular in the middle ages. In this case the translation was made by Alfred's great friend Werferth, bishop of Worcester, the king merely furnishing a preface. The next work to be undertaken was Gregory's Pastoral Care, especially for the benefit of the clergy. In this Alfred keeps very close to his original; but the introduction which he prefixed to it is one of the most interesting documents of the reign, or indeed of English history. The next two works taken in hand were historical, the Universal History of Orosius and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The priority should probably be assigned to the Orosius, but the point has been much debated. In the Orosius, by omissions and additions, Alfred so remodels his original as to produce an almost new work; in the Bede the author's text is closely adhered to, no additions being made, though most of the documents and some other less interesting matters are omitted. Of late years doubts have been raised as to Alfred's authorship of the Bede translation. But the sceptics cannot be regarded as having proved their point. We come now to what is in many ways the most interesting of Alfred's works, his translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, the most popular philosophical manual of the middle ages. Here again Alfred deals very freely with his original and though the late Dr G. Schepss showed that many of the additions to the text are to be traced not to Alfred himself, but to the glosses and commentaries which he used, still there is much in the work which is solely Alfred's and highly characteristic of his genius. It is in the Boethius that the oft-quoted sentence occurs: ``My will was to live worthily as long as I lived, and after my life to leave to them that should come after, my memory in good works.'' The book has come down to us in two MSS. only. In one of these the poems with which the original is interspersed are rendered into prose, in the other into alliterating verse. The authorship of the latter has been much disputed; but probably they also are by Alfred. Of the authenticity of the work as a whole there has never been any doubt. The last of Alfred's works is one to which he gave the title Blostman, i. e. ``Blooms'' or Anthology. The first half is based mainly on the Soliloquies of St Augustine, the remainder is drawn from various sources, and contains much that is Alfred's own and highly characteristic of him. The last words of it may be quoted; they form a fitting epitaph for the noblest of English kings. ``Therefore he seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear.'' Besides these works of Alfred's, the Saxon Chronicle almost certainly, and a Saxon Martyrology, of which fragments only exist, probably owe their inspiration to him. A prose version of the first fifty Psalms has been attributed to him; and the attribution, though not proved, is perfectly possible. How Alfred passed to ``the life where all things are made clear'' we do not know. The very year is uncertain. The arguments on the whole are in favour of 900. The day was the 26th of October. Alike for what he did and for what he was, there is none to equal Alfred in the whole line of English sovereigns; and no monarch in history ever deserved more truly the epithet of Great.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The chief original authorities for the reign of Alfred are the so-called Life by Asser (best edition by W. H. Stevenson, Clarendon Press, 1904); and the Saxon Chronicles (text and notes by Earle and Plummer, 2 vols., Clar. Press, 1892-1899; parallel texts and translation, Thorpe, 2 vols., 1861, Rolls Series; translation alone, Joseph Stevenson in Church Historians of England, vol. ii., 1853). The above sketch is based mainly on C. Plummer's Life and Times of Alfred the Great (Clar. Press, 1902). Of earlier biographies that by Pauli is still of great value: Konig AElfred (Berlin, 1851); Eng. trans. by Thorpe (Bohn, 1853). Of recent works mention may be made of Alfred the Great, Chapters on his Life and Times, by various authors, edited by Alfred Bowker (1899); Earle, The Alfred Jewel (Clar. Press, 1901).

For the bioliography of Alfred's works in general see Wulker, Grundriss zur Gesch. der angelsachsischen Litteratur, pp. 386-451 (Leipzig, 1885). Only the more recent and accessible editions are mentioned here. Laws: The Legal Code ofAElfred the Great (M. H. Turk, Halle, 1893). (For the Anglo-Saxon laws as a whole see Liebermann, Gesetze der Angelsachsen, Halle, 1898-1903. Earlier editions, Schmid, 1858; Thorpe, 1840.) Gregory's Dialogues: Hans Hecht, in Grein's Bibliothek der angels. Prosa (1900). Gregory's Pastoral Care: H. Sweet, for Early Eng. Text Society (1871--1872). (Dissertations by Wack and DeWitz, 1889.) Orosius: Thorpe (in his translation of Pauli, U. S. 1853); Bosworth (1859); Sweet, E.E.T.S. (1883). (Dissertation Schelling, Konig AElfred's . . . Orosius, Halle, 1886.) Bede: T. Miller, for E.E.T.S. (1890); Prof. Schipper, in Grein's Bibliothek (U.S. 1899). Boethius: W. J. Sedgfield (Clar. Press, 1899); translation by the same (1900). (Dissertation: G. Schepss, Archiv fur's Studium der neueren Sprachen, xciv. 14-160.) Blostman: First printed by Cockayne in the Shrine (1868-1869); reprinted, Englische Studien, xviii.; new edition by Hararove, Yale Studies in English, xiii. (1902); translation by the same, ib. xxii. (1904). (Dissertation: F. G. Hubbard, Modern Language Notes, ix. 522 ff.) Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: see above. Mortyrology: Cockayne, in the Shrine, v.s. Psalter: Thorpe (Clar. Press, 1855). (Dissertations: for Alfred's authorship, Wichmann, Anglia, xi. 19 ff.; against, J. D. Bruce, The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Book of Psalms, Baltimore, 1894.) (C. PL.)

1 Where alternative dates are given the later date is that of the Saxon Chronicle. But the evidence of the Continental Chronicles makes it probable that the Saxon Chronicle is a year in advance of the true chronology in this part.

ALFRED ERNEST ALBERT, duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and duke of Edinburgh (1844-1900), second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria, was born at Windsor Castle on the 6th of August 1844. In 1856 it was decided that the prince, in accordance with his own wishes, should enter the navy, and a separate establishment was accordingly assigned to him, with Lieutenant Sowell, R. E., as governor. He passed a most creditable examination for midshipman in August 1858, and being appointed to the ``Euryalus,'' at once began to work hard at the practical part of his profession. In July 1860, while on this ship, he paid an official visit to the Cape, and made a very favourable impression both on the colonials and on the native chiefs. On the abdication of Otto, king of Greece, in 1862, Prince Alfred was chosen by the whole people to succeed him, but political conventions of long standing rendered it impossible for the British government to accede to their wishes. The prince therefore remained in the navy, and was promoted lieutenant on the 24th of February 1863 and captain on the 23rd of February 1866, being then appointed to the command of the ``Galatea.'' On attaining his majority in 1865 the prince was created duke of Edinburgh and earl of Ulster, with an annuity of L. 15,000 granted by parliament. While still in command of the ``Galatea'' the duke started from Plymouth on the 24th of January 1867 for his voyage round the world. On the 11th of June 1867 he left Gibraltar and reached the Cape on the 24th of July, and landed at Glenelg, South Australia, on the 31st of October. Being the first English prince to visit Australia, the duke was received with the greatest enthusiasm. During his stay of nearly five months he visited Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Tasmania; and it was on his second visit to Sydney that, while attending a public picnic at Clonfert in aid of the Sailors' Home, an Irishman named O'Farrell shot him in the back with a revolver. The wound was fortunately not dangerous, and within a month the duke was able to resume command of his ship and return home. He reached Spithead on the 26th of June 1868, after an absence of seventeen months. The duke's next voyage was to India, where he arrived in December 1869. Both there and at Hong Kong, which he visited on the way, he was the first British prince to set foot in the country. The native rulers of India vied with one another in the magnificence of their entertainments during the duke's stay of three months. On the 23rd of January 1874 the marriage of the duke to the grand-duchess Marie Alexandrovna, only daughter of Alexander II., emperor of Russia, was celebrated at St Petersburg, and the bride and bridegroom made their public entry into London on the 12th of March. The duke still devoted himself to his profession, showing complete mastery of his duties and unusual skill in naval tactics. He was promoted rear-admiral on the 30th of December 1878; vice-admiral, 10th of November 1882; admiral, 18th of October 1887; and received his baton as admiral of the Fleet, 3rd of June 1893. He commanded the Channel fleet, 1883-1884; the Mediterranean fleet, 1886-1889; and was commander-in-chief at Davenport, 1890- 1893. He always paid the greatest attention to his offiicial duties and was most efficient as an admiral.

On the death of his uncle, Ernest II., duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, on the 22nd of August 1893, the vacant duchy fell to the duke of Edinburgh, for the prince of Wales had renounced his right to the succession. At first regarded with some coldness as a ``foreigner,'' he gradually gained popularity, and by the time of his death, on the 30th of July 1900, he had completely won the good opinion of his subjects. The duke was exceedingly fond of music and an excellent violinist, and took a prominent part in establishing the Royal College of music. He was also a keen collector of glass and ceramic ware, and his collection, valued at half a million of marks, was presented by his widow to the ``Veste Coburg,'' near Coburg. When he became duke of Saxe-Coburg he surrendered his English allowance of L. 15,000 a year, but the L. 10,000 granted in addition by parliament on his marriage he retained in order to keep up Clarence House. The duke had one son, who died unmarried on the 6th of February 1899, and four daughters. The third daughter, Princess Alexandra Louisa Olga Victoria, married the hereditary prince Ernest of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, who became regent of the duchy of Coburg during the minority of the deceased duke's nephew, the young duke of Albany, to whom the succession fell. (G. F. B.)

ALFRED, a village in the township of Alfred, Allegany county, New York, U.S.A., about 75 m. S.W. of Buffalo. Pop. of the township, including the village (1900), 1615; (1910 U. S. census) 1590. Pop. of the village (1900) 756; (1910 U. S. census) 759. The township is served, at Alfred station, by the Erie railway. The village, which is connected by stage with the station, is situated at the junction of two valleys and commands delightful views of mountain scenery. On the west slope of pine Hill is Alfred University (co-educational), which embraces a College (non-sectarian), an academy (non-sectarian) and a theological seminary (Seventh-Day Baptist). Closely associated with it also, and under the management of the university trustees, is the New York State School of Clay-Working and Ceramics (1900), one of the most efficient schools of the kind in the country. In 1908 the legislature of New York appropriated $80,000 for the establishment of a state school of agriculture in connexion with the university. The institution had its beginning in 1836 in a private school. This developed into an academy, which in 1843 was incorporated as Alfred Academy and Teachers' Seminary; in 1857 the university was chartered under its present name. The principal industry of the village is the manufacture of roofing tiles. The township of Alfred lies within the territory purchased by Robert Morris in 1791. He sold it in the same year to a company resident in London, England. Their agent sold most of it to settlers and, it is said, named the township, when it was organized in 1806, in honour of Alfred the Great. The first settlement within its present limits was made in 1807. For several years most of the settlers were Seventh-Day Baptists, and in 1812 they organized a church here. The village of Alfred was chartered in 1887.

J. S. Minard, Allegany County and its People (Alfred, 1896).

ALFRETON, a market town in the mid-parliamentary division of Derbyshire, England, 14 m N. by E. of Derby, on the Midland railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 17,505. It lies at a considerable elevation above the valley of a small stream tributary to the Derwent. The church of St Martin is Early English and later. The neighbourhood abounds in ironworks, collieries, quarries and potteries, and is thickly populated. To the north-east of Alfreton are South Normanton (pop. 5170), Blackwell (4144) and Tibshelf (3432); to the north Shirland (3929), to the south Ironville and other busy industrial villages. The foundation of Alfreton is traditionally ascribed to King Alfred.

ALFUROS (ALFURES, HORAFORAS), a term of no ethnological value applied by the Malays to all the uncivilized non- Mahommedan peoples in the eastern portion of the Malay Archipelago. Its origin is uncertain, but its meaning is ``wild'' or ``uncivilized.'' The term is not restricted to the aborigines, but is far more frequently used to describe the tribes of Malayan blood.

ALGAE. The Latin word alga seems to have been the equivalent of the English word ``seaweed'' and probably stood for any or all of the species of plants which form the ``wrack'' of a seashore.

Classification.

When the word ``Algae'' came to be employed in botanical classification as the name of a class, an arbitrary limitation had to be set to its signification, and this was not always in keeping with its original meaning. The absence of differentiation into root, stem and leaf which prevails among seaweeds, seems, for example, to have led Linnaeus to employ the term in the Genera Plantarum for a sub-class of Cryptogamia, the members of which presented this character in a greater or less degree. Of the fifteen genera included by Linnaeus among algae, not more than six--viz. Chara, Fucus, Diva and Conferva, and in part Tremella and Byssus--would to-day, in any sense in which the term is employed, be regarded as algae. The excluded genera are distributed among the liverworts, lichens and fungi; but notwithstanding the great advance in knowledge since the time of Linnaeus, the difficulty of deciding what limits to assign to the group to be designated Algae still remains. It arises from the fact that algae, as generally understood, do not constitute a homogeneous group, suggesting a descent from a common stock. Among them there exist, as will be seen hereafter, many well-marked but isolated natural groups, and their inclusion in the larger group is generally felt to be a matter of convenience rather than the expression of a belief in their close inter-relationship. Efforts are therefore continually being made by successive writers to exclude certain outlying sub-groups, and to reserve the term Algae for a central group reconstituted on a more natural basis within narrower limits.

It is perhaps desirable, in an article like this, to treat of algae in the widest possible sense in which the term may be used, an indication being at the same time given of the narrower senses in which it has been proposed to employ it. Interpreted in this way, the place of algae in the vegetable kingdom may be shown by means of a

_ _ _ | Myxomycetes | | Thallophyta | Fungi | Cryptogamia | |_ Algae The Vegetable | | Bryophyta Kingdom | |_ Pteridophyta | _ | | Gymnosperms | Phanerogamia |_ Angiosperms |_

Algae in this wide sense may be briefly described as the aggregate of those simpler forms of plant life usually devoid, like the rest of the Thallophyta, of differentiation into root, stem and leaf; but, unlike other Thallophyta, possessed of a colouring matter; by means of which they are enabled, in the presence of sunlight, to make use of the carbonic acid gas of the atmosphere as a source of carbon. It is true that certain Bryophyta (Marchantiaceae, Anthoceroteae) possess a thalloid structure similar to that of Thallophyta, and are at the same time possessed of the colouring matter of the Green Algae. Their life-cycle, however, the structure of the reproductive organs and their whole organization proclaim them to be Bryophyta (q.v..) On the other hand, certain undoubted animals (Stentor, Hydra, Bonellia) are provided with a green colouring matter by means of which they make use of atmospheric carbonic acid. A more important consideration is the occasional absence of this colour in species, or groups of species, with, in other respects, algal affinities. Such aberrant forms are to be regarded in the same light as Cuscuta and Orobanchaceae, for example, among Phanerogams. As these non-green plants do not cease to be classed with other Phanerogams, so must the forms in question be retained among algae. In all cases the loss of the colouring matter is associated with an incapacity to take up carbon from so simple a compound as carbonic acid

It might be mentioned here that the whole group of the Fungi (q.v.),with its many thousands of species, is now generally regarded as having been derived from algae, and the system of classification of fungi devised by Brefeld is based upon this belief. The similarity of the morphological characters of one group of fungi to those of certain algae has earned for it the name Phycomycetes or alga-fungi.

Further discussion of the general characters of algae will be deferred in order to take a brief survey of the subdivisions of the group. For this purpose there will be adopted the classification of algae into four sub-groups, founded on the nature of the colouring matters present in the plant:-- I. CYANOPHYCEAE, or Blue-green Algae. II. CHLOROPHYCEAE, or Green Algae. III. PHAEOPHYCEAE, or Brown Algae. IV. RHODOPHYCEAE, or Red Algae. The merits and demerits of this system will appear during the description of the characters of the members of the several subdivisions.

I. CYANOPHYCEAE.--This group derives its name from the circumstance that the cells contain in addition to the green colouring matter, chlorophyll, a blue-green colouring matter to which the term phycocyanin has been applied.

Sub-divisions.

To the eye, however, members of this group present a greater variety of colour than those of any other--yellow, brown, olive, red, purple, violet and variations of all these being known. They undoubtedly represent the lowest grade of algal life, and their distribution rivals that of the Green Algae. They occur in the sea, in fresh water, on moist earth, on damp rocks and on the bark of trees. Certain species are regularly found in the intercellular spaces of higher plants; such are species of Nostoc in the thallus of Anthoceros, the leaves of Azolla and the roots of Cycads. Many of them enter into the structure of the lichen-thallus, as the so-called gonidia. It is remarkable that species belonging to the Oscillatoriaceae are known to flourish in hot springs, the temperature of which rises as high as 85 deg. C.

The thallus may be unicellular or multicellular. When unicellular, it may consist of isolated cells, but more commonly the cells are held together in a common jelly (Chroococcaceae) derived from the outer layers of the cell-wall. The multicellular species consist of filaments, branched or unbranched, which arise by the repeated divisions of the cells in parallel planes, no formation of mucilage occurring in the dividing walls. Such filaments may not give rise to mucilage on the lateral surface either, in which case they are said to be free; when mucilage does occur on the lateral wall, it appears as the sheath surrounding either the single filament, or a sheaf of filaments of common origin. The mucilage may also form an embedding substance similar to that of Chroococcaceae, in which the filaments lie parallel or radiate from a common centre (Rivulariaceae). The cells of the filament may be all alike, and growth may occur equally in all parts (Oscillatoriaceae); or certain cells (heterocysts) may become marked off by their larger size and the transparency of their contents; in which case growth may still be distributed equally throughout (Nostoc), or the filament may be attached where the heterocyst arises, and grow out at the opposite extremity into a fine hair (Rivulariaceae). An African form (Camptothrix), devoid of heterocysts and hair-like at both extremities, has recently been described. Branching has been described as ``false'' and ``true.'' The former arises when a filament in a sheath, either in consequence of growth in length beyond the capacity of the sheath to accommodate it,

FIG, 1.--Cyanophyceae, variously magnified.

A. Gloeocapsa sp.,colony in mucilage.

B. Phormidium sp., single filament with hormogonium.

C. Microcoleus sp., several filaments in common sheath.

D. Nostoc sp., young colony-filament with heterocysts.

E. Scytonema sp., false branching.

F. Rivularia sp.

G. Stigonema sp., with hormogonium and true branching.

H. Spirulina sp.

(From Engler and Prantl, Pflanzenfamilien, by permission of Wilhelm Engelmann.)

or because of the decay of a cell, becomes interrupted by breaking, and the free ends slip past one another. ``True'' branching arises only by the longitudinal division of a cell of a filament and the lateral outgrowth of one of the cells resulting from the division (Sirosiohonaceae).

The nature of the contents of the cells of Cyanophyceae has given rise to considerable controversy. The cells are for the most part exceedingly minute, and are not easy to free from their colouring matters, so that investigation has been attended with great difficulty. Occupying as these algae do perhaps the lowest grade of plant life, it is a matter of interest to ascertain whether a nucleus or chromatophore is differentiated in their cells, or whether the functions and properties of these bodies are diffused through the whole protoplast. It is certain that the centre of the cell, which is usually non-vacuolated, is occupied by protoplasm of different properties from the peripheral region; and A. Fischer has further established the fact that the peripheral mass, which is a hollow sphere in spherical cells, and either a hollow cylinder or barrel-shaped body in filamentous forms, must be regarded as the single chromatophore of the Cyanophyceous cell. But what precisely is the nature of the central mass is still uncertain. Some investigators, such as R. Hegler, F. G. Kohl and E. W. Olive, claim that this body is a true nucleus comparable with that of the higher plants. It is said to undergo division by a mitosis essentially of the same character, with the formation of a spindle and the differentiation of chromosomes. It is further stated by Olive that the chromosomes undergo longitudinal fission, and that for the same species the same number of chromosomes appear at each division. H. Wager speaks with greater reserve, acknowledging, however, the central body to be a nucleus of a rudimentary type, but devoid of nuclear membrane and nucleolus. He thinks it may possibly originate in the vacuolization of the central region, and the accumulation of chromatin granules therein. He finds no spindle fibres or true chromosomes, and considers the division direct, not indirect. With reference to the existence of a chromatophore, he with others finds the colouring matter localized in granules in the peripheral region, but does not consider these individually or in the aggregate as chromatophores. Among other contents of the cell, fatty substances and tannin are known. A curious adaptation seems to occur in certain floating forms, in the presence of a gas-vacuole, which may be made to vary its volume with varying pressure. There is evidence that the dividing wall of filamentous forms is deeply pitted, as is found to be the case in red algae. Reproduction is chiefly effected by the vegetative method. Asexual reproductive cells are not infrequent, but sexual reproduction even in its initial stages is unknown. Nor is motility by means of cilia known in the group. In the unicellular forms, cell-division involves multiplication of the plant. In all the multicellular plants of this group which have been adequately investigated, vegetative multiplication by means of what are known as hormogonia has been found to occur. These are short segments of filaments consisting of a few cells which disengage themselves from the ambient jelly, if it be present, in virtue of a peculiar creeping movement which they possess at this stage. After a time they come to rest and give rise to new colonies. True reproduction of the asexual kind occurs, however, in the formation of sporangia, particularly in the Chamaesiohonaceae. Here the contents of certain cells break up endogenously into a great number of spores, which are distributed as a fine dust. Resting spores are also known. In these cases, certain cells of a colony of unicellular plants or of the filaments of multicellular plants enlarge greatly and thicken their wall. When unfavourable external conditions supervene and the ordinary cells become atrophied, these cells persist and reproduce the plant with the return of more favourable conditions. The Oscillatoriaceae are capable of a peculiar oscillatory movement, which has earned for them their name, and which enables them to move through considerable distances. It is not clear how the movement is effected, though it has frequently been the subject of careful investigation.

With the Cyanophyceae must be included, as their nearest allies, the Bacteriaceae (see BACTERIOLOGY.) Notwithstanding the absence of chlorophyll, and the consequent parasitic or saprophytic habit, Bacteriaceae agree in so many morphological features with Cyanophyceae that the affinity can hardly be doubted.

A census of the Cyanophyceae with their two main groups is given below:--

1. Coccogoneae--2 families, 29 genera, 253 species. 2. Hormogoneae--6 families, 59 genera, 701 species. (Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien, 1900)

II. CHLOROPHYCEAE.--This group includes those algae in which the green colouring matter, chlorophyll, is not accompanied by a second colouring matter, as it is in other groups. It consists of three subdivisions--Conjugatae, Euchlorophyceae and Characeae. Of these the first and last are relatively small and sharply defined families, distinguished from the second family, which forms the bulk of the group, by characters so diverse that their inclusion with them in one larger group can only be justified on the ground of convenience. Chlorophyceae include both marine and freshwater plants.

Euchlorophyceae in their turn have been until recently regarded as made up of the three series of families--Protococcales, Confervales and Siphonales. As the result of recent investigations by two Swedish algologists, Bohlin and Luther, it has been proposed to make a re-classification of a far-reaching nature. Algae are withdrawn from each of the three series enumerated above and consolidated into an entirely new group. In these algae, the colouring matter is said to be yellowish-green, not strictly green, and contained in numerous small discoid chromatophores which are devoid of pyrenoids. The products of assimilation are stored up in the form of a fatty substance and not starch. A certain inequality in the character of the two cilia of the zoospores of some of the members of the group has earned for it the title Heterokontae, from the Greek kontos, a punting-pole. In consonance with this name, its authors propose to re-name the Conjugatae; Akontae and Oedogoniaceae with a chaplet of cilia become Stephanokontae, and the algae remaining over in the three series from which the Heterokontae and Stephanokontae are withdrawn become Isokontae. Conjugatae, Protococcales and Characeae are exclusively freshwater; Confervales and Siphonales are both freshwater and marine, but the latter group attains its greatest development in the sea. Some Chlorophyceae are terrestrial in habit, usually growing on a damp substratum, however. Trentepohlia grows on rocks and can survive considerable desiccation. Phycopeltis grows on the surface of leaves, Phyllobium and Phyllosiphon in their tissues. Gomontia is a shell-boring alga, FIG. 2.--Chlorophyceae, variously magnified.

A. Chlamydomonas sp., unicellular; chr., chromatophore; p., pyrenoid; n., nucleus; p.v., pulsating vacuoles; e.s., eyespot.

B1. Volvox sp., with a, antheridia, and o, oogonia.

B2. Volvox sp., surface view of a single cell showing connexions.

C. Pandorina sp., a 16-celled colony.

D. Hydrodictyon, a single mesh surrounded by 6 cells.

E. Microspora sp., showing H-pieces in the wall.

F. Entoderma sp., endophytic in Ectocarpus.

G. Coleochaete sp., growing as a plate.

H. Oedogonium sp., intercalated growth by insertion of new piece (a) leaving caps.

K. Struvea sp., showing branches forming a net-work.

L. Caulerpa sp., showing portion of axis with leaf-like and root- like appendages.

M1. Chara sp., axis with leaf-like appendages and a branch.

M2. Chara sp., apical region.

N. Botrydium, a simple siphonaceous alga with root-like attachment.

O. Acetabularia Mediterranea, mushroom-like calcareous siphonaceous alga.

(A, C, E, F, G, H, K, M1, M2, from from Engler and Prantl, Pflanzenfamilien, by permission of Wilhelm Engelmann; B1, N, from Vines, Student's Text Book of Botany, by permission of Swan Sonnenschein and Co.; B2, D, O from Oltmanns, Morphologie u. Biologie der Algen, by permission of Gustav Fischer.)

Dermatophyton grows on the carapace of the tortoise and Trichophilus in the hairs of the sloth. Certain Protococcales and Confervales exist as the gonidia of the lichenthallus.

The thallus is of more varied structure in this group than in any other. In the simplest case it may consist of a single cell, which may remain free during the whole of the greater part of its existence, or be loosely aggregated together within a common mucilage, or be held together by the adhesion of the cell-walls at the surface of contact. These aggregations or colonies, as they are termed, may assume the form of a plate, a ring, a solid sphere, a hollow sphere, a perforate sphere, a closed net, or a simple or branched filament. It is not easy in all cases to draw a distinction between a colony of planes and a multicellular individual. in a Volvox sphere, for example, there is a marked protoplasmic continuity between all the cells of the colony. The Ulvaceae, the thallus of which consists of laminae, one or more cells thick, or hollow tubes, probably represent a still more advanced stage in the passaae of a colony into a multicellelar plant. Here there is some amount of localization of growth and distinction of parts. It is only in such cases as Volvox and Ulvaceae that there is any pretension to the formation of a true parenchyma within the limits of the Chlorophyceae. In the whole series of the Confervales, the thallus consists of filaments branched or unbranched, attached at one extremity, and growing almost wholly at the free end. The branches end in fine hairs in Chaetophoraceae. In Coleochaetaceae the branches are often welded into a plate, simulating a parenchyma. In all Conjugatae and most Protococcales, and in the bulk of the Confervales, the thallus consists of a cell or cells, the Protoplast of which contains a single nucleus. In Hydrodictyaceae, Cladophoraceae, Sphaeropleaceae and Gomontiaceae this is no longer the case. Instead of a single relatively large nucleus, each cell is found to contain many small nuclei, and is spoken of as a coenocyte. This character becomes still more pronounced in the large group of the Siphonales. Valoniaceae and Dasycladaceae are partially septate, but elsewhere no cellulose partitions occur, and the thallus is more or less the continuous tube from which the group is named. Yet the siphonaceous algae may assume great variety of form and reach a high degree of differentiation. Protosiphon and Botrydium, on the one hand, are minute vesicles attached to muddy surfaces by rhizoids; Caulerpa, on the other, presents a remarkable instance of the way in which much the same external morphology as that of cormophytes has been reached by a totally different internal structure. Many Siphonales are encrusted with lime like Corallina among Red Algae. Penicillus is brush-like, Hallimeda and Cymopolia are jointed, Acetabularia has much the same external form as an expanded Coprinus, Neomeris simulates the fertile shoot of Equisetum with its densely packed whorled branches, and in Microdictyon, Anadyomene, Struvea and Boodlea the branches, spreading in one plane, become bound together in a more or less close network. Characeae are separated from other Chloroohlceae by a long interval, and present the highest degree of differentiation of parts known among Green Algae. Attached to the bottom of pools by means of rhizoids, the thallus of Characeae grows upwards by means of an apical cell, giving off whorled appendages at regular intervals. The appendages have a limited growth; but in connexion with each whorl there arise, singly or in pairs, branches which have the same unlimited growth as the main axis. There is thus a close approach to the external morphology of the higher plants. The streaming of the protoplasm, known elsewhere among Chlorophyceae, is a conspicuous feature of the cells of Characeae.

The Chlorophyceae excel all other groups of algae in the magnitude and variety of form of the chlorophyll-bodies. In Ulva and Mesocarpus the chromatophore is a single plate, which in the latter genus places its edge towards the incident light; in Spirogyra they are spiral bands embedded in the primordial utricle; in Zygnema they are a pair of stellate masses, the rays of which branch peripherally; in Oedogonium they are longitudinally-disposed anastomosing bands; in Desmids plates with irregular margins; in Cladophora polyhedral plates: in Vaucheria minute elliptical bodies occurring in immense numbers. Embedded in the chromatophore, much in the same way as the nucleus is embedded in the cytoplasm, are the pyrenoids. Unknown in Cyanophyceae and Phoeophyeeae, known only in Bangiaceae and Nemalion among Rhodophyceae, they are of frequent occurrence among Chlorophyceae, excepting Characeae. Sometimes several pyrenoids occur in each chloroplast, as in Mesocarpus and Spirogyra; sometimes only an occasional chloroplast contains pyrenoid at all, as in Cadophora. The pyrenoid seems to be of proteid nature and gelatinous consistency, and to arise as a new formation or by division of pre-existing pyrenoids. When carbon-assimilation is active, starch-granules crowd upon the surface of the pyrenoid and completely obscure it from view.

Special provision for vegetative multiplication is not common among Chlorophyceae. Valonia and Caulerpa among Siphonales detach portions of their thallus, which are capable of independent growth. In Caulerpa no other means of multiplication is as yet known. In Characeae no fewer than four methods of vegetative reproduction have been described, and the facility with which buds and branches are in these cases detached has been adduced as an evidence of affinity with Bryophyta, which, as a class, are distinguished by their ready resort to vegetative reproduction.

With regard to true reproduction, which is characterized by the formation of special cells, the group Euchlorophyceae is characterized by the production of zoospores (Gr. zoon, animal, spora, seed); that is to say, cells capable of motility through the agency of cilia. Such ciliary motion is known in the adult condition of the cells of Volvocaceae, but where this is not the case the reproductive cells are endowed with motility for a brief period. The zoospore is usually a pyriform mass of naked protoplasm, the beaked end of which where the cilia arise is devoid of colouring matter. A reddish-brown body, known as the eyespot, is usually situated near the limits of the hyaline portion, and in the protoolasm contractile vacuoles similar to those of lower animals have been occasionally detected. The movement of the zoospore is effected by the lashing of the cilia and is in the direction of the beak, while the zoospore slowly rotates on Botrydium and Hydrodictyon only one is present; in certain species of Cladophora four; in Dasycladus a chaplet, and in Oedogonium a ring of many cilia. The so-called zoospore of Vaucheria is a coenocyte covered over with paired cilia corresponding in position to nuclei lying below. In all other cases, zoospores are uninucleate bodies. Zoospores arise in cells of ordinary size and form termed zoosporangia. In unicellular forms (Sphaerella) the thallus becomes transformed into a zoosporangium at the reproductive stage. In the zoosporangia of Oedogonium, Tetraspora and Coleochaete the contents become transformed into a single zoospore. In most cases repeated division seems to take place, and the final number is represented by some power of two. In coenocytic forms the zoospores would seem to arise simultaneously, probably because many nuclei are already present. The escape of zoospores is effected by the degeneration of the sporangial wall (Chaetophora), or by a pore (Cladophora), a slit (Pediastrum ), or a circular fracture (Oedogonium). Zoospores are of two kinds: (1) Those which come to rest and germinate to form a new plant; these are asexual and are zoospores proper. (2) Those which are unable to germinate of themselves, but fuse with another cell, the product giving rise to a new individual; these are sexual and are zoogametes (Gr. zoon, animal, and gametes, gamete, husband, wife). When two similar zoogametes fuse, the process is conjugation, and the product a zygospore (Gr. zugon, yoke). Usually, however, only one of the fusing cells is a zoogamete, the other gamete being a much larger resting cell. In such a case the zoogamete is male, is called an antherozoid or spermatozoid, and arises in an antheridium; the larger gamete is an oosphere and arises in an oogonium. The fusion is now known as fertilization, and the product is an oospore. Reproduction by conjugation is also known as isogamy, by fertilization as oogamy. When zoospores come to rest, a new cell is formed and germination ensues at once. When zygospores and oospores are produced a new cell-wall is also formed, but a long period of rest ensues. All investigation goes to show that an essential part of sexual union is the fusion of the two nuclei concerned. It is interesting to know, on the authority of Oltmanns, that when the oosphere is forming in the oogonium of Vaucheria, there is a retrocession of all the included nuclei but one. that the antherozoid of Vaucheria contains a single nucleus had been inferred before.

From a comparison of those Euchlorophyceae which have been most closely investigated, it appears probable that sexual reproductive cells have in the course of evolution arisen as the result of specialization among asexual reproductive cells, and that in turn oogamous reproduction has arisen as the result of differentiation of the two conjugating cells into the smaller male gamete and the larger male gamete. It would further appear that oogamous reproduction has arisen independently in each of the three main groups of Euchlorophyceae, viz. Ptotococcales, Siphonales and Confervales. Thus among Volvocaceae, a family of Protococcales, while in some of the genera (Chloraster, Sphondylomorum) no sexual union has as yet been observed, in others (Pandorina, Chlorogonium, Stephanosphaera, Sphaerella) conjugation of similar gametes takes place, in others still (Phacotus, Eudorina, Volvox) the union is of the nature of fertilization. No other family of Protococcales has advanced beyond the stage of isogamous reproduction. Again, among Siphonales only one family (Vaucheriaceae) has reached the stage of oogamy, although an incipient heterogamy is said to occur in two other families (Codiaceae, Bryopsidaceae). Elsewhere among Siphonales, in those cases where reproductive cells are known, the reproduction is either isogamous or asexual. Among Confervales there is no family in which sexual reproduction--isogamy or oogamy--is not known to occur among some of the component species, and as many as four families (Cylindrocapsaceae, Sphaeropleaceae, Oedogoniaceae, Coleochaetaceae) are oogamous. On these, as well as other grounds. Confervales are regarded as having attained to the highest rank among Euchlorophyceae. Although the phenomena attending isogamous and oogamous reproduction respectively are essentially the same in all cases, slight variations in both instances appear in different families, attributable doubtless to the independent origin of the process in different groups. Thus, although isogamy consists in typical cases of a union of naked motile gametes by a fusion which begins at the beaked ends, and results in the formation of an immotile spherical zygote surrounded by a cell-wall, in Leptosira it is noticeable that the fusion begins at the blunt end; in a species of Chlamydomonas the two gametes are each included in a cell-wall before fusion; and in many cases the zygote retains for some time its motility with the double number of cilia. Again, in oogamous reproduction, while in general only one oosphere is differentiated in the oogonium, in Sphaeroplea several oospheres arise in each oogonium; and while the oospheres usually contract away from the oogonial wall, acquiring for themselves a new cell-wall after fertilization, in Coleochaete the oosphere remains throughout in contact with the oogonial wall. The oosphere is in all cases fertilized while still within the oogonium, the antherozoids being admitted by means of a pore. There is usually distinguishable upon the surface of the oosphere an area free from chlorophyll, known as the receptive spot, at which the fusion with the antherozoid takes place; and in many cases, before fertilization, a small mucilaginous mass has been observed to separate itself off from the oosphere at this point and to escape through the pore. In Coleochaete the oogonial wall is drawn out into a considerable tube, which is provided with an apical pore, and this tube has a somewhat similar appearance to the imperforate trichogyne of Florideae to be hereafter described. In certain species of Oedogonium minute male plantlets, known as dwarf males, become attached to the female plant in the neighbourhood of the oogonia, thus facilitating fertilization. Indeed the genus Oedogonium exhibits a high degree of specialization in its reproductive system, considering that its thallus has not advanced beyond the stage of an unbranched filament.

Many Euchlorophyceae are endowed with both asexual and sexual reproduction. Such are Coleochaete, Oedogonium, Cylindrocapsa, Ulothrix, Vaucheria, Volvox, &c. In others only the asexual method is yet known. When a species resorts to both methods, it is generally found that the asexual method prevails in the early part of the vegetative period and the sexual towards the close of that period. This is in consonance with the facts already mentioned that zoospores germinate forthwith, and that the sexually-produced cell or zygote enters upon a period of rest. It is known that zoogametes, which usually conjugate, may, when conjugation fails, germinate directly (Sphaerella.) In rare cases the oosphere has been known to germinate without fertilization (Oedogonium, Cylindrocapsa.) The germination of a zygospore or oospore is effected by the rupture of an outer cuticularized exosporium; then the cell may protrude an inner wall, the endosporium, and grow out into the new plant ( Vaucheria), or the contents may break up into a first brood of zoospores. It is held that in Coleochaetea parenchyma results from the division of the oospore, from each cell of which a zoospore arises.

Reproduction is also effected among Euchlorophyceae by means of aplanospores and akinetes. Aplanospores would seem to represent zoospores arrested in their development; without reaching the stage of motility, they germinate within the sporangium. Akinetes are ordinary thallus cells, which on account of their acquisition of a thick wall are capable of surviving unfavourable conditions. Both aplanospores and akinetes may germinate with or without the formation of zoospores at the initial stage.

Among Conjugatae reproduction is effected solely by means of conjugation of what are literally aplanospores. Among those Desmidiaceae which live a free life, two plants become surrounded by a common mucilage, in which they lie either parallel (Closterium) or crosswise (Cosmarium.) Gaps then appear in the apposed surfaces, usually at the isthmus; the entire protoplasts either pass out to melt into one another clear of the old walls, or partly pass out and fuse without complete detachment from the old walls. Among colonial Desmidiaceae, the break-up of the filament is a preliminary to this conjugation; otherwise the process is the same. The zygospore becomes surrounded with its own wall, consisting finally of three layers, the outer of which is furnished with spicular prominences of various forms. In Zygnemaceae there is no dissolution of the filaments, but the whole contents of one cell pass over by means of a conjugation-tube into the cavity of a cell of a neighbouring filament, where the zygospore is formed by the fusion of the two

Fig. 3.--Chlorophyceae, variously magnified.

A. Spirogyra sp., in conjugation.

B. Zoospore of Pandorina. B234, stages of conjugation.

C. Ulothrix sp., zoospores escaping. C23, stages of conjugation.

D1. Oedogonium sp., oogonium at moment of fertilization with dwarf male attached.

D2. Oedogonium sp., zoospore with crown of cilia.

E1. Coleochaete sp., with antheridia and an oogonium.

E2. Coleochaete sp., fertilized egg with investment of filaments.

E3. Coleochaete sp., zoospore.

F123. Protosiphon, conjugation of zoogametes.

G. Derbesia sp., zoospore with chaplet of cilia.

H1. Chara sp., oogonium and antheridium at a node on a lateral appendage.

H2. Chara sp., antherozoid.

K1. Vaucheria sp., oogonium and antheridium before fertilization.

K2. Vaucheria sp., after fertilization.

(A from Cooke, British Freshwater Algae, by permission of Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner and Co.; C, E, F. G. H. K from Engler and Prantl, by permission of Wilheim Engelmann; B1 from Vines, by permission of Swan Sonnenschein and Co.; B2, D from Oltmanns, by permission of Gustav Fischer.)

protoplasts. In these cases the activity of one of the gametes, and the passivity of the other, is regarded as evidence of incipient sex. In Strogonium there is cell-division in the parent-cell prior to conjugation; and as two segments are cut off in the case of the active gamete, and only one in the case of the passive gamete, there is a corresponding difference of size, marking another step in the sexual differentiation. In Zygogonium, although no cell-division takes place, the gametes consist of a portion only of the contents of a cell, and this is regularly the case in Mesocarpaceae, which occupy the highest grade among Conjugatae. Some Zygnemaceae and Mesocarpaceae form either a short conjugating tube, or none at all, but the filaments approach each other by a knee-like bend, and the zygospore is formed at the point of contact, often being partially contained within the walls of the parent-cell. It would seem that in some cases the nuclei of the gametes remain distinct in the zygospore for a considerable time after conjugation. It is probable that in all cases nuclear fusion takes place sooner or later. In Zygnemaceae and Mesocarpaceae the zygospore, after a period of rest, germinates, to form a new filamentous colony; in Desmidiaceae its contents divide on germination, and thus give rise to two or more Desmids. Gametes which fail to conjugate sometimes assume the appearance of zygospores and germinate in due course. They are known as azygospores.

The reproduction of Characeae is characterized by a pronounced oogamy, the reproductive organs being the most highly differentiated among Chlorophyceae. The antheridia and oogonia are formed at the nodes of the appendages. The oogonium, seated on a stalk cell, is surrounded by an investment consisting of five spirally-wound cells, from the projecting ends of which segments are cut off, constituting the so-called stigma. The oosphere is not differentiated within the wall of the oogonium, but certain cells known as wendungszellen, the significance of which has given rise to much speculation, are cut off from the basal portion of the parent-cell during its development. The antheridia are spherical orange-coloured bodies of very complex structure. The antherozoid is a spirally-coiled thread of protoplasm, furnished at one end with a pair of cilia. It much more resembles the antherozoids of Bryophyta and certain Pteridophyta than any known among other algae. The fertilized egg charged with food reserves rests for a considerable period, surrounded by its cortex, the whole having assumed a reddish-brown colour. On germination it gives rise to a row of cells in which short (nodal) and long (internodal) cells alternate. From the first node arise rhizoids; from the second a lateral bud, which becomes the new plant. This peculiar product of germination, which intervenes between the oospore and the adult form, is the proembryo. It will be remembered that in Musci, the asexual spore somewhat similarly gives rise to a protonema, from which the adult plant is produced as a lateral bud. The proembryonic branches of Characeae, one of the means of vegetative reproduction already referred to, are so called because they repeat the characters of the proembryo.

Before leaving the Chlorophyceae, it should be mentioned that the genus Volvox has been included by some zoologists (Butschli, for example) among Flagellata; on the other hand, certain green Flagellata, such as Euglena, are included by some botanists (for example, van Tieghem) among unicellular plants. A similar uncertainty exists with reference to certain groups of Phaeophyceae, and the matter will thus arise again.

A census of the Chlorophyceae is furnished below:--

1. Confervoideae---12 families, 77 genera, 1021 species.

2. Siphoneae--9 families, 26 genera, 271 species.

3. Protococcoideae--2 families, 90 genera, 342 species.

4. Conjugateae--2 families, 33 genera, 1296 species. (De Toni's Sylloge Algarum, 1889.)

5. Characeae--2 families, 6 genera, 181 species. (Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien, 1897)

III. PHAEOPHYCEAE.--The Phaeophyceae are distinguished by the possession of a brown colouring matter, phycophaein, in addition to chlorophyll. They consist of the following groups:--Fucaceae, Phaeosporeae; Dictyotaceae, Cryptomonadaceae, Peridiniaceae and Diatomaceae. Of these the first three include multicellular plants, some of them of great size; the last three are unicellular organisms, with little in common with the rest excepting the possession of a brown colouring matter. Fucaceae and Phaeosporeae are doubtless closely allied, and to these Dictyotaceae may be joined, though the relationship is less close. They constitute the Euphaeophyceae, and will be dealt with in the first place.

Euphaeophyceae are almost exclusively marine, growing on rocks and stones on the coast, or epiphytic upon other algae. In tidal seas they range from the limits of high water to some distance beyond the low-water line. On the British coasts zones are observable in passing from high to low water mark, characterized by the prevalence of different species, thus:---Pelvetia canaliculata, Fucus platycarpus, Fucus vesiculosus, Ascophyllum nodosum, Fucus serratus, Laminaria digitata. Some species are minute filamentous plants, requiring the microscope for their detection; others, like Lessonia, are of considerable bulk, or, like Macrocystis, of enormous length. In Fucaceae, Dictyotacea, and in Laminariaceae and Sphacelariaceae, among Phaeosporeae, the thallus consists of a true parenchyma; elsewhere it consists of free filaments, or filaments so compacted together, as in Cutleriaceae and Desmarestiaceae, as to form a false parenchyma. In Fucaceae and Laminariaceae the inner tissue is differentiated into a conducting system. In Laminariaceae the inflation of the ends of conducting cells gives rise to the so-called trumpet-hyphae. In Nereocystis and Macrocystis a zone of tubes occurs, which present the appearance of sieve-tubes even to the eventual obliteration of the perforations by a callus. While there is a general tendency in the group to mucilaginous degeneration of the cell-wall, in Laminaria digitata there are also glands secreting a plentiful mucilage. Secondary growth in thickness is effected by the tangential division of superficial cells. The most fundamental external differentiation is into holdfast and shoot. In Laminariaceae secondary cylindrical props arise obliquely from the base of the thallus. In epiphytic forms the rhizoids of the epiphyte often penetrate into the tissue of the host, and certain epiphytes are not known to occur excepting in connexion with a certain host; but to what extent, if any, there is a partial parasitism in these cases has not been ascertained. In filamentous forms there is a differentiation into branches of limited and branches of unlimited growth (Sphacelaria.) In Laminariaceae there is a distinction of stipe and blade. The blade is centrally-ribbed in Alaria and laterally-ribbed in Macrocystis. It is among the Sargassaceae that the greatest amount of external differentiation, rivalling that of the higher leafy plants, is reached. A characteristic feature of the more massive species is the occurrence of air-vesicles in their tissues. In Fucus vesiculosus they arise in lateral pairs; in Ascophyllum they are single and median; in Macrocystis one vesicle arises at the base of each thallus segment; in Sargassum and Halidrys the vesicles arise on special branches. They serve to buoy up the plant when attached to the sea-bottom, and thus light is admitted into the forest-like growths of the gregarious species. When such plants are detached they are enabled to float for great distances, and the great Sargasso Sea of the North Atlantic Ocean is probably only renewed by the constant addition of plants detached from the shores of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.

Growth in length is effected in a variety of ways. In Dictyota Sphacelariaceae and Fucaceae there is a definite apical cell. In the first it is a biconvex lens, from which segments are continually cut off parallel to the posterior surface; and in the second an elongated dome, from which segments are cut off by a transverse wall. While, however, in Dictyota the product of the subsequent division in the segment enlarges with each subdivision, the divisions in the cylindrical segment of Sphacelariaceae are such that the whole product after subdivision, however many cells it may consist of, does not exceed in bulk the segment as cut off from the apical cell. In Dictyotaceae the apical cell occasionally divides longitudinally, and thus the dichotomous branching is provided for. In some Sphacelariaceae branches may appear at their inception as lateral protuberances of the apical cell itself. In Fucaceae an apical cell is situate at the surface of the thallus in a slit-like depression at the apex. From this cell segments are cut off in three or four lateral oblique planes.

A peculiar manner of growth in length is that to which the term trichothallic has been applied. It may readily be observed that in the hair-like branches of Ectocarpaceae, the point at which most rapid division occurs is situate near the base of the hair. In Desmarestia and Arthrocladia, for example, it is found that the thallus ends in a tuft of such hairs, each of them growing by means of an intercalated growing point. In these cases, however, the portions of the hairs behind the growing region become agglutinated together into a solid cylindrical pseudo-parenchymatous axis. In Cutleria the laminated thallus is formed in the same way. The intercalated growing region of Laminaria affords an example of another variety of growth in Phaeophyceae. While the laminated portion of the thallus is being gradually worn off in our latitudes during the autumnal storms, a vigorous new growth appears at the junction of the stipe and the blade, as the result of which a new piece is added to the stipe and the lamina entirely renovated.

Both asexual and sexual reproduction occur among Euphaeophyceae. Fucaceae are marked by an entire absence of the asexual method. The sexual organs--oogonia and antheridia---are borne on special portions of the thallus in cavities known as conceptacles. Both organs may occur in one conceptacle, as in Pelvetia, or each may be confined to one conceptacle or even one plant, as in Fucus vesiculosus. The oogonia arise on a stalk cell from the lining layer of the cavity, the contents dividing to form eight oospheres as in Fucus, four as in Ascophyllum, two as in Pelvetia, or one only as in Hallidrys. It would seem that eight nuclei primarily arise in all Fucaceae, and that a number corresponding to the number of oospheres subsequently formed is reserved, the rest being discharged to the periphery, where they may be detected at a late stage. On the maturation of the oospheres the outer layer of the oogonial wall ruptures, and the oospheres, still surrounded by a middle and inner layer, pass out through the mouth of the conceptacle. Then usually these layers successively give way, and the spherical naked oospheres float free in the water. The antheridia, which arise in the conceptacular cavity as special cells of branched filaments, are similarly discharged whole, the antherozoids only escaping when the antheridia are clear of the conceptacle. The antherozoids are attracted to the oospheres, round each of which they swarm in great numbers. Suddenly the attraction ceases, and the oosphere is fertilized, probably at that moment, by the entry of a single antherozoid into the substance of the oosphere; a cell-wall is formed thereupon, in some cases in so short an interval as five minutes. Remarkable changes of size and outline of the oosphere have recently been described as accompanying fertilization in Hallidrys. Probably the act of fertilization in plants has nowhere been observed in such detail as in Fucaceae. Dictyotaceae resemble Fucaceae in their pronounced oogamy. They differ, however, in being also asexually reproduced. The asexual cells are immotile spores arising in fours in sporangia from superficial cells of the thallus. In Dictyota the oospheres arise singly in oogonia, crowded together in sori on the surface of the female plant. The antheridia have a similar origin and grouping on the male plant. Until the recent discovery by Williams of motility, by means of a single cilium, of the antherozoids of Dictyota and Taonia, they were believed to be immotile bodies, like the male cells of red seaweeds. in Dictyota the unfertilized oosphere is found to be capable of undergoing a limited number of divisions, but the body thus formed appears to atrophy sooner or later.

Of the small family of the Tilopteridaceae our knowledge is as yet inadequate, but they probably present the only case of pronounced oogamy among Phaeosporeae. They are filamentous forms, exhibiting, however, a tendency to division in more than one plane, even in the vegetative parts. The discovery by Brebner of the specific identity of Haplospora globosa and Scaphospora speciosa marks an important step in the advance of our knowledge of the group. Three kinds of reproductive organs are known: first, sporangia, which each give rise to a single tetra-, or multi-nucleate non-motile, probably asexual spore; second, plurilocular sporangia, which are probably antheridia, generating antherozoids; and third, sporangia, which are probably oogonia, giving rise to single uni- nucleate non-motile oospheres. No process of fertilization has as yet been observed.

The Cutleriaceae exhibit a heterogamy in which the female sexual cell is not highly specialized, as is in the groups already described. From each locule of a plurilocular sporangium there is set free an oosphere, which, being furnished with a pair of cilia, swarms for a time. In similar organs on separate plants the much smaller antherozoids arise. Fertilization has been observed at Naples; but it apparently depends on climatic conditions, as at Plymouth the oospheres have been observed to germinate parthenogenetically. The asexual organs in the case of Cutleria multifida arise on a crustaceous form, Aglaozonia reptans, formerly considered to be a distinct species. They are unilocular, each producing a small number of zoospores.

The possession of two kinds of reproductive organs, unilocular and plurilocular sporangia, is general among the rest of the Phaeosporeae. Bornet, however, called attention in 1871 to the fact that two kinds of plurilocular sporangia occurred in certain species of the genus Ectocarpus--somewhat transparent organs of an orange tint producing small zoospores, and also more opaque organs of a darker colour producing relatively larger zoospores. On the discovery of another such species by F. H. Buffham, Batters in 1892 separated the three species, Ectocarpus secundus, E. fenestratus, E. Lebelii, together with the new species, into a genus, Giffordia, characterized by the possession of two kinds of plurilocular sporangia. The suspicion that a distinction of sex accompanied this difference of structure has been justified by the discovery by Sauvageau of undoubted fertilization in Gidordia secunda and G. fenestrata. The conjugation of similar gametes, arising from distinct plurilocular sporangia, was observed by Berthold in Ectocarpus siliculosus and Scytosiphon lomentarius in 1880; and these observations have been recently confirmed in the case of the former species by Sauvageau, and in the case of the latter by Kuckuck. In these cases, however, the potential gametes may, failing conjugation, germinate directly, like the zoospores derived from unilocular sporangia. The assertion of Areschoug that conjugation occurs among zoospores derived from unilocular sporangia, in the case of Dictyosiphon hippuroides, is no doubt to be ascribed to error of observation. It would thus seem that the explanation of the existence of two kinds of sporangia, unilocular and plurilocular, among Phaeosporeae, lies in the fact that unilocular sporangia are for asexual reproduction, and that plurilocular sporangia are gametangia--potential or actual. It must, however, be remembered that so important a generalization is as yet supported upon a somewhat narrow base of observation. Moreover, for the important family of the Laminariaceae only unilocular sporangia are known to occur; and for many species of other families, only one or other kind, and in some cases neither kind, has hitherto been observed. The four species--Ectocarpus siliculosus, Giffordia secunda, Cutleria multifida and Haplospora globosa--may be taken to represent, within the phaeosporeae, successive steps in the advance from isogamy to oogamy.

The Peridiniaceae have been included among Flagellata under the title of Dinoflagellata. The majority of the species belong to the sea, but many are found in fresh water. The thallus is somewhat spherical and unicellular, exhibiting a distinction between anterior and posterior extremities, and dorsal and ventral surfaces. The wall consists of a basis of cellulose, and in some cases readily breaks up into a definite number of plates, fitting into one another like the plates of the carapace of a tortoise; it is, moreover, often finely sculptured or coarsely ridged and flanged. Two grooves are a constant feature of the family, one running transversely and anoiher longitudinally. In these grooves lie two c;lia, attached at the point of meeting on the dorsal surface. The protoplast is uninucleate and vacuolate, and contains chromatophores of a brownish colour. It is not clear that FIG. 4.--Phaeophyceae, variously magnified.

A. Halopteris, apical region.

B. Chordaria sp., apical region showing so-called trichothallic growth.

C. Dictyota sp., apical cells immediately after dichotomy.

D. Cutleria sp., margin of thallus showing trichothallic growth.

E. Halidrys, apical depression with leading cell.

F. Macrocystis sp., tubular elements from the medulla, with sieve-like transverse walls.

G. Laminaria sp., hyphae with trumpet-like ends also from medulla.

H. Elachistea sp., Plurilocular sporanges.

K. Ectocarpus sp., unilocular sporange.

L. Ectocarpus siliculosus, female gamete surrounded by male gametes a, b, c, d, e, stages of conjugation.

M. Cutleria multifida. a, antherozoids, b, a female gamete.

N1. Fucus vesiculosus, young oogonium.

N2. Fucus vesiculosus, discharge of eight oospheres from oogonium

O. Laminaria sp., sporanges among paraphyses.

P. Dictyota dichotoma, a sorus of oogonia.

Q. Dictyota dichotoma, part of a sorus of antheridia.

(A, B, C, D, E, H, L, M, P, from Engler and Prantl, by permission of Wilhelm Engelmann; F, G, K, O, from Oltmanns, by permission of Gustav Fischer; Q. from The Annals of Botany, by permission of the Clarendon Press; N1, N2, from Hauck, Meeresalgen, by permission of Eduard Kummer.)

the brown colouring matter which is added to chlorophyll is identical with phycophaein: two varieties of it have been termed phycopyrrin and peridinine. Certain species, such as Gymnodinium spirale, are colourless and therefore saprophytic in their method of nutrition. Multiplication takes place in some cases by the endogenous formation of zoospores, the organism having come to rest; in others by longitudinal division, when the organism is still motile. No method of sexual reproduction is known with certainty.

The Cryptomonadaceae also are unicellular, and live free or in colonies. Each cell contains a flattened chromatophore of a brown or yellow colour. Hydrurus forms a branched gelatinous colony attached to stones in mountain streams. Chromophyton forms an eight-celled colony. Both plants multiply solely by means of zoospores. The Cryptomonadeae and Chromulineae are motile through the greater part of their life. Cryptomonas, when dividing in a mucilage after encystment, recalls the condition in Gloeocystis. In Synura and Chromulina the cells form a spherical motile colony, recalling Volvocaceae. Chromulina is uniciliate, and is contained in a hyaline capsule. Like the Peridiniaceae, the Cryptomonadaceae have been included among Flagellata. They have no close affinity with Euphaeophyceae. Such colonial forms as Hydrurus and Phaeocystis are supposed, however, to indicate a stage in the passage to the multicellular condition.

Diatomaceae have long been recognized as plants. Together with Peridiniaceae they constitute the bulk of marine plankton, and thus play an important part in the support of marine animal life. They exhibit striking adaptations in these circumstances to the floating habit. (See DIATOMACEAE.)

A census of Phaeophyceae is given below:--

(1) Cyclosporinae (Fucaceae)--4 families, 32 genera, 347 species.

(2) Tetrasporinae (Dictyotaceae)-- 1 family, 17 genera, 130 species.

(3) Phaeozoosporineae (Phaeosporeae)--24 families, 143 genera, 571 species. (De Toni's Sylloge ALgarum.)

(4) Peridiniales---3 families, 32 genera, 167 species.

(5) Cryptomonadaceae (including Chrysomonadaceae) --2 families, 28 genera, 50-60 species.

(6) Bacillariales (Diatomaceae)--about 150 genera and 5000 species, fossil and recent.

(Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien)

IV. RHODOPHYCEAE, or FLORIDEAE.--The members of this group are characterized by the possession of a red colouring matter, phycoerythrin, in addition to chlorophyll. There is, however, a considerable amount of difference in the shades of red which mark different species. The brightest belongs to those species which grow near low-water mark, or under the shade of larger algae at higher levels; species which grow near high-water mark are usually of so dark a hue that they are easily mistaken for brown seaweeds. Rhodophyceae are mostly marine, but not exclusively so. Thorea, Lemanea, Tuomeya, Stenocladia, Batrachospermum, Balbiania are genera belonging entirely to fresh water; and Bangia, Chanitransia, Caloglossa, Bostrychia and Delesseria contain each one or more freshwater species. Most of the larger species of marine Rhodophyceae are attached by means of a disc to rocks, stones or shells. Many are epiphytic on other algae, more especially the larger Phaeophyceae and Rhodophyceae. As in the case of epiphytic brown seaweeds, the rhizoids of the epiphyte often penetrate the substance of the supporting alga. Some Red Algae find a home in the gelatinous substance of Flustra, Alcyonidium and other polyzoa, only emerging for the formation of the reproductive organs. Some are perforating algae and burrow into the substance of molluscan shells, in company with certain Green and Blue-green Algae. Some species belonging to the families Squamariaceae nnd Corallinaceae grow attached through their whole length and breadth, and are often encrusted with lime. The forms which grow away from the substratum vary greatly in external configuration. In point of size the largest cannot rival the larger Brown Algae, while the majority require the aid of the microscope for their investigation.

No unicellular Rhodophyceae are known, although a flagellate organism, Rhodomonas, has recently been described as possessed of the same red colouring matter. If the sub-group, Bangiaceae, be excluded, they may be said to consist exclusively of branched filaments. Growth in these cases takes place by means of an apical cell, from which successive segments are cut off by means of a transverse wall. The segment so cut off does not usually divide again by means of a transverse wall, nor indeed by a longitudinal wall which passes through the organic axis of the cell. New cells may be cut off laterally, which become the apical cells of branches. When the new cells grow no further, but constitute a palisading round the central cell covering its whole length, the condition is reached which characterizes the species of Polysiphonia, the "siphons" of which may be regarded as one-celled branches. To the law that no subsequent transverse division takes place in segments cut off from the apical cell, there seem to be two exceptions: first, the calcareous genus Corallinia, in the pliable joints of which intercalated division occurs; and, second, the Nitophylleae, in which, moreover, median longitudinal division of axial cells is said to occur. Like the Fungi, therefore, the Red Algae consist for the most part of branched filaments, even where the thallus appears massive to the eye, and, as in the case of Fungi, this fact is not inconsistent with a great variery of external morphology. In the great majority the thallus is obviously filamentous, as in some species of Cillithamnion. In other species of that genus an apparent cortication arises by the downward growth of rhizoids, which are retained within the gelatinous wall of the axial cells. in Batrachospermum the whole system of branches are retained within a diffluent gelatinous substance derived from the outer layers of the cell-walls. In other cases the mucilage is denser and the branches more closely compacted Helminthora.) In such cases as Lemanea, the terminal cells of the lateral branches form a superficial layer which has all the appearance of a parenchyma when viewed from the surface. In Champia and allied genera, the cylindrical axis is due not to the derivatives of one axial filament, but of several, the growth of which is co-ordinated to form a septated tube. The branching of the thallus, which meets the eye in all these cases, is due to the unlimited growth of a few branches. When such a lateral branch overtops the main axis whose growth has become limited, as in Plocamium and Dasya, a sympodium is formed. For the most part the branching is monopodial. Besides the differentiation into holdfast and shoot, and into branches of limited and branches of unlimited growth, there appear superficial structures of the nature of hairs. These are for the most part long, thin-walled, unicellular and colourless, and arise from the outer cells of the pseudo-cortex, or from the terminal cells of branches when the filaments are free. Among Rhodomelaceae, hair-like structures of a higher order are known. These arise from the axial cell, and are multicellular and branched. They soon fall off, and it is from the persistent basal cell that the branches of unlimited growth arise. Upon them also the reproductive organs arise in this family. It is not surprising, therefore, that they have been regarded as the rudiments of leaves. In Iridaea the thallus is an entire lamina; in Callophyllis a lobed lamina; in Delesseria it is provided with midrib and veins, simulating the appearance of a leaf of the higher plants; in Constantinea the axis remains cylindrical, and the lateral branches assume the form of leaves. In the compact thalli a secondary development often takes place by the growth of rhizoid-like internal filaments. They present a hypha-like appearance, running longitudinally for considerable distances. It is not difficult in such compact species to distinguish between superficial cells, whose chief function is assimilation, subjacent cells charged with reserve material, and a core of tissue engaged in the convection of elaborated material from part to part.

An interesting feature of the minute anatomy of Euflorideae, as the Red Algae, exclusive of the Bangiaceae, have been termed, is the existence of the so-called Floridean pit. When a cell divides it is found that there remains in the middle of the new wall a single large circular pit, which persists throughout the life of the cells, becoming more and more conspicuous with the progress of the thickening of the wall. These pits serve to indicate the genetic relationship of adjacent cells, when they form a compact pseudo-parenchyma, notwithstanding the fact that somewhat smaller secondary pits appear later between any contiguous cells. Protoplasmic continuity has been observed in the delicate membrane closing the pit.

Vegetative multiplication occurs only sparingly in Rhodophyceae. Melobesia callithamnioides gives rise to multicellular propagula; (Griffithsia corallina is said to give rise to new individuals, by detaching portions of the thallus from the base of which new attachment organs have already arisen. The spores of Monospora are by some regarded as unicellular propagula. Reproduction is both asexual and sexual. It is noteworthy that although all the members of the group are aquatic no zoospores are produced, a negative character common to them and the Blue-green Algae. As a rule the asexual cells, and the male and female sexual cells arise upon different plants, so that the species may be said to be trioecious. Numerous exceptions, however, occur. Thus in Lemaneaceae asexual spores are unknown; in Batracho-spermum, Bonnemaisonia and Polysiphonia byssoides both kinds of sexual cells appear on the same plant; and in some cases the asexual cells may occur in conjunction with either the male or female sexual cells. The asexual cells are termed tetraspores on account of the usual occurrence of four in each sporangium. What may be termed monospores, bispores and octospores, however, are not unknown. The sporangia may be terminal or intercalated. When they are confined to special branches such branches are spoken of as stichidia. The tetrasrores may arise by the simultaneous division of the contents of a sporangium, when they are arranged tetrahedrally, or they may arise by two successive divisions, in which case the arrangement may be zonate when the spores are in a row, or cruciate when the second divisions are at right angles to the first, or tetrahedral when the second divisions are at right angles to the first and also to one another. Tetraspores are at first naked, but soon acquire a cell-wall and germinate without a period of rest. The male sexual cells are produced singly in the terminal cells of branches. They are spoken of as spermaria. Great numbers of antheridia are usually crowded together, when the part is distinguishable by the absence of the usual red colour. In Polysiphonia they cover the joints of the so-called leaves; in Chondria they arise on flattened dishs; in the more massive forms they arise in patches on the ordinary surface; in a few cases (Gracilaria, Corallina, Galaxaura) they line the walls of conceptacle-like depressions. The female sexual cell is represented by the contents of a cell which is terminal on ordinary or specialized branches. This is the carpogonium: it consists of a neutral portion which contains a nucleus, but in which no oosphere is differentiated, and an elongated tubular portion known as the trichogyne, into which the cytoplasm extends. Fertilization is effected by the passive convection of a spermatium from the antheridium to the trichogyne, to which it adheres, and to which it passes over its nucleus through an open communication set up at the point of contact. The nucleus then passes down the trichogyne and fuses with that of the eeg. This fusion has been observed by Wille in Nemalion multifidim, and by Schmidle in Batrachospermum. It is singular that in the last-named species two nuclei occur regularly in the spermatium. The ventral portion of the carpogonium may be imbedded deep in the thallus in the massive species; the trichogyne, however, always reaches the surface. The first effect of fertilization is the occlusion of the trichogyne from the fertilized carpogonium. The subsequent course of development is characteristic of the Florideae. The carpogonium germinates forthwith, drawing its nourishment almost wholly from the parent plant. The ultimate product in all cases is a number of carpospores, but before this stage is reached the development is different in different subgroups. In Batrachospermum filaments arise from the carpogonium on all sides; in Chantransia and Scinaia on one side only; in Helminthora the filaments are enclosed in a dense mucilage; in Nemalion, prior to the formation of the filaments, a sterile segment is cut off below. In all these cases, however, the end-cells of the filaments each give rise to a carpospore, and the aggregate of such sporiferous filaments is a cystocarp. Again, in the family of the Gelidiaceae, the single filament arising from the carpogonium grows back into the tissue and preys upon the cells of the axis and larger branches, after which the end-cells give rise to carpospores and a diffused cystocarp is formed. In the whole group of the Cryptonemiales the parasitism becomes more marked still. The filaments arising from the carpogonia grow into long thin tubes, which fuse with special cells rich in protoplasm contents; and from these points issue isolated tufts of sporogenous filaments, several of which may form the product of one fertilized female cell. In Naccaria, one of the Gelidiaceae, it is observable that the ooblastema filament, as the tube arising from the fertilized carpogonium has been called, fuses completely with a cell contiguous to the carpogonium before giving rise to the foraging filaments already referred to. This is also the case among Cryptonemiales. In a whole series of Red Algae, the existence or a highly specialized auxiliary cell in the neighbourhood of the carpogonium is a characteristic feature. In the Gigartinales it is already differentiated previous to fertilization; in Rhodymeniales it arises subsequent to fertilization. In the Gigartinales, the filaments which arise from the auxiliary cell may spread and give rise to isolated tufts of sporogenous filaments, as in the Cryptonemiales. In the Rhodymeniales a single tuft arises directly from the auxiliary cell. The carpospores are in all cases bright red naked masses of protoplasm when first discharged. They soon acquire a cell-wall, and germinate without a period of rest. When the cystocarps or segments of cystocarps are formed in the substance of a thallus, the site is marked merely by a swelling of the substance. When the cystocarp is produced externally, it may form a berry-like mass without an envelope, in which case it it known as a favella. In Rhodomelaceae there is a special urn-shaped envelope surrounding the sporogenous filaments. This is a ceramidium.

The attachment of the cell of an ooblastema filament to a cell of the thallus may be effected by means of a minute pore, or the two cells may fuse their contents into one protoplasmic mass. In the latter case, and especially where the union is with a special auxiliary cell, it is of importance to know what happens to the nuclei of the fusing cells. Schmitz was of opinion that in the cases of open union there occurred a fusion of nuclei similar to that which occurs in the sexual union of two cells. He founded his generalization to a large extent upon the observation that in Gloeosiphonia capillaris two cells completely fuse, and that only one nucleus can be detecteo in the fused mass. Oltmanns has recently re-investigated the phenomena in this plant, among others, and has shown that the nucleus of the cell which is being preyed upon recedes to the wall and gradually atrophies. The nucleus of the ooblastema filament dominates the FIG. 5.--Rhodophyceae, variously magnified.

A. Polysiphonia sp., apical region showing leading cell and cutting off of pericentral cell.

B. Polysiphonia sp., transverse section through a branch, and at a, mother-cell of tetraspores.

C. Lomeittaria sp., apex showing growth in length through coordinated growth of many filaments.

D. Delesseria sp., showing apical region with leading cell.

E. Chrysymenia uvaria, axis with swollen leaf-like appendages.

F. Polyzonia sp., branch with leaf-like branches of limited growth.

G. Collithamnson sp., tetrasporangium with spores arranged in a tetrad.

H. Corallina sp., tetrasporangia with zonate arrangement of tetraspores.

K. Nemalion sp., carpogonial and antheridial branches.

L. Batrachospermum sp., trichogyne with spermatia attached; carpospores arising from fertilized carpogonium.

M. Polysiphonia sp., antheridium.

N. Constantinea sp., with flattened leaf-like appendages.

O. Dudresnaya coccinea, fusion of ooblastema filaments with auxiliary cells; a is an axial cell in transverse section with four appendages.

P. Callithamnion corymbosum, a joint cell with carpogonial branch and a, b, two auxiliary cells.

Q. Callithamnion corymbosum, fusion of products of fertilization with auxiliary cells, the nuclei of which a and b retire to the wall.

R. Polysiphonia sp., section through young cystocarp.

(A, C, D, E, F, G, H, K, L, M, P, Q, from Oltmanns, by permission of Gustav Fischer; B, N, O, R, from Engler and Prantl, by permission of Wilhelm Engelmann.)

mass and from it all the nuclei of the carpospores are thus derived. There thus seems to be no justification for believing, as Schmitz taught, that a second sexual act occurs in the life-cycle of these Florideae.

The Bangiales are a relatively small group of Red Algae, to which much of the description now given does not apply. Structurally they are either a plate of cells, as in Porphyra, or filaments, as in Bangia. There is no exclusive apical growth, and the cells divide in all directions. The characteristic pit is also absent. Sexual and asexual reproduction prevail. The male cell is a spermatium, but the female cell bears no such receptive trichogyne as occurs in other Rhodophyceae. After fertilization the equivalent of the oospore divides directly to form a group of carpospores. There is thus a certain resemblance to Euflorideae, but sufficient difference to necessitate their being grouped apart. Fertilization by means of non-motile spermatia and a trichogyne are known among the Fungi in the families Collemaceae any Laboulbeniaceae.

A census of Rhodophyceae is furnished below:--

(1) Bangiaceae--4 families, 9 genera, 58 species.

(2) Nemalioninae--4 families, 33 genera, 343 species.

(3) Gigartininae--3 families, 54 genera, 409 species.

(4) Rhodymeninae--4 families, 92 genera, 602 species. (De Toni's Sylloge Algarum, 1897.)

Limits of the algae.

After this survey of the four groups comprised under Algae it is easier to indicate the variations in the limits of the class as defined by different authorities. To consider the Cyanophyceae first, either the marked contrast in the method of nutrition of the generally colourless Bacteriaceae to that of the blue-green Cyanophyceae is regarded as sufficient ground for excluding Bacteriaceae from algae altogether, notwithstanding their acknowledged morphological affinity with Cyanophyceae, or, in recognition of the incongruity of effecting such a separation, the whole group of the Schizophyta --that is to say, the Cyanophyceae in the narrow sense, together with Bacteriaceae, is included or excluded together. Again, while Conjugatae may be shut out from Chlorophyceae as an independent group co-ordinate with them in rank, the Characeae constitute so aberrant a group that it has even been proposed to raise them as Charophyta to the dignity of a main division co-ordinate with Thallophyta. Similarly, while Diatomaceae may be excluded from among Phaeophyceae, though retained among algae, the Cryptomonadaceae and Peridiniaceae, like Euglena and other Chlorophyceae, may be excluded from Thallophyta and ranged among the flagellate Protozoa. It is doubtful, however, whether the conventional distinction between plants and animals will continue to be urged; and the suggestion of Haeckel that a class Protista should be established to receive the forms exhibiting both animal and plant affinities has much to recommend it on phylogenetic grounds. To adopt a figure, it is probable that the sources from which the two streams of life--animal and vegetable--spring may not be separable by a well-defined watershed at all, but consist of a great level upland, in which the waterways anastomose. Finally, while Chlorophyceae and Phaeophyceae exhibit important affinities, the Rhodophyceae are so distinct that the term ``algae'' cannot be made to include them, except when used in its widest sense.

Phylogeny.

It has been well said that the attempt to classify plants according to their natural affinities is an attempt to construct for them the genealogical tree by which their relationships can be traced. Algae are, however, so heterogeneous a class, of which the constituent groups are so inadequately known, that it is at present futile to endeavour thus to exhibit their pedigree. A synoptical representation of the present state of knowledge would be expressed by a network rather than by a tree. The following table is an adaptation of a scheme devised by Klebs, and indicates the inter-relationships

PROTOZOA Peridiniaceae......Diatomaceae | | Cryptomonadaceae--Hydruraceae--EUPHAEOPHYCEAE Flagellata protomastigina......Bacteriaceae--Endosphaeraceae | CYANOPHYCEAE........Bangiacaeae--EUFLORIDEAE Eugleneae

Chloromonadinae Pleurococcaceae--Endosphaeraceae

Volvocaceae Chlorosphaeraceae CONGUGATAE SIPHONALES

Tetrasporaceae----------Ulvaceae----------CONFERVALES......CHARACEAE

FUNGI BRYOPHYTA

of the various constituent groups. The area included in the thick boundary line represents algae in the widest sense in which the term is used, and the four included areas the four main subdivisions. A continuous line indicates a close affinity, and a dotted line a doubtful relationship.

Alternation of generations.

In comparing algae with the great archegoniate series which has doubtless sprung from them, it is natural to inquire to what extent, if any, they present evidence of the existence of the marked alternation of generations which dominates the life-history of the higher plants. Turning first to the Rhodophyceae, both on account of the high place which they occupy among algae and also the remarkable uniformity in their reproductive processes, it is clear that, as is the case among Archegoniatae, the product of the sexual act never germinates directly into a plant which gives rise to the sexual organs. Even among Bangiaceae the carpospores arise from the fertilized cell by division, while in all other Rhodophyceae the oospore, as it may be called, gives rise to a filamentous structure, varying greatly in its dimensions, epiphytic, and to a large extent parasitic upon the egg-bearing parent plant, and in the end giving rise to carpospores in the terminal cells of certain branches. There is here obviously a certain parallelism with the case of Bryophyta, where the sporogonium arising from the oospore is epiphytic and partially parasitic upon the female plant, and always culminates in the production of spores. Not even Riccia, with its rudimentary sporogonium, has so simple a corresponding stage as Bangia, for, while there is some amount of sterile tissue in Riccia, in Bangia the oospore completely divides to form carpospores. Excluding Bangiaceae, however, from consideration, the Euflorideae present in the product of the development of the oospore like Bryophyta a structure partly sterile and partly fertile. There is, nevertheless, this important difference between the two cases. While the spore of Bryophyta on germination gives rise to the sexual plant, the carpospore of the alga may give rise on germination to a plant bearing a second sort of asexual cells, viz. the tetraspores, and the sexual plant may only be reached after a series of such plants have been successively generated. It is possible, however, that the tetraspore formation should be regarded as comparable with the prolific vegetative reproduction of Bryophyta, and in favour of this view there is the fact that the tetraspores originate on the thallus in a different way from carpospores with which the spores of Bryophyta are in the first place to be compared; moreover, in certain Nemalionales the production of tetraspores does not occur, and the difficulty referred to does not arise in such cases. Altogether it is difficult on morphological grounds to resist the conclusion that Florideae present the same fundamental phenomenon of alternation of generations as prevails in the higher plants. It is by means of the cytological evidence, however, that this problem will finally be solved. As is well known, the dividing nuclei of the cells of the sporophyte generation of the higher plants exhibit a double number of chromosomes, while the dividing nuclei of the cells of the gametophyte generation exhibit the single number. In a fern-plant, for example, which is a sporophyte, every karyokinesis divulges the double number, while in the prothallium, which is the gametophyte generation, the single number appears. The doubling process is provided by the act of fertilization, where an antherozoid with the single number of chromosomes fuses with an oosphere also with the single number to provide a fertilized egg with the double number. The reduction stage, on the other hand, is the first division of the mother-cell of the spore. From egg to spore-mother-cell is sporophyte; from spore-mother-cell to egg is gametophyte. And since this rule has been found to hold good for all the archegoniate series and also for the flowering plants where, however, the gametophyte generation has become so extremely reduced as to be only with difficulty discerned, it is natural that when alternation of generation is stated to occur in any group of Thallophyta it should be required that the cytological evidence should support the view. The genus Nemalion has been recently investigated by Wolfe with the object of examining the cytological evidence. He finds that eight chromosomes appear in karyokinesis in the ordinary thallus cells, but sixteen in the gonimoblast filaments derived from the fertilized carpogonium. Eight chromosomes appear again in the ultimate divisions which give rise to the carpospores. Upon the evidence it would seem therefore that so far as Nemalion is concerned an alternation occurs comparable with that existing in the lower Bryophyta where the sporophyte is relatively small, being attached to and to some extent parasitic upon the gametophyte. Nemalion is, however, one of those Florideae in which tetraspores do not occur. What is the case with those Florideae which have been described as trioecious? If the sporophyte generation is confined to the cystocarp, is the tetrasporiferous plant, as has been suggested, merely a potential gametophyte reproducing by a process analogous to the bud- formation of the Bryophyta? In answer to this question a recent writer, Yamanouchi, states in a preliminary communication that he has found that in Polysiphonia violacea the germinating carpospores exhibit forty chromosomes, and the germinating tetraspores twenty chromosomes. From this it would seem that in this plant reduction takes place in the tetraspore mother- cell, and that the tetrasporiferous plants are sporophytes which alternate with sexual plants. Novel as this result may seem, the tetraspores of Florideae become hereby comparable with the tetraspores of Dictyota, to which reference will be made hereafter. But it is clear that it becomes on this view increasingly difficult to explain the occasional occurrence of tetraspores on male, female and monoecious plants or the role of the carpospores in the life-cycle of Florideae. The results of future research on the cytology of the group will be awaited with interest.

Among Phaeophyceae it is well known that the oospore of Fucaceae germinates directly into the sexual plant, and there is thus only one generation. Moreover, it is known that the reduction in the number of chromosomes which occurs at the initiation of the gametophyte generation in Pteridophyta occurs in the culminating stage of Fucus, where the oogonium is separated from the stalk-cell, so that unless it be contended that the Fucus is really a sporophyte which does not produce spores, and that the gametophyte is represented merely by the oogonium and antheridium, there is no semblance of alternation of generation in this case. The only case among Phaeophyceae which has been considered to point to the existence of such a phenomenon is Cutleria. Here the asexual cells are borne upon the so-called Aglaozonia reptans and the sexual cells upon the plants known as Cutleria. The spores of the Aglaozonia form are known to give rise to sexual plants, and the oospore of Cutleria has been observed to grow into rudimentary Aglaozonia. Latterly, however, as the result of the cytological investigations of Mottler and Lloyd Williams, great advance has been made in our knowledge of the conditions existing in Dictyota. Mottler first observed that a reduction in the number takes place in the mother-cells of the tetraspore. It will be remembered that, as in most Florideae, the male, female and asexual plants are distinct in this genus. Mottler's observation has been confirmed by Lloyd Williams, who has shown, moreover, that the single number occurs in germlings from the tetraspore, and also in the adult stages of all sexual plants, while the double number occurs in germlings from the oospore, and in adult stages of all asexual plants. It is probable, therefore, that we have here a sharp alternation of generations, both generations being, however, precisely similar to the eye up to point of reproduction. Among Chlorophyceae it is often the case that the oospore on germination divides up directly to form a brood of zoospores. In Coleochaete this seems to be preceded by the formation of a minute parenchymatous mass, in each cell of which a zoospore is produced. In Sphaeroplea it is only at this stage that zoospores are formed at all; but in most cases, such as Oedogogonium, Ulothrix, Coleochaete, similar zoospores are produced again and again upon the thallus, and the product of the oospore may be regarded as merely a first brood of a series. It has been held by some, however, that the first brood corresponds to the sporophyte generation of the higher plants, and that the rest of the cycle is the gametophyte generation. Were the case of Sphaeroplea to stand alone, the phenomenon might perhaps be regarded as an alternation of generations, but still only comparable with the case of Bangia, and not the case of the Florideae. But it is difficult to apply such a term at all to those cases in which there intervene between the oospore and the next sexual stage a series of generations, the zoospores of which are all precisely similar.

Polymorphism.

The difficulty of tracing the relationships of algae is largely due to the inadequacy of our knowledge of the conditions under which they pass through the crucial stages of their life-cycle. Of the thousands of species which have been distinguished, relatively few have been traced from spore to spore, as the flowering plants have been observed from seed to seed. The aquatic habit of most of the species and the minute size of many of them are difficulties which do not exist in the case of most seed-plants. From the analogy of the higher plants observers have justly argued that when they have seen and marked the characters of the reproductive organs they have found the plant at the stage when it exhibits its most noteworthy features, and they have named and classified the species in accordance with these observations. While even in such cases it is obvious that interesting stages in the life of the plant may escape notice altogether, in the cases of those plants the reproduction of which is unknown, and which have been named and placed on the analogy of the vegetative parts alone, there is considerable danger that a plant may be named as a distinct species which is only a stage in the life of another distinct and perhaps already known species. To take an example, Lemanea and Batrachospermum are Florideae which bear densely-whorled branches, but which, on the germination of the carpospore, give rise to a laxly-filamentous, somewhat irregularly-branched plant, from which the ordinary sexual plants arise at a later stage. This filamentous structure has been attributed to the genus Chantransia, which it greatly resembles, especially when, as is said to be the case in Batrachospermum, it bears similar monospores. The true Chantransia, however, bears its own sexual organs as well as monospores. To the specific identity of Haplospora globosa and Scaphospora speciosa, and of Cutleria muitifida and Aglaozonia reptans, reference has already been made. Again, many Green Algae--some unicellular, like Sphaerella and Chlamydomonas; some colonial forms, like Volvox and Hormotila; some even filamentous forms, like Ulothrix and Stigeoclonium-- are known to pass into a condition resembling that of a Palmella, and might escape identification on this account.

It is, on the other hand, a danger in the opposite sense to conclude that all Chantransia species are stages in the life-cycle of other plants, and, similarly, that all irregular colonial forms, like Palmella, represent phases in the life of other Green Algae. Long ago Kutzing went so far as to express the belief that the lower algae were all capable of transformations into higher forms, even into moss-protonemata. Later writers have also thought that in all four groups of algae transformations of a most far-reaching character occur. Thus Borzi finds that Protoderma viride passes through a series of changes so varied that at different times it presents the characters of twelve different genera. Chodat does not find so general a polymorphism, but nevertheless holds that Raphidium passes through stages represented by Protococcus, Characium, Dactylococcus and Sciadium. Klebs has, however, recently canvassed the conclusions of both these investigators; and as the result of his own observations declares that algae, so far from being as polymorphic as they have been described, vary only within relatively narrow limits, and present on the whole as great fixity as the higher plants. It certainly supports his view to discover, on subjecting to a careful investigation Botrydium granulatum, a siphonaceous alga whose varied forms had been described by J. Rostafinski and M. Woronin, that these authors had included in the life-cycle stages of a second alga described previously by Kutzing, and now described afresh by Klebs as Protosiphon bolryoides. In Botrydium the chromatophores are small, without pyrenoids, and oil-drops are present; in Protosiphon the chromatophores form a net-work with pyrenoids, and the contents include starch. Klebs insists that the only solution of such problems is the subjection of the algae in question to a rigorous method of pure culture. It is interesting to learn that G. Senn, pursuing the methods described by Klebs, has confirmed Chodat's observation of the passage of Raphidium into a Dactylococcus-stage, although he was unable to observe further metamorphosis. He has also seen Pleurococcus viridis dividing so as to form a filament, but has not succeeded in seeing the formation of zoospores as described by Chodat. While, therefore, there is much evidence of a negative character against the existence of an extensive polymorphism among algae, some amount of metamorphosis is known to occur. But until the conditions under which a particular transformation takes place have been ascertained and described, so that the observation may be repeated by other investigators, scant credence is likely to be given to the more extreme polymorphistic views.

Physiology.

In comparison with the higher plants, algae exhibit so much simplicity of structure, while the conditions under which they grow are so much more readily controlled, that they have frequently been the subject of physiological investigation with a view chiefly to the application of the results to the study of the higher plants. (See PLANTS: Physiology of.) In the literature of vegetable physiology there has thus accumulated a great body of facts relating not only to the phenomena of reproduction, but also to the nutrition of algae. With reference to their chemical physiology, the gelatinization of the cell-wall, which is so marked a feature, is doubtless attributable to the occurrence along with cellulose of pectic compounds. There is, however, considerable variation in the nature of the membrane in different species; thus the cell-wall of Gedogonium, treated with sulphuric acid and iodine, turns a bright blue, while the colour is very faint in the case of Spirogyra, the wall of which is said to consist for the most part of pectose. While starch occurs commonly as a cell-content in the majority of the Green Algae no trace of it occurs in Vaucheria and some of its allies, nor is it known in the whole of the Phaeophyceae and Rhodophyceae. In certain Euphaeophyceae bodies built up of concentric layers, and attached to the chromatophores, were described by Schmitz as phaeophycean-starch; they do not, however, give the ordinary starch reaction. Other granules, easily mistaken for the ``starch'' granules, are also found in the cells of Phaeophyceae; these possess a power of movement apart from the protoplasm, and are considered to be vesicles and to contain phloroglucin. The colourless granules of Florideae, which are supposed to constitute the carbohydrate reserve material, have been called floridean-starch. A white efflorescence which appears on certain Brown Algae (Saccorhiza bulbosa, Laminaria saccharina), when they are dried in the air, is found to consist of mannite. Mucin is known in the cell-sap of Acetabularia. Some Siphonales (Codium) give rise to proteid crystalloids, and they are of constant occurrence among Florideae. The presence of tannin has been established in the case of a great number of freshwater algae.

Colouring matters.

By virtue of the possession of chlorophyll all algae are capable of utilizing carbonic acid gas as a source of carbon in the presence of sunlight. The presence of phycocyanin, phycophaein and phycoerythrin considerably modifies the absorption spectra for the plants in which they occur. Thus in the case of phycoerythrin the maximum absorption, apart from the great absorption at the blue end of the spectrum, is not, as in the case where chlorophyll occurs alone, near the Fraunhofer line B, but farther to the right beyond the line D. By an ingenious method devised by Engelmann, it may be shown that the greatest liberation of oxygen, and consequently the greatest assimilation of carbon, occurs in that region of the spectrum represented by the absorption bands. In this connexion Pfeffer points out that the penetrating power of light into a clear sea varies for light of different colours. Thus red light is reduced to such an extent as to be insufficient for growth at a depth of 34 metres, yellow light at a depth of 177 metres and green light at 322 metres. It is thus an obvious advantage to Red Algae, which flourish at considerable depths, to be able to utilize yellow light rather than the red, which is extinguished so much sooner. The experiment of Engelmann referred to deserves to be mentioned here, if only in illustration of the use to which algae have been put in the study of physiological problems. Engelmann observed that certain bacteria were motile only in the presence of oxygen, and that they retained their motility in a microscopic preparation in the neighbourhood of an algal filament when they had come to rest elsewhere on account of the exhaustion of oxygen. After the bacteria had all been brought to rest by being placed in the dark, he threw a spectrum upon the filament, and observed in what region the bacteria first regained their motility, owing to the liberation of oxygen in the process of carbon-assimilation. He found that these places corresponded closely with the region of the absorption band for the algae under experiment.

Although algae generally are able to use carbonic acid gas as a source of carbon, some algae, like certain of the higher plants, are capable of utilizing organic compounds for this purpose. Thus Spirogyra filaments, which have been denuded of starch by being placed in the dark, form starch in one day if they are placed in a 10 to 20% solution of dextrose. According to T. Bokorny, moreover, it appears that such filaments will yield starch from formaldehyde when they are supplied with sodium oxymethyl sulphonate, a salt which readily decomposes into formaldehyde and hydrogen sodium sulphite, an observation which has been taken to mean that formaldehyde is always a stage in the synthesis of starch. With reference to the assimilation of nitrogen, it would seem that algae, like other green plants, can best use it when it is presented to them in the form of a nitrate. Some algae, however, seem to flourish better in the presence of organic compounds. In the case of Scenedesmus acutus it is said that the alga is unable to take up nitrogen in the form of a nitrate or ammoniacal salt, and requires some such substance as an amide or a peptone. On the other hand, it has been held by Bernhard Frank and other observers that atmospheric nitrogen is fixed by the agency of Green Algae in the soil: (For the remarkable symbiotism between algae and fungi see FUNGI and LICHENS.)

Habitat.

Most algae, particularly Phaeophyceae and Rhodophyceae, spend the whole of the life-cycle immersed in water. In the case of the freshwater algae, however, belonging to the Chlorophyceae and Cyanophyceae, although they required to be immersed during the vegetative period, the reproductive cells are often capable of resisting a considerable degree of desiccation, and in this condition are dispersed through great distances by various agencies. Again, as is well known, many species of marine algae growing in the region between the limits of high and low water are so constituted that they are exposed to the air twice a day without injury. The occurrence of characteristic algae at different levels constituting the zones to which reference has already been made, is probably in part an expression of the fact that different species vary in the capacity to resist desiccation from exposure. Thus Laminaria digitata, which characterizes the lowest zone, is only occasionally exposed at all, and then only for short periods of time. On the other hand, Pelvetia canaliculata, which marks the upper belt, is exposed for longer periods, and during neap tides may not be reached by the water for many days. Algae of more delicate texture than either Fucaceae or Laminariaceae also occur in the region exposed by the ebb of the tide, but these secure their exemption from desiccation either by retaining water in their meshes by capillary attraction, as in the case of Pilayella, or by growing among the tangles of the larger Fucaceae, as in the case of Polysiphonia fastigiata, or by growing in dense masses on rocks, as in the case of Laurencia pinnatifida. Such a species as Delesseria sanguinea or Callophyllis laciniata would on the contrary run great risk by exposure for even a short period. A few algae approach the ordinary terrestrial plants in their capacity to live in a sub-aerial habitat subject only to such occasional supphes of water as is afforded by the rainfall. Of this nature are some of the species of Vaucheria. A very few species, like Chroolepus, which grows on rock surfaces, are comparable with the land plants which have been termed xerophilous.

Plankton.

The great majority of the aquatic algae, both freshwater and marine, are attached plants. Some, however, are wanderers, either swimming actively with the aid of cilia, or floating inertly as the result of a specific weight closely approaching that of the medium. To the aggregate of such forms, both animal and vegetable, the term plankton has been applied, and the investigation of the vegetable plankton, both freshwater and marine, has been pursued in recent times with energy and success. The German Plankton Expedition of 1889 added greatly to our knowledge of the floating vegetable life of the North Atlantic Ocean, while many laboratories established on the shores of inland seas and lakes have rendered a similar service in the case of our freshwater phyto-plankton. The quantitative estimate of the amount of this flora has revealed its enormous aggregate amount and therefore its great importance in the economy of oceanic and lacustrine animal life. The organisms constituting this plankton are mostly unicellular, often aggregated together in colonies, and the remarkable structure which they exhibit has added a new chapter to the story of adaptation to environment. The families Diatomaceae, Peridiniaceae and Protococcaceae are best represented in the pelagic plankton, while in addition the Volvocaceae are an important element in freshwater plankton.

Benthos.

The great majority of algae, however, grow like land-plants attached to a substratum, and to these the term benthos is now generally applied. While the root of land-plants serves for the double purpose of attachment and the supply of water, it is attachment only that is usually sought in the case of algae. Immersed as they usually are in a medium containing in solution the inorganic substances which they require for their nutrition, the absorption of these takes place throughout their whole extent. The elaborate provision for the conduct of water from part to part which has played so important a role in the morphological development of land plants is entirely wanting in algae, such conducting tissues as do exist in the larger Phaeophyceae and Rhodophyceae serving rather for the convection of elaborated organic substance, and being thus comparable with the phloem of the higher plants. The attachment organ of algae is thus more properly called a holdfast, and is found to be of very varied structure. It generally takes the form of a single flattened disc as in the Fucaceae, or a group of finger- like processes as in Laminariaceae, or a tuft of filaments as in many instances. When the attachment is in sand or mud, it often simulates the appearance of a true root as in Chara or Caulerpa. It is clear that where the bottom of a lake or sea consists of oozy mud or shifting sand, it is impossible for algae to secure a foothold. Thus a rock emerging from a sandy beach may often be observed to stand covered with vegetation like an oasis in a desert. The rapidity with which walls, piles and pontoons--stone, wood and iron--become covered with marine plants is well known, while the discovery of some effective means of preventing the fouling of the bottoms of ships by the growth of algae would be hailed as a boon by shipowners. While rocks and boulders are the favoured situation for the growth of marine algae, those which readily disintegrate, like the coarser sandstones, are naturally less favoured than the hard and resistant. A large number of algae again live as epiphytes or endophytes. In the case of the freshwater species the host-plants are mostly species of aquatic Graminaceae, Naiadaceae or Nymphaeaceae. In the case of marine algae, the hosts are chiefly the larger Phaeophyceae and Rhodophyceae. A bed of Zostera near the level of low water is, however, on the British coast a favourite collecting ground for the smaller red and brown epiphytes. Of endophytes a distinction must be made between those which occupy the cell-wall only and those which perforate the cells, bringing about their destruction. There can be little doubt that in some cases the epiphytism approaches parasitism. In one case described by Kuckuck the chromaphores of the infesting algae are absent, a circumstance which points to a complete parasitism. Allusion has already been made to the peculiar habit of the shell-boring algae.

Habit.

In many algae certain branches of limited growth bear a remarkable resemblance to leaves. The Characeae among freshwater algae and the Sargassaceae among marine algae might be cited as examples. Surveying the whole range of algae life, Oltmanns distinguishes bush-forms, whip- forms, net-forms, leaf-forms, sack-forms, dorsi-ventral forms, and cushions, plates and crusts. The similarity of outline in many species to that of trees and shrubs will strike any one who examines algae mounted for the herbarium. Cladophora and Bryopsis among monosiphonous forms, Chara, Polysiphonia, Ceramium and Cystoseira among larger algae, are illustrations of this. The whip-forms are represented by Spirogyra, Chaetomorpha, Scytosiphon, Nemalion, Himanthalia and Chorda. Net-forms are found in Hydrodictyon and Microdictyon. The leaf-forms are very varied and owe their existence to the advantage accruing from the exposure of a large surface to the influence of the light. In some cases such as Delesseria, Neurymenia, Fucus, Alaria, the leaf-like structure is provided with a strengthening mid-rib, and when as in Delesseria it is also richly veined the resemblance to the leaf of a flowering plant is striking. Laminaria, Padina, Cutleria, Punctaria, Iridaea, Ulva, Porphyra, are leaf-like with a rigidity varying from a fleshy lamina to the thin and pliable. Agarum, Claudea and Struvea are leaf-forms which are perforated like Aldrovanda among flowering plants. Enteromorpha, Asperococcus and Adenocystis are sack-forms. Dorsi-ventral algae are rare. Leveillea jungermanneoides bears a remarkable resemblance to a leafy liverwort. In the next group of forms the simplest are crusts attached to the substratum throughout their extent, and growing at the margin. Such are Myrionema, Ralfsia, Melobesia and Hildebrandtia. Others are attached throughout their extent, but also grow vertical filaments so as to form a velvety pile. Such are Coleochaete, Ochlochaete, Elachistea, Ascocyclus and Rhododermis. Peysonellia squamaria, Melobesia lichenoides, Leathesia difformis are forms which are not attached throughout but grow in plates like the foliaceous lichens.

Ecology.

When it is sought to consider algae with a view to the correlation of the external form to the conditions of life, a subject the study of which under the name of ecology has been latterly pursued with great success among land plants, it is difficult as yet to arrive at generalizations which are trustworthy. Among land plants, as is well known, similarity of environment has often called forth similar adaptations among plants of widely separated families. The similarity of certain xerophilous Euphorbiaceae to Cactaceae is a ready illustration of this phenomenon. From what has been already said it is evident that among algae also strikingly similar forms exist in widely different groups. Instances might be multiplied. Compare, for example, the blue-green Gloeocapsa with the green Gloeocystis, the red Batrachospermum with the green Draparnaldia, the red Corallina with the green Cymopolia, the green Enteromorpha with the brown Asperococcus, the green Ulva with the red Porphyra, the red Nemalion with the brown Castagnea, and so on. But on the one hand similar forms seem to grow often under different conditions, while on the other hand different forms flourish under the same conditions. The conceivable variations in the conditions which would count in algal life are variations in the chemical character of the water--whether fresh, brackish or salt; or in the rate of movement of the water, whether relatively quiet, or a stream or a surf; or in the degree of illumination with the depth and transparency of the water. But the laws which determine the associations of various algae under one environment are as yet little understood. The occurrence of a plentiful mucilage in many freshwater forms is, however, doubtless a provision against desiccation on exposure. The fine subdivision of filamentous and net-forms is similarly a provision for easy access of water and light to all parts. The calcareous deposits in Characeae, Corallinaceae and Siphonaceae are at once a protection against attack and a means of support. The whip-forms would seem to be designed to resist injury from surf or current. The vesicles of Fucaceae and Laminariaceae prevent the sinking of the bulkier forms. But why certain Fucaceae favour certain zones in the littoral region, why certain epiphytes are confined to certain hosts, why Red and Brown Algae are not better represented in fresh water Or Green Algae in salt,--these are problems to which it is difficult to find a ready answer.

Uses.

Algae cannot be regarded as directly important in the industries. On the coasts of Europe marine algae detached by the autumnal gales are commonly carted on to the land as a convenient manure. Porphyra laciniata and Rhodymenia palmata are locally used as food, the latter being known as dulse. Agar-agar is a gelatinous substance derived from an eastern species of Gracilaria. The ash of seaweeds, known in Scotland as kelp, and in Brittany as varec, was formerly used as a source of iodine to a greater extent than is at present the case.

Occurence in the rocks.

Excepting where the thallus is impregnated with silica, as in Diatomaceae, or carbonate of lime, as in Corallinaceae, Characeae and some Siphonales, it is perhaps not surprising that algae should not have been extensively preserved in the fossil form. Considering, however, that it is generally believed that Bryophyta and vascular plants are descended from an algal ancestry, it is natural to suppose that, prior to the luxuriant vegetable growths of the Carboniferous period, there must have existed an age of algae. It was doubtless this expectation that has led to the description of a number of Silurian and Devonian remains as algae upon what is now regarded as inadequate evidence. The geologic record is, as perhaps is to be expected, exceedingly poor, except as regards the calcareous Siphonales, which are well represented at various horizons, from the Silurian to the Tertiary; even the Diatomaceae, which are found in great quantities in the Tertiary deposits, do not occur at all earlier than the chalk. It is believed, however, that the Devonian fossil, Nematophycus, is a Laminarian alga, but it is not until the late Secondary and the Tertiary formations that fossil remains of algae become frequent. (See PALAEOBOTANY.)

The subjoined list includes the larger standard works on algae, together with a number of papers to which reference is made in this article. For a detailed catalogue of Algological literature, see the ``Bibliotheca Phycologica'' in de Tonii's Syllope Algarum, vo1. i. (1889), with the addendum thereto in vol. iv. (1897) of the same work. GENERAL.--J. G. Agardh, Species, genera et ordines Algarum (vols. i-iii., Algernes Systematik (Lund, 1872-1899); J. E. Areschoug, ``Observationes Phycologicae,'' Nova Acta reg. soc. sci. Upsaliensis (Upsala, 1866-1875); F. F. Blackman, ``The Primitive Algae and the Flagellata,'' Ann. of Botany (vol. xiv., Oxford, 1900); E. Bornet and G. Thuret, Notes agologiques (fasc. i.-ii., Paris, 1876-1880); P. A. Dangeard, ``Recherches sur les algues inferieures,'' Ann. des sci. naturelles, Bot. (vol. vii., Paris, 1888); A. Derbes and A. J. J. Solier, Momoire de la physiologie des algues (Paris, 1856); J. B. de Toni, Sylloge Algarum---vol. i. Chlorophyceae, vol. ii. Bacillariaceae, vol. iii. Fucoideae, vol. iv. Florideae (Padua, 1889-1900); P. Falkenberg, ``Die Algen im weitesten Sinne,'' Schenk's Handbuch der Botanik (vol. ii., 1882); W. G. Farlow, Morine Algae of New England (Washington, 1881); W. H. Harvey, Phycologia Britannica (4 vols., London, 1846-1855); Nereis Boreali-Americana (3 pts., Washington, 1851-1858); Phycologia Australica (5 vols., London, 1858-1863); F. Hauck, ``Die Meeresalgen Deutschlands und Osterrichs,'' Rabenhort's Kryptogamen-Flora (Leipzig, 1885); F. R. Kjellman, The Algae of the Arctic Sea (Stockholm, 1883); F. T. Kutzing, Tabulae Phycologicae (19 vols., Nordhausen, 1845-1869); P. Kuckuck, Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Meercsalgen (Kiel and Leipzig, 1897-1899); G. Murray, Phycological Memoirs (London, 1892-1895) Naegeli, Die neueren Algensysteme (Zurich, 1847); F. Oltmanns, Morphologie und Biologie der Algen (Jena, Band i. 1904, Band ii. 1905); N. Pringsheim, ``Beitrage zur Morphologie der Meeresalgen,'' Abhand. Konigl. Akad. der Wissensch. (Berlin, 1862); J. Reinke, Atlas deutscher Meeresalgen (Berlin, 1889-1892); F. Schutt, Das Pflanzenleben der Hochsee (Leipzig, 1893); J. Stackhouse, Nereis britannica (ed. i., Bath, 1801; ed. ii., Oxford, 1816); G. Thuret and E. Bornet, Etudes phycologiques (Paris, 1878); D. Turner, Historia Fucorum (4 vols., London, 1808-1819); G. Zanardini, Iconographia Phycologia Adriatica (Venice, 1860-1876).

1. CYANOPHYCEAE.--E. Bornet and Ch. Flahault, ``Revision des Nostocacees heterocystees,'' Ann. des sc. naturelles, Bot.(vols. iii.-vii., Paris, 1887-1888); M. Gomont, ``Monographic des Oscillariees,'' Ann. des sc. naturelles, Bot. (vols. xv.-xvi., Paris, 1893); Hegler, ``Uber Kerntheilungserscheinungen,'' Ref. Botan. Centralbl. (vol. lxiv., Cassel, 1895); O. Kirchner, ``Schizophyceae'', in Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien (Leipzig, 1900).

2. CHLOROPHYCEAE.--A. Borzi, ``Studi anamorfici di alcune alghe verdi,'' Bull. Soc. Bot. Ital. in N. Giorn. Bot. Ital. (vol. xxii., Pisa, 1890); F. F. Blackman and A. G. Tansley, A Revision of the Classification of the Green Algae, reprinted from the New Phytologist (vol. i., London, 1903); K. Bohlin, ``Studier ofver nagra slagten af alggruppen confervales Borzi,'' Bihang till K. Svenska vel. akad. Handlinger (Bd. xxiii. afd. 3, 1897);--Ufkasttill, De grona algernas och arkegomiaternas bylogeni (Upsala, 1901); R. Chodat, ``On the Polymorphism of the Green Algae,'' Ann. of Botany (vol. xi., Oxford, 1897); M. C. Cooke, British Freshwater Algae (2 vols., London, 1884), British Desmids (London, 1887); G. Klebs, Die Bedingungen der Fortpflanzung bei einigen Algen und Pilzen (Jena, 1896); A. Luther, ``Uber Chlorosaccus, n.g.'' Bihang till K. Svenska vel. akad. Handlinger (Bd. xxiv. afd. 3, 1899); H. Grat zu Solms-Laubach, ``Monograph of the Acetabulariaceae,'' Trans. Linn. Soc. (Lond.) Bot. (London, 1895); N. Wille, ``Chlorophyceae'', in Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien (Leipzig, 1897).

3. PHAEOPHYCEAE.--E. A. L. Batters, ``On Ectocarpus secundus,'' Grevillea (vol. xxi., London, 1893); G. Berthold, ``Die geschlechliche Fortpflanzung der eigentlichen Phaeosooreen,'' Mitth. Zool. Stat. Neapel (vol. ii., Leipzig, 1881); G. Brebner, ``On the Classification of the Tilopteridaceae,'' Proc. Bristol Nat. Soc. (vol. viii., Bristol, 1896-1897); A. H. Church, ``On the Polymorphy of Cutleria multiflda,'' Ann. of Botany (vol. xii., Oxford, 1898); J. B. Farmer esnd J. Ll. Williams, ``Contributions to our Knowledge of the Life- history and Cytology of Fucaceae,'' Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. (vol. cxc., London, 1898); E. Janczewski, ``Observations sur l'accroissement du thalle des Phaeosporees,'' Mem. soc. nat. de sc. (Cherbourg, 1895); F. R. Kjellmann, ``Phaeophyceae,'' in Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilian (Leipzig, 1897); F. Oltmanns, ``Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Fucaceen,'' Bibliotheca botanica, xiv. (Cassel, 1889); C. Sauvageau, ``Observations relatives a la sexualite des Phaeosporees,'' Journal de botanique (vol. x., Paris, 1896); E. Strasburger, ``Kerntheilung und Befruchtung bei Fucus,'' Cytologische Studien (Berlin, 1897); F. Schutt, Die Peridinien der Plankton-Expedition (Kiel and Leipzig, 1895); R. Valiante, Le Cystoseirae del Golfo di Napoli (Leipzig, 1883); J. Ll. Williams, ``On the Antherozoids of Dictyota and Taonia,'' Ann. of Botany (vol. xi., Oxford, 1897).

4. RHODOPHYCEAE.--G. Berthold, ``Die Bangiacen des Golfes von Neapel,'' Mitth. Zool. Stat. Neapel (Naples, 1882); F. Oltmanns, ``Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Florideen,'' Botanische Zeitung (1898); R. W. Philligs, ``The Development of the Cystocarp in Rhodymeniales,'' i. and ii., Annals of Botany (vols. xi. xii., Oxford. 1897-1898); F. Schmitz, ``Untersuchungen uber die Befruchtung der Florideen,'' Sitzungsber. der konigl. Akad.der Wissensch. (Berlin, 1883); ``Kleinere Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Florideen,'' La Nuova Notarisia, 1892-1894; F. Schmitz, P. Falkenberg, P. Hauptfleisch, ``Rhodophyceae,'' in Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien (1897); W. Schmidle, ``Die Befruchtung, Keimung und Haarinsertion von Batrachospermum,'' Bot. Zeitung.. (1899); Sirodot, Les Batrachospermes (Paris, 1884); N. Wille, ``Uber die Befruchtung bei Nemalion multifidum,'' Ber. d. deutschen bot. Gesellsc. Band xii. (Berlin, 1894); J. J. Wolfe, ``Cytological Studies on Nemalion,'' Annals of Botany (vol. xviii., Oxford, 1904); S. Yamanouchi, ``The Life- History of Polysiphonia violacea,'' Botanical Gazette (vol. xli., Chicago, 1906). (R. W. P.)

ALGARDI, ALESSANDRO (1602-1654), Italian sculptor, was born at Bologna in 1602. While he was attending the school of the Caracci his preference for the plastic art became evident, and he placed himself under the instruction of the sculptor Conventi. At the age of twenty he was brought under the notice of Duke Ferdinand of Mantua, who gave him several commissions. He was also much employed about the same period by jewellers and others in modelling in gold, silver and ivory. After a short residence in Venice he went to Rome in 1625 with an introduction from the duke of Mantua to the pope's nephew, Cardinal Ludovisi, who employed him for a time in the restoration of ancient statues. The death of the duke of Mantua left him to his own resources, and for several years he earned a precarious maintenance from these restorations and the commissions of goldsmiths and jewellers. In 1640 he executed for Pietro Buoncompagni his first work in marble, a colossal statue of San Filippo Neri, with kneeling angels. Immediately after, he produced a similar group, representing the execution of St Paul, for the church of the Barnabite Fathers in Bologna. These works, displaying great technical skill, though with considerable exaggeration of expression and attitude, at once established Algardi's reputation, and other commissions followed in rapid succession. The turning point in Algardi's fortune was the accession of Innocent X., of the Bolognese house of Panfili, to the papal throne in 1644. He was employed by Camino Panfili, nephew of the pontiff, to design the Villa Doria Panfili outside the San Pancrazio gate. The most important of Algardi's other works were the monument of Leo XI., a bronze statue of Innocent X. for the capitol, and, above all, La Fuega d'Attila, the largest alto-relievo in the world, the two principal figures being about 10 ft. high. In 1650 Algardi met Velasquez, who obtained some interesting orders for his Italian companion in Spain. Thus there are four chimneys by Algardi in the palace of Aranjuez, where also the figures on the fountain of Neptune were executed by him. The Augustine monastery at Salamanca contains the tomb of the count and countess de Monterey, which was also the work of Algardi. From an artistic point of view, he was most successful in his portrait-statues and groups of children, where he was obliged to follow nature most closely. In his later years he became very avaricious and amassed a great fortune. He died in Rome on the 10th of June 1654.

See Le arti di Bologna disegnate da A. Caracci ed intagliati da S. Giulini, con' assistenza d' Alessandro A. Algardi (1740).

ALGAROTH, POWDER OF, a basic chloride of antimony. It was known to Basil Valentine, and was used medicinally by the Veronese physician Victor Algarotus about the end of the 16th century. Its composition is probably Sb4O5Cl2, and it may be prepared by the addition of much water to a solution of antimony chloride; a bulky amorphous precipitate being formed, which, on standing, gradually becomes crystalline. It is soluble in hydrochloric acid and tartaric acid, but insoluble in alcohol.

On its composition and preparation see E. Peligot, Annalen, 1847, lxiv. 280; L. Schaffer, Annalen, 1869, clii. 314; and R. W. E. MacIvor, Chem. News, 1875, xxxii. 229.

ALGAROTTI, FRANCESCO, COUNT (1712-1764), Italian philosopher and writer on art, was born on the 11th of December 1712 at Venice, and died at Pisa in 1764. He studied at Rome and Bologna, and at the age of twenty went to Paris, where he enjoyed the friendship of Voltaire and produced his great work Neutonianismo per le dame, a work on optics. Voltaire called him his cher cygne de Padoue. Returning from a journey to Russia, he met Frederick the Great who made him a count of Prussia (1740) and court chamberlain (1747). Augustus III. of Poland honoured him with the title of councillor. In 1754, after seven years' residence partly in Berlin and partly in Dresden, he returned to Italy, living at Venice and then at Pisa, where he died on the 3rd of May 1764. Frederick the Great erected to his memory a monument on the Campo Santo at Pisa. He was a man of wide knowledge, a connoisseur in art and music, and the friend of most of the leading authors of his time. His chief work on art is the Saggi sopra le belle arti (``Essays on the Fine Arts''). Among his other works may be mentioned Poems, Travels in Russia, Essay on Painting, Correspondence.

The best complete edition with biography was published by D. Michelessi (1791-1794).

ALGARVE, or ALGARVES, an ancient kingdom and province in the extreme S. of Portugal, corresponding with the modern administrative district of Faro, and bounded on the N. by Alemtejo, E. by the Spanish province of Huelva, and S. and W. by the Atlantic Ocean. Pop. (1900) 255,191; area, 1937 sq. m. The greatest length of the province is about 85 m. from E. to W.; its average breadth is about 22 m. from N. to S. The Serra de Malhao and the Serra de Monchique extend in the form of a crescent across the northern part of the province, and, sweeping to the south-west, terminate in the lofty promontory of Cape St Vincent, the south-west extremity of Europe. This headland is famous as the scene of many sea-fights, notably the defeat inflicted on the Spanish fleet in February 1797 by the British under Admiral Jervis, afterwards Earl St Vincent. Between the mountainous tracts in the north and the southern coast stretches a narrow plain, watered by numerous rivers flowing southward from the hills. The coast is fringed for 30 m. from Quarteira to Tavira, with long sandy islands, through which there are six passages, the most important being the Barra Nova, between Faro and Olinao. The navigable estuary of the Guadiana divides Algarve from Huelva, and its tributaries water the western districts. From the Serra de Malhao flow two streams, the Silves and Odelouca, which unite and enter the Atlantic below the town of Silves. In the hilly districts the roads are bad, the soil unsuited for cultivation, and the inhabitants few. Flocks of goats are reared on the mountain-sides. The level country along the southern coast is more fertile, and produces in abundance grapes, figs, oranges, lemons, olives, almonds, aloes, and even plantains and dates. The land is, however, not well suited for the production of cereals, which are mostly imported from Spain. On the coast the people gain their living in great measure from the fisheries, tunny and sardines being caught in considerable quantities. Salt is also made from sea-water. There is no manufacturing or mining industry of any importance. The harbours are bad, and almost the whole foreign trade is carried on by ships of other nations, although the inhabitants of Algarve are reputed to be the best seamen and fishermen of Portugal. The chief exports are dried fruit, wine, salt, tunny, sardines and anchovies. The only railway is the Lisbon-Faro main line, which passes north-eastward from Faro, between the Monchique and Malhao ranges. Faro (11,789), Lagos (8291), Loule (22,478), Monchique (7345), Olhao (10,009), Silves (9687) and Tavira (12,175), the chief towns, are described in separate articles.

The name of Algarve is derived from the Arabic, and signifies a land lying to the west. The title ``king of Algarve,'' held by the kings of Portugal, was first assumed by Alphonso III., who captured Algarve from the Moors in 1253.

ALGAU, or ALLGAU, the name now given to a comparatively small district forming the south-western corner of Bavaria, and belonging to the province of Swabia and Neuburg, but formerly applied to a much larger territory, which extended as far as the Danube on the N., the Inn on the S. and the Lech on the W. The Algau Alps contain several lofty peaks, the highest of which is Madelegabel (8681 ft.). The district is celebrated for its cattle, milk, butter and cheese.

ALGEBRA (from the Arab. af-jebr wa'l-muqabala, transposition and removal [of terms of an equation], the name of a treatise by Mahommed ben Musa al-Khwarizmi), a branch of mathematics which may be defined as the generalization and extension of arithmetic.

The subject-matter of algebra will be treated in the following article under three divisions:---A. Principles of ordinary algebra; B. Special kinds of algebra; C. History. Special phases of the subject are treated under their own headings, e.g. ALGEBRAIC FORMS; BINOMIAL; COMBINATORIAL ANALYSIS; DETERMINANTS; EQUATION; CONTINUED FRACTION; FUNCTION; GROUPS, THEORY OF; LOGARITHM; NUMBER; PROBABILITY; SERIES.

A. PRINCIPLES OF ORDINARY ALGEBRA

1. The above definition gives only a partial view of the scope of algebra. It may be regarded as based on arithmetic, or as dealing in the first instance with formal results of the laws of arithmetical number; and in this sense Sir Isaac Newton gave the title Universal Arithmetic to a work on algebra. Any definition, however, must have reference to the state of development of the subject at the time when the definition is given.

2. The earliest algebra consists in the solution of equations. The distinction between algebraical and arithmetical reasoning then lies mainly in the fact that the former is in a more condensed form than the latter; an unknown quantity being represented by a special symbol, and other symbols being used as a kind of shorthand for verbal expressions. This form of algebra was extensively studied in ancient Egypt; but, in accordance with the practical tendency of the Egyptian mind, the study consisted largely in the treatment of particular cases, very few general rules being obtained.

3. For many centuries algebra was confined almost entirely to the solution of equations; one of the most important steps being the enunciation by Diophantus of Alexandria of the laws governing the use of the minus sign. The knowledge of these laws, however, does not imply the existence of a conception of negative quantities. The development of symbolic algebra by the use of general symbols to denote numbers is due to Franciscus Vieta (Francois Viete, 1540-1603).This led to the idea of algebra as generalized arithmetic.

4. The principal step in the modern development of algebra was the recognition of the meaning of negative quantities. This appears to have been due in the first instance to Albert Girard (1595-1632), who extended Vieta's results in various branches of mathematics. His work, however, was little known at the time, and later was overshadowed by the greater work of Descartes (1596-1650).

5. The main work of Descartes, so far as algebra was concerned, was the establishment of a relation between arithmetical and geometrical measurement. This involved not only the geometrical interpretation of negative quantities, but also the idea of continuity; this latter, which is the basis of modern analysis, leading to two separate but allied developments, viz. the theory of the function and the theory of limits.

6. The great development of all branches of mathematics in the two centuries following Descartes has led to the term algebra being used to cover a great variety of subjects, many of which are really only ramifications of arithmetic, dealt with by algebraical methods, while others, such as the theory of numbers and the general theory of series, are outgrowths of the application of algebra to arithmetic, which involve such special ideas that they must properly be regarded as distinct subjects. Some writers have attempted unification by treating algebra as concerned with functions, and Comte accordingly defined algebra as the calculus of functions, arithmetic being regarded as the calculus of values.

7. These attempts at the unification of algebra, and its separation from other branches of mathematics, have usually been accompanied by an attempt to base it, as a deductive science, on certain fundamental laws or general rules; and this has tended to increase its difficulty. In reality, the variety of algebra corresponds to the variety of phenomena. Neither mathematics itself, nor any branch or set of branches of mathematics, can be regarded as an isolated science. While, therefore, the logical development of algebraic reasoning must depend on certain fundamental relations, it is important that in the early study of the subject these relations should be introduced gradually, and not until there is some empirical acquaintance with the phenomena with which they are concerned.

8. The extension of the range of subjects to which mathematical methods can be applied, accompanied as it is by an extension of the range of study which is useful to the ordinary worker, has led in the latter part of the 19th century to an important reaction against the specialization mentioned in the preceding paragraph. This reaction has taken the form of a return to the alliance between algebra and geometry (\S 5), on which modern analytical geometry is based; the alliance, however, being concerned with the application of graphical methods to particular cases rather than to general expressions. These applications are sometimes treated under arithmetic, sometimes under algebra; but it is more convenient to regard graphics as a separate subject, closely allied to arithmetic, algebra, mensuration and analytical geometry.

9. The association of algebra with arithmetic on the one hand, and with geometry on the other, presents difficulties, in that geometrical measurement is based essentially on the idea of continuity, while arithmetical measurement is based essentially on the idea of discontinuity; both ideas being equally matters of intuition. The difficulty first arises in elementary mensuration, where it is partly met by associating arithmetical and geometrical measurement with the cardinal and the ordinal aspects of number respectively (see ARITHMETIC.) Later, the difficulty recurs in an acute form in reference to the continuous variation of a function. Reference to a geometrical interpretation seems at first sight to throw light on the meaning of a differential coefficient; but closer analysis reveals new difficulties, due to the geometrical interpretation itself. One of the most recent developments of algebra is the algebraic theory at number, which is devised with the view of removing these difficulties. The harmony between arithmetical and geometrical measurement, which was disturbed by the Greek geometers on the discovery of irrational numbers, is restored by an unlimited supply of the causes of disturbance.

10. Two other developments of algebra are of special importance. The theory of sequences and series is sometimes treated as a part of elementary algebra; but it is more convenient to regard the simpler cases as isolated examples, leading up to the general theory. The treatment of equations of the second and higher degrees introduces imaginary and complex numbers, the theory of which is a special subject.

11. One of the most difficult questions for the teacher of algebra is the stage at which, and the extent to which, the ideas of a negative number and of continuity may be introduced. On the one hand, the modern developments of algebra began with these ideas, and particularly with the idea of a negative number. On the other hand, the lateness of occurrence of any particular mathematical idea is usually closely correlated with its intrinsic difficulty. Moreover, the ideas which are usually formed on these points at an early stage are incomplete; and, if the incompleteness of an idea is not realized, operations in which it is implied are apt to be purely formal and mechanical. What are called negative numbers in arithmetic, for instance, are not really negative numbers but negative quantities (\S 27 (i.)); and the difficulties incident to the ideas of continuity have already been pointed out.

12. In the present article, therefore, the main portions of elementary algebra are treated in one section, without reference to these ideas, which are considered generally in two separate sections. These three sections may therefore be regarded as to a certain extent concurrent. They are preceded by two sections dealing with the introduction to algebra from the arithmetical and the graphical sides, and are followed by a section dealing briefly with the developments mentioned in \S \S 9 and 10 above.

[The intermediate portion of this article is typeset in TeX and is available elsewhere.]

C. HISTORY Various derivations of the word ``algebra,'' which is of Arabian origin, have been given by different writers. The first mention of the word is to be found in the title of a work by Mahommed ben Musa al-Khwarizmi (Hovarezmi), who flourished about the beginning of the 9th century. The full title is ilm al-jebr wa'l-muqabala, which contains the ideas of restitution and comparison, or opposition and comparison, or resolution and equation, jebr being derived from the verb jabara, to reunite, and muqabala, from gabala, to make equal. (The root jabara is also met with in the word algebrista, which means a ``bone-setter,'' and is still in common use in Spain.) The same derivation is given by Lucas Paciolus (Luca Pacioli), who reproduces the phrase in the transliterated form alghebra e almucabala, and ascribes the invention of the art to the Arabians.

Other writers have derived the word from the Arabic particle al (the definite article), and gerber, meaning ``man.'' Since, however, Geber happened to be the name of a celebrated Moorish philosopher who flourished in about the 11th or 12th century, it has been supposed that he was the founder of algebra, which has since perpetuated his name. The evidence of Peter Ramus (1515-1572) on this point is interesting, but he gives no authority for his singular statements. In the preface to his Arithmeticae libri duo et totidem Algebrae (1560) he says: ``The name Algebra is Syriac, signifying the art or doctrine of an excellent man. For Geber, in Syriac, is a name applied to men, and is sometimes a term of honour, as master or doctor among us. There was a certain learned mathematician who sent his algebra, written in the Syriac language, to Alexander the Great, and he named it almucabala, that is, the book of dark or mysterious things, which others would rather call the doctrine of algebra. To this day the same book is in great estimation among the learned in the oriental nations, and by the Indians, who cultivate this art, it is called aljabra and alboret; though the name of the author himself is not known.,' The uncertain authority of these statements, and the plausibility of the preceding explanation, have caused philologists to accept the derivation from al and jabara. Robert Recorde in his Whetstone of Witte (1557) uses the variant algeber, while John Dee (1527-1608) affirms that algiebar, and not algebra, is the correct form, and appeals to the authority of the Arabian Avicenna.

Although the term ``algebra'' is now in universal use, various other appellations were used by the Italian mathematicians during the Renaissance. Thus we find Paciolus calling it l'Arte Magiore; ditta dal vulgo la Regula de la Cosa over Alghebra e Almucabala. The name l'arte magiore, the greater art, is designed to distinguish it from l'arte minore, the lesser art, a term which he applied to the modern arithmetic. His second variant, la regula de la cosa, the rule of the thing or unknown quantity, appears to have been in common use in Italy, and the word cosa was preserved for several centuries in the forms coss or algebra, cossic or algebraic, cossist or algebraist, &c. Other Italian writers termed it the Regula rei et census, the rule of the thing and the product, or the root and the square. The principle underlying this expression is probably to be found in the fact that it measured the limits of their attainments in algebra, for they were unable to solve equations of a higher degree than the quadratic or square.

Franciscus Vieta (Francois Viete) named it Specious Arithmetic, on account of the species of the quantities involved, which he represented symbolically by the various letters of the alphabet. Sir Isaac Newton introduced the term Universal Arithmetic, since it is concerned with the doctrine of operations, not affected on numbers, but on general symbols.

Notwithstanding these and other idiosyncratic appellations, European mathematicians have adhered to the older name, by which the subject is now universally known.

It is difficult to assign the invention of any art or science definitely to any particular age or race. The few fragmentary records, which have come down to us from past civilizations, must not be regarded as representing the totality of their knowledge, and the omission of a science or art does not necessarily imply that the science or art was unknown. It was formerly the custom to assign the invention of algebra to the Greeks, but since the decipherment of the Rhind papyrus by Eisenlohr this view has changed, for in this work there are distinct signs of an algebraic analysis. The particular problem---a heap (hau) and its seventh makes 19---is solved as we should now solve a simple equation; but Ahmes varies his methods in other similar problems. This discovery carries the invention of algebra back to about 1700 B.C., if not earlier.

It is probable that the algebra of the Egyptians was of a most rudimentary nature, for otherwise we should expect to find traces of it in the works of the Greek aeometers. of whom Thales of Miletus (640-546 B.C.) was the first. Notwithstanding the prolixity of writers and the number of the writings, all attempts at extracting an algebraic analysis from their geometrical theorems and problems have been fruitless, and it is generally conceded that their analysis was geometrical and had little or no affinity to algebra. The first extant work which approaches to a treatise on algebra is by Diophantus (q.v.), an Alexandrian mathematician, who flourished about A.D. 350. The original, which consisted of a preface and thirteen books, is now lost, but we have a Latin translation of the first six books and a fragment of another on polygonal numbers by Xylander of Augsburg (1575), and Latin and Greek translations by Gaspar Bachet de Merizac (1621-1670). Other editions have been published, of which we may mention Pierre Fermat's (1670), T. L. Heath's (1885) and P. Tannery's (1893-1895). In the preface to this work, which is dedicated to one Dionysius, Diophantus explains his notation, naming the square, cube and fourth powers, dynamis, cubus, dynamodinimus, and so on, according to the sum in the indices. The unknown he terms arithmos, the number, and in solutions he marks it by the final s; he explains the generation of powers, the rules for multiplication and division of simple quantities, but he does not treat of the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of compound quantities. He then proceeds to discuss various artifices for the simplification of equations, giving methods which are still in common use. In the body of the work he displays considerable ingenuity in reducing his problems to simple equations, which admit either of direct solution, or fall into the class known as indeterminate equations. This latter class he discussed so assiduously that they are often known as Diophantine problems, and the methods of resolving them as the Diophantine analysis (see EQUATION, Indeterminate.) It is difficult to believe that this work of Diophantus arose spontaneously in a period of general stagnation. It is more than likely that he was indebted to earlier writers, whom he omits to mention, and whose works are now lost; nevertheless, but for this work, we should be led to assume that algebra was almost, if not entirely, unknown to the Greeks.

The Romans, who succeeded the Greeks as the chief civilized power in Europe, failed to set store on their literary and scientific treasures; mathematics was all but neglected; and beyond a few improvements in arithmetical computations, there are no material advances to be recorded.

In the chronological development of our subject we have now to turn to the Orient. Investigation of the writings of Indian mathematicians has exhibited a fundamental distinction between the Greek and Indian mind, the former being pre-eminently geometrical and speculative, the latter arithmetical and mainly practical. We find that geometry was neglected except in so far as it was of service to astronomy; trigonometry was advanced, and algebra improved far beyond the attainments of Diophantus.

The earliest Indian mathematician of whom we have certain knowledge is Aryabhatta, who flourished about the beginning of the 6th century of our era. The fame of this astronomer and mathematician rests on his work, the Aryabhattiyam, the third chapter of which is devoted to mathematics. Ganessa, an eminent astronomer, mathematician and scholiast of Bhaskara, quotes this work and makes separate mention of the cuttaca (``pulveriser''), a device for effecting the solution of indeterminate equations. Henry Thomas Colebrooke, one of the earliest modern investigators of Hindu science, presumes that the treatise of Aryabhatta extended to determinate quadratic equations, indeterminate equations of the first degree, and probably of the second. An astronomical work, called the Surya-siddhanta (``knowledge of the Sun''), of uncertain authorship and probably belonging to the 4th or 5th century, was considered of great merit by the Hindus, who ranked it only second to the work of Brahmagupta, who flourished about a century later. It is of great interest to the historical student, for it exhibits the influence of Greek science upon Indian mathematics at a period prior to Aryabhatta. After an interval of about a century, during which mathematics attained its highest level, there flourished Brahmagupta (b. A.D. 598), whose work entitled Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta (``The revised system of Brahma'') contains several chapters devoted to mathematics. Of other Indian writers mention may be made of Cridhara, the author of a Ganita-sara (``Quintessence of Calculation''), and Padmanabha, the author of an algebra.

A period of mathematical stagnation then appears to have possessed the Indian mind for an interval of several centuries, for the works of the next author of any moment stand but little in advance of Brahmagupta. We refer to Bhaskara Acarya, whose work the Siddhanta-ciromani (``Diadem of anastronomical System''), written in 1150, contains two important chapters, the Lilavati (``the beautiful [science or art]'') and Viga-ganita (``root-extraction''), which are given up to arithmetic and algebra.

English translations of the mathematical chapters of the Brahma-siddhanta and Siddhanta-ciromani by H. T. Colebrooke (1817), and of the Surya-siddhanta by E. Burgess, with annotations by W. D. Whitney (1860), may be consulted for details.

The question as to whether the Greeks borrowed their algebra from the Hindus or vice versa has been the subject of much discussion. There is no doubt that there was a constant traffic between Greece and India, and it is more than probable that an exchange of produce would be accompanied by a transference of ideas. Moritz Cantor suspects the influence of Diophantine methods, more particularly in the Hindu solutions of indeterminate equations, where certain technical terms are, in all probability, of Greek origin. However this may be, it is certain that the Hindu algebraists were far in advance of Diophantus. The deficiencies of the Greek symbolism were partially remedied; subtraction was denoted by placing a dot over the subtrahend; multiplication, by placing bha (an abbreviation of bhavita, the ``product'') after the factom; division, by placing the divisor under the dividend; and square root, by inserting ka (an abbreviation of karana, irrational) before the quantity. The unknown was called yavattavat, and if there were several, the first took this appellation, and the others were designated by the names of colours; for instance, x was denoted by ya and y by ka (from kalaka, black).

A notable improvement on the ideas of Diophantus is to be found in the fact that the Hindus recognized the existence of two roots of a quadratic equation, but the negative roots were considered to be inadequate, since no interpretation could be found for them. It is also supposed that they anticipated discoveries of the solutions of higher equations. Great advances were made in the study of indeterminate equations, a branch of analysis in which Diophantus excelled. But whereas Diophantus aimed at obtaining a single solution, the Hindus strove for a general method by which any indeterminate problem could be resolved. In this they were completely successful, for they obtained general solutions for the equations ax(+ or -)by=c, xy=ax+by+c (since rediscovered by Leonhard Euler) and cy2=ax2+b. A particular case of the last equation, namely, y2=ax2+1, sorely taxed the resources of modern algebraists. It was proposed by Pierre de Fermat to Bernhard Frenicle de Bessy, and in 1657 to all mathematicians. John Wallis and Lord Brounker jointly obtained a tedious solution which was published in 1658, and afterwards in 1668 by John Pell in his Algebra. A solution was also given by Fermat in his Relation. Although Pell had nothing to do with the solution, posterity has termed the equation Pell's Equation, or Problem, when more rightly it should be the Hindu Problem, in recognition of the mathematical attainments of the Brahmans.

Hermann Hankel has pointed out the readiness with which the Hindus passed from number to magnitude and vice versa. Although this transition from the discontinuous to continuous is not truly scientific, yet it materially augmented the development of algebra, and Hankel affirms that if we define algebra as the application of arithmetical operations to both rational and irrational numbers or magnitudes, then the Brahmans are the real inventors of algebra.

The integration of the scattered tribes of Arabia in the 7th century by the stirring religious propaganda of Mahomet was accompanied by a meteoric rise in the intellectual powers of a hitherto obscure race. The Arabs became the custodians of Indian and Greek science, whilst Europe was rent by internal dissensions. Under the rule of the Abbasids, Bagdad became the centre of scientific thought; physicians and astronomers from India and Syria flocked to their court; Greek and Indian manuscripts were translated (a work commenced by the Caliph Mamun (813-833) and ably continued by his successors); and in about a century the Arabs were placed in possession of the vast stores of Greek and Indian learning. Euclid's Elements were first translated in the reign of Harun-al-Rashid (786-809), and revised by the order of Mamun. But these translations Were regarded as imperfect, and it remained for Tobit ben Korra (836-901) to produce a satisfactory edition. Ptolemy's Almagest, the works of Apollonius, Archimedes, Diophantus and portions of the Brahmasiddhanta, were also translated. The first notable Arabian mathematician was Mahommed ben Musa al-Khwarizmi, who flourished in the reign of Mamun. His treatise on algebra and arithmetic (the latter part of which is only extant in the form of a Latin translation, discovered in 1857) contains nothing that was unknown to the Greeks and Hindus; it exhibits methods allied to those of both races, with the Greek element predominating. The part devoted to algebra has the title al-jeur wa'lmuqabala, and the arithmetic begins with ``Spoken has Algoritmi,'' the name Khwarizmi or Hovarezmi having passed into the word Algoritmi, which has been further transformed into the more modern words algorism and algorithm, signifying a method of computing.

Tobit ben Korra (836-901), born at Harran in Mesopotamia, an accomplished linguist, mathematician and astronomer, rendered conspicuous Service by his translations of various Greek authors. His investigation of the properties of amicable numbers (q.v.) and of the problem of trisecting an angle, are of importance. The Arabians more closely resembled the Hindus than the Greeks in the choice of studies; their philosophers blended speculative dissertations with the more progressive study of medicine; their mathematicians neglected the subtleties of the conic sections and Diophantine analysis, and applied themselves more particularly to perfect the system of numerals (see NUMERAL), arithmetic and astronomy (q.v..) It thus came about that while some progress was made in algebra, the talents of the race were bestowed on astronomy and trigonometry (q.v..) Fahri des al Karbi, who flourished about the beginning of the 11th century, is the author of the most important Arabian work on algebra. He follows the methods of Diophantus; his work on indeterminate equations has no resemblance to the Indian methods, and contains nothing that cannot be gathered from Diophantus. He solved quadratic equations both geometrically and algebraically, and also equations of the form x2n+axn+b=0; he also proved certain relations between the sum of the first n natural numbers, and the sums of their squares and cubes.

Cubic equations were solved geometrically by determining the intersections of conic sections. Archimedes' problem of dividing a sphere by a plane into two segments having a prescribed ratio, was first expressed as a cubic equation by Al Mahani, and the first solution was given by Abu Gafar al Hazin. The determination of the side of a regular heptagon which can be inscribed or circumscribed to a given circle was reduced to a more complicated equation which was first successfully resolved by Abul Gud. The method of solving equations geometrically was considerably developed by Omar Khayyam of Khorassan, who flourished in the 11th century. This author questioned the possibility of solving cubics by pure algebra, and biquadratics by geometry. His first contention was not disproved until the 15th century, but his second was disposed of by Abul Weta (940-908), who succeeded in solving the forms x4=a and x4+ax3=b.

Although the foundations of the geometrical resolution of cubic equations are to be ascribed to the Greeks (for Eutocius assigns to Menaechmus two methods of solving the equation x3=a and x3=2a3), yet the subsequent development by the Arabs must be regarded as one of their most important achievements. The Greeks had succeeded in solving an isolated example; the Arabs accomplished the general solution of numerical equations.

Considerable attention has been directed to the different styles in which the Arabian authors have treated their subject. Moritz Cantor has suggested that at one time there existed two schools, one in sympathy With the Greeks, the other with the Hindus; and that, although the writings of the latter were first studied, they were rapidly discarded for the more perspicuous Grecian methods, so that, among the later Arabian writers, the Indian methods were practically forgotten and their mathematics became essentially Greek in character.

Turning to the Arabs in the West we find the same enlightened spirit; Cordova, the capital of the Moorish empire in Spain, was as much a centre of learning as Bagdad. The earliest known Spanish mathematician is Al Madshritti (d. 1007), whose fame rests on a dissertation on amicable numbers, and on the schools which were founded by his pupils at Cordoya, Dama and Granada. Gabir ben Allah of Sevilla, commonly called Geber, was a celebrated astronomer and apparently skilled in algebra, for it has been supposed that the word ``algebra', is compounded from his name.

When the Moorish empire began to wane the brilliant intellectual gifts which they had so abundantly nourished during three or four centuries became enfeebled, and after that period they failed to produce an author comparable with those of the 7th to the 11th centuries.

In Europe the decline of Rome was succeeded by a period, lasting several centuries, during which the sciences and arts were all but neglected. Political and ecclesiastical dissensions occupied the greatest intellects, and the only progress to be mcorded is in the art of computing or arithmetic, and the translation of Arabic manuscripts. The first successful attempt to revive the study of algebra in Christendom was due to Leonardo of Pisa. an Italian merchant trading in the Mediterranean. His travels and mercantile experience had led him to conclude that the Hindu methods of computing, were in advance of those then in general use, and in 1202 he published his Liber Abaci, which treats of both algebra and arithmetic. In this work, which is of great historical interest, since it was published about two centuries before the art of printing was discovered, he adopts the Arabic notation for nulnbers, and solves many problems, both arithmetical and algebraical. But it contains little that is original, and although the work created a great sensation when it was first published, the effect soon passed away, and the book was practically forgotten. Mathematics was more or less ousted from the academic curricula by the philosophical inquiries of the schoolmen, and it was only after an interval of nearly three centuries that a worthy successor to Leonardo appeared. This was Lucas Paciolus (Lucas de Burgo), a Minorite friar, who, having previously written works on algebra, arithmetic and geometry, published, in 1494, his principal work, entitled Summa de Arithmetica, Giometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita. In it he mentions many earlier writers from whom he had learnt the science, and although it contains very little that cannot be found in Leonardo's work, yet it is especially noteworthy for the systematic employment of symbols, and the manner in which it reflects the state of mathematics in Europe during this period. These works are the earliest printed books on mathematics. The renaissance of mathematics was thus effected in Italy, and it is to that country that the leading developments of the following century were due. The first difficulty to be overcome was the algebraical solution of cubic equations, the pons asinorum of the earlier mathematicians. The first step in this direction was made by Scipio Ferro (d. 1526), who solved the equation x3+ax=b. Of his discovery we know nothing except that he declared it to his pupil Antonio Marie Floridas. An imperfect solution of the equation x3+px2=q was discovered by Nicholas Tartalea (Tartaglia) in 1530, and his pride in this achievement led him into conflict with Floridas, who proclaimed his own knowledge of the form resolved by Ferro. Mutual recriminations led to a public discussion in 1535, when Tartalea completely vindicated the general applicability of his methods and exhibited the inefficiencies of that of Floridas. This contest over, Tartalea redoubled his attempts to generalize his methods, and by 1541 he possessed the means for solving any form of cubic equation. His discoveries had made him famous all over Italy, and he was earnestly solicited to publish his methods; but he abstained from doing so, saying that he intended to embody them in a treatise on algebra which he was preparing. At last he succumbed to the repeated requests of Girolamo or Geronimo Cardano, who swore that he would regard them as an inviolable secret. Cardan or Cardano, who was at that time writing his great work, the Ars Magna, could not restrain the temptation of crowning his treatise with such important discoveries, and in 1545 he broke his oath and gave to the world Tartalea's rules for solving cubic equations. Tartalea, thus robbed of his most cherished possession, was in despair. Recriminations ensued until his death in 1557, and although he sustained his claim for priority, posterity has not conceded to him the honour of his discovery, for his solution is now known as Cardan's Rule.

Cubic equations having been solved, biquadratics soon followed suit. As early as 1539 Cardan had solved certain particular cases, but it remained for his pupil, Lewis (Ludovici) Ferrari, to devise a general method. His solution, which is sometimes erroneously ascribed to Rafael Bombelh, was published in the Ars Magna. In this work, which is one of the most valuable contributions to the literature of algebra, Cardan shows that he was familiar with both real positive and negative roots of equations whelher rational or irrational, but of imaginary roots he was quite ignorant, and he admits his inability to resolve the so-called ``irreducible case'' (see EQUATION.) Fundamental theorems in the theory of equations are to be found in the same work. Clearer ideas of imaginary quantities and the ``irreducible case'' were subsequently published by Bombelli, in a work of which the dedication is dated 1572, though the book was not published until 1579.

Contemporaneously with the remarkable discoveries of the Italian mathematicians, algebra was increasing in popularity in Germany, France and England. Michael Stifel and Johann Scheubelius (Scheybl) (1494-1570) flourished in Germany, and although unacquainted with the work of Cardan and Tartalea, their writings are noteworthy for their perspicuity and the introduction of a more complete symbolism for quantities and operations. Stifel introduced the sign (+) for addition or a positive quantity, which was previously denoted by plus, piu, or the letter p. Subtraction, previously written as minus, mone or the letter m, was symbolized by the sign (-) which is still in use. The square root he denoted by (sqrt. ), whereas Paciolus, Cardan and others used the letter R.

The first treatise on algebra written in English was by Robert Recorde, who published his arithmetic in 1552, and his algebra entitled The Whetstone of Witte, which is the second part of Arithmetik, in 1557. This work, which is written in the form of a dialogue, closely resembles the works of Stifel and Scheubelius, the latter of whom he often quotes. It includes the properties of numbers; extraction of roots of arithmetical and algebraical quantities, solutions of simple and quadratic equations, and a fairly complete account of surds. He introduced the sign (=) for equality, and the terms binomial and residual. Of other writers who published works about the end of the 16th century, we may mention Jacques Peletier, or Jacobus Peletarius (De occulta parto Numerorum, quare Algebram vocant, 1558); Petrus Ramus (Arithmeticae Libri duo et totidem Algebrae, 1560), and Christoph Clavius, who wrote on algebra in 1580, though it was not published until 1608. At this time also flourished Simon Stevinus (Stevin) of Bruges, who published an arithmetic in 1585 and an algebra shortly afterwards. These works possess considerable originality, and contain many new improvements in algebraic notation; the unknown (res) is denoted by a small circle, in which he places an integer corresponding to the power. He introduced the terms multinomial, trinomial, quadrinomial, &c., and considerably simplified the notation for decimals.

About the beginning of the 17th century various mathematical works by Franciscus Vieta were published, which were afterwards collected by Franz van Schooten and republished in 1646 at Leiden. These works exhibit great originality and mark an important epoch in the history of algebra. Vieta, who does not avail himself of the discoveries of his predecessors--the negative roots of Cardan, the revised notation of Stifel and Stevin, &c.--introduced or popularized many new terms and symbols, some of which are still in use. He denotes quantities by the letters of the alphabet, retaining the vowels for the unknown and the consonants for the knowns; he introduced the vinculum and among others the terms coefficient, affirmative, negative, pure and adjected equations. He improved the methods for solving equations, and devised geometrical constructions with the aid of the conic sections. His method for determining approximate values of the roots of equations is far in advance of the Hindu method as applied by Cardan, and is identical in principle with the methods of Sir Isaac Newton and W. G. Horner.

We have next to consider the works of Albert Girard, a Flemish mathematician. This writer, after having published an edition of Stevin's works in 1625, published in 1629 at Amsterdam a small tract on algebra which shows a considerable advance on the work of Vieta. Girard is inconsistent in his notation, sometimes following Vieta, sometimes Stevin; he introduced the new symbols ff. for greater than and sec. for less than; he follows Vieta in using the plus (+) for addition, he denotes subtraction by Recorde's symbol for equality (=), and he had no sign for equality but wrote the word out. He possessed clear ideas of indices and the generation of powers, of the negative roots of equations and their geometrical interpretation, and was the first to use the term imaginary roots. He also discovered how to sum the powers of the roots of an equation.

Passing over the invention of logarithms (q.v.) by John Napier, and their development by Henry Briggs and others, the next author of moment was an Englishman, Thomas Harriot, whose algebra (Artis analyticae praxis) was published posthumously by Walter Warner in 1631. Its great merit consists in the complete notation and symbolism, which avoided the cumbersome expressions of the earlier algebraists, and reduced the art to a form closely resembling that of to-day. He follows Vieta in assigning the vowels to the unknown quantities and the consonants to the knowns, but instead of using capitals, as with Vieta, he employed the small letters; equality he denoted by Recorde's symbol, and he introduced the signs > and < for greater than and less than. His principal discovery is concerned with equations, which he showed to be derived from the continued multiplication of as many simple factors as the highest power of the unknown, and he was thus enabled to deduce relations between the coefficients and various functions of the roots. Mention may also be made of his chapter on inequalities, in which he proves that the arithmetic mean is always greater than the geometric mean.

William Oughtred, a contemporary of Harriot, published an algebra, Clavis mathematicae, simultaneously with Harriot's treatise. His notation is based on that of Vieta, but he introduced the sign X for multiplication, @ for continued proportion, :: for proportion, and denoted ratio by one dot. This last character has since been entirely restricted to multiplication, and ratio is now denoted by two dots (:). His symbols for greater than and less than (@ and @) have been completely superseded by Harriot's signs`

So far the development of algebra and geometry had been mutually independent, except for a few isolated applications of geometrical constructions to the solution of algebraical problems. Certain minds had long suspected the advairages which would accrue from the unrestricted application of algebra to geometry, but it was not until the advent of the philosopher Rene Descartes that the co-ordination was effected. In his famous Geometria (1637), which is really a treatise on the algebraic representation of geometric theorems, he founded the modern theory of analytical geometry (see GEOMETRY), and at the same time he rendered signal service to algebra, more especially in the theory of equations. His notation is based primarily on that of Harriot; but he differs from that writer in retaining the first letters of the alphabet for the known quantities and the final letters for the unknowns.

The 17th century is a famous epoch in the progress of science, and the mathematics in no way lagged behind. The discoveries of Johann Kepler and Bonaventura Cavalieri were the foundation upon which Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz erected that wonderful edifice, the Infinitesimal Calculus (q.v..) Many new fields were opened up, but there was still continual progress in pure algebra. Continued fractions, one of the earliest examples of which is Lord Brouncker's expression for the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle (see CIRCLE), were elaborately discussed by John Wallis and Leonhard Euler; the convergency of series treated by Newton, Euler and the Bernoullis; the binomial theorem, due originally to Newton and subsequently expanded by Euler and others, was used by Joseph Louis Lagrange as the basis of his Calcul des Fonctions. Diophantine problems were revived by Gaspar Bachet, Pierre Fermat and Euler; the modern theory of numbers was founded by Fermat and developed by Euler, Lagrange and others; and the theory of probability was attacked by Blaise Pascal and Fermat, their work being subsequently expanded by James Bernoulli, Abraham de Moivre, Pierre Simon Laplace and others. The germs of the theory of determinants are to be found in the works of Leibnitz; Etienne Bezout utilized them in 1764 for expressing the result obtained by the process of elimination known by his name, and since restated by Arthur Cayley.

In recent times many mathematicians have formulated other kinds of algebras, in which the operators do not obey the laws of ordinary algebra. This study was inaugurated by George Peacock, who was one of the earliest mathematicians to recognize the symbolic character of the fundamental principles of algebra. About the same time, D. F. Gregory published a paper ``on the real nature of symbolical algebra.'' In Germany the work of Martin Ohm (System der Mathematik, 1822) marks a step forward. Notable service was also rendered by Augustus de Morgan, who applied logical analysis to the laws of mathematics.

The geometrical interpretation of imaginary quantities had a far-reaching influence on the development of symbolic algebras. The attempts to elucidate this question by H. Kuhn (1750-1751) and Jean Robert Argand (1806) were completed by Karl Friedrich Gauss, and the formulation of various systems of vector analysis by Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Hermann Grassmann and others, followed. These algebras were essentially geometrical, and it remained, more or less, for the American mathematician Benjamin Peirce to devise systems of pure symbolic algebras; in this work he was ably seconded by his son Charles S. Peirce. In England, multiple algebra was developed by James Joseph Sylvester, who, in company with Arthur Cayley, expanded the theory of matrices, the germs of which are to be found in the writings of Hamilton (see above, under (B); and QUATERNIONS.)

The preceding summary shows the specialized nature which algebra has assumed since the 17th century. To attempt a history of the development of the various topics in this article is inappropriate, and we refer the reader to the separate articles.

REFERENCES.---The history of algebra is treated in all historical works on mathematics in general (see MATHEMATICS: References.) Greek algebra can be specially studied in T. L. Heath's Diophantus. See also John Wallis, Opera Mathematica (1693-1699), and Charles Sutton, Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary (1815), article ``Algebra.'' (C. E.*)

[The article on Algebraic Forms is typeset in TeX and is available elsewhere.]

ALGECIRAS, or ALGEZIRAS, a seaport of southern Spain in the province of Cadiz, 6 m. W. of Gibraltar, on the opposite side of the Bay of Algeciras. Pop. (1900) 13,302. Algeciras stands at the head of a railway from Granada, but its only means of access to Gibraltar is by water. Its name, which signifies in Arabic the island, is derived from a small islet on one side of the harbour. It is supplied with water by means of a beautiful aqueduct. The fine winter climate of Algeciras attracts many invalid visitors, on whom the town largely depends for its prosperity. The harbour is bad, but at the beginning of the 20th century it became important as a fishing-station. Whiting, soles, bream, bass and other fish are caught in great quantities by the Algeciras steam-trawlers, which visit the Moroccan coast, as well as Spanish and neutral waters. There is also some trade in farm produce and building materials which supplies a fleet of small coasters with cargo.

Algeciras was perhaps the Portus Albus of the Romans, but it was probably refounded in 713 by the Moors, who retained possession of it until 1344. It was then taken by Alphonso XI. of Castile after a celebrated siege of twenty months, which attracted Crusaders from all parts of Europe; among them being the English earl of Derby, grandson of Edward III. It is said that during this siege gunpowder was first used by the Moors in the wars of Europe. The Moorish city was destroyed by Alphonso; it was first reoccupied by Spanish colonists from Gibraltar in 1704; and the modern town was erected in 1760 by King Charles III. During the siege of Gibraltar in 1780- 1782, Algeciras was the station of the Spanish fleet and floating batteries. On the 6th of July 1801 the English admiral Sir James Saumarez attacked a Franco-Spanish fleet off Algeciras, and sustained a reverse; but on the 12th he again attacked the enemy, whose fleet was double his own strength, and inflicted on them a complete defeat. The important international conference on Moroccan affairs, which resulted in an agreement between France and Germany, was held at Algeciras from the 16th of January to the 7th of April 1906. (See MOROCCO.)

ALGER OF LIEGE (d c. 1131), known also as ALGER OF CLUNY and ALGERUS MAGISTER, a learned French priest who lived in the first half of the 12th century. He was first a deacon of the church of St Bartholomew at Liege, his native town, and was then appointed (c. 1100) to the cathedral church of St Lambert. He declined many offers from German bishops and finally retired to the monastery of Cluny, where he died about 1131 at a great age and leaving a good reputation for piety and intelligence. His History of the Church of Liege, and many of his other works, are lost. The most important of those still extant are: 1. De Misericordia et Justitia, a collection of biblical and patristic extracts with a commentary (an important work for the history of church law and discipline), which is to be found in the Anecdota of Martene, vol. v. 2. De Sacramentis Corporis et Sanguinis Domini; a treatise, in three books, against the Berengarian heresy, highly commended by Peter of Cluny and Erasmus. 3. De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio; given in B. Pez's Anecdota, vol. iv. 4. De Sacrificio Missae; given in the Collectio Scriptor. Vet. of Angelo Mai, vol. ix. p. 371.

See Migne, Patrol Ser. Lat. vol. clxxx. pp. 739-.972; Herzog- Hauck, Realencyk.fur prot. Theol., art. by S. M. Deutsch.

ALGER, RUSSELL ALEXANDER (1836--1907), American soldier and politician, was born in Lafayette township, Medina county, Ohio, on the 27th of February 1836. Left an orphan at an early age, he worked on a farm to pay his expenses at Richfield (Ohio) Academy, was a schoolmaster for two winters, and, having studied law in the meantime, was admitted to the bar in 1859. He began practice at Cleveland, Ohio, but early in 1860 he removed to Michigan, where he abandoned his profession and engaged in the lumber business. Enlisting in a Michigan cavalry regiment in September 1861, he rose from captain to colonel, distinguished himself in the Gettysburg campaign and under Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, and in 1864 and 1865 respectively received the brevets of brigadier-general and major-general of volunteers. After the war he invested extensively in pine lands in Michigan, and accumulated a large fortune in the lumber business. In 1884 he was elected governor of Michigan on the Republican ticket, serving from 1885 to 1887. In 1889--1890 he was commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic. From 1897 to 1899 he was secretary of war in President McKinley's cabinet. His administration of the war department during the Spanish-American War was severely criticized for extravagance in army contracts, for unpreparedness, and for genetal inefficiency, charges which he answered in his The Spanish-American War (1901). The extent of his personal responsibility is at least uncertain. In 1902 he was appointed by the governor of Michigan, and in 1903 was elected by the state legislature, as United States senator to complete the unexpired term of James Mcmillan (1838-1902). He died at Washington, D.C., on the 24th of January 1907.

ALGERIA (Algerie), a country of North Africa belonging to France, bounded N. by the Mediterranean, W. by Morocco, S. by the Sahara and E. by Tunisia. The boundaries, however, are in part not accurately determined. Algeria extends for about 650 m. along the coast, and stretches inland from 320 to 380 m., lying between 2 deg. 10' W. and 8 deg. 50, E., and 32 deg. and 37 deg. N. It is divided, politically, into three departments-- Oran in the west, Algiers in the centre and Constantine in the east. Its area is 184,474 sq. m., exclusive of the dependent Saharan regions, which have an area of some 750,000 sq. m. (see SAHARA, TUAT, &c.).

Physical Features.--The character of the Algerian coast is severe and inhospitable. The western half is bordered by a hilly rampart, broken only here and there, in the bays where the larger streams find their outlet, by flat and sandy plains. Between Dellys and Philippeville high mountains rise almost sheer from the sea, leaving only a narrow strip of beach. East of Philippeville the mountains recede from the coast, and the rampart of hills reappears. Only between Bona and La Calle is the general character of the sea-board low and sandy. Save near the towns and in the cultivated district of Kabylia, the coast is bare and uninhabited; and in spite of numerous indentations, of which the most important going from west to east are the Gulf of Oran, the Gulf of Arzeu, the Bay of Algiers, and the gulfs of Bougie, Stora and Bona, there are few good harbours. From time immemorial, indeed, this coast has had an evil reputation among mariners, quite apart from the pirates who for centuries made it the base of their depredations. A violent current, starting from the Straits of Gibraltar, rushes eastward along the shore, and, hurled back from the headlands, is deflected to the West. In summer the east wind brings dense and sudden fogs; while in winter the northerly gales blow straight into the mouths of the harbours. In these circumstances navigation is especially perilous for sailing craft. The terrors of this ``savage sea and inhospitable shore,'' once described by Sallust, have, however, been greatly mitigated by the introduction of steam, the improvement of the harbours, and the establishment by the French government of an excellent system of lighthouses.

Southward from the sea the country falls naturally into three divisions, clearly distinguished by their broad physical characteristics. The healthy, and on the whole fertile coast region, from 50 to 100 m. in width, is known, as in Morocco and Tunisia. as the Tell (Arabic for ``hill''). It is a mountainous country intersected with rocky canons and fertile valleys, which occasionally broaden out into alluvial plains like that of the Shelif, or the Metija near Algiers, or those in the neighbourhood of Oran and Bona. Behind the Tell is a lofty table-land with an average elevation of 3000 ft., consisting of vast plains, for the most part arid or covered with esparto grass, in the depressions of which are great salt lakes and swamps (Arabic, shats) fed by streams which can find no outlet to the sea through the encircling hills. To the south this region is divided by the Great Atlas from the deserts of the Sahara, with its oases, in which the boundary of Algeria is lost.

The country is traversed by lofty ranges of the Atlas system, which run nearly parallel to the coast, and rise in places over 7000 ft. These are commonly divided into two leading chains, distinguished as the Great1 and Little Atlas. The Great, or Saharan Atlas contains some of the highest points in the country. The chief ranges are Ksur and Amur in the west and the Aures in the east. The peak of Shellia, the highest point in Algeria, in the Aures range, has a height of 7611 ft. In the Amur are Jebel Ksel (6594 ft.) and Tuila Makna (6561 ft.). The Little Atlas, otherwise the Tell or Maritime Atlas, lies between the sea and the Saharan Atlas, and is composed of many distinct ranges, generally of no great elevation and connected by numerous transverse chains forming extensive table-lands and elevated valleys. The principal ranges of the Little Atlas--from west to east--are the Tlemcen (5500 ft.); the Warsenis (with Kef Sidi Omar, 6500 ft.); the Titeri (4900 ft.); the Jurjura, with the peak of Lalla Kedija (7542 ft.) and Mount Babor (6447 ft.); and the Mejerda (3700 ft.), which extends into Tunisia. The Jurjura range, forming the background of the plains between Algiers and Bougie, extends through the district of Kabylia, with which for grandeur of scenery no other part of Algeria can compare. South of the Jurjura and separated from it by the valley of the Sahel, is the Biban range with a famous double pass of the same name, through which alone access is gained to the highlands beyond. The Bibans or Portes de fer (Iron Gates) consist of two defiles with stupendous walls of rock, which by erosion have assumed the most fantastic shapes. In the case of the Petite porte the walls in some places are not more than twelve feet apart. The Dahra range (see MOSTAGANEM) overlooks the sea, and is separated from the Warsenis by the valley of the Shelif (see ATLAS MOUNTAINS, SAHARA and TUAT.)

The rivers are numerous but the majority are short. Most of them rise in the mountains near the coast, and rush down through deep and rocky channels. During the rainy season they render communication between different parts of the country extremely difficult. The most important river, both from its length and volume, is the Shelif. It rises on the northern slopes of the Amur mountains and flows N.E. across the high plateau, piercing the little Atlas between the Warsenis and Titeri ranges. It then turns W. and reaches the Mediterranean at the eastern end of the Gulf of Arzeu. The Shelif, which has many tributaries, is about 430 m. long. The Seybuse (about 150 m. long), formed by the union of several small streams in the department of Constantine, runs through a fertile valley and reaches the Mediterranean near Bona. The Sahel (about 100 m. long), which contains the greatest body of water after the Shelif, rises in the department of Algiers near Aumale, and flows for the most part N.E. to its mouth near Bougie. The Kebir or Rummel--the river is known by both names--is formed by the union of several small streams south of Constantine, and flows past that town N.W. 140 m. to the sea. Among the less important rivers which empty into the Mediterranean are the Macta, the Tafna, the Harrach and the Mazafran. The Macta, but 3 m. long, enters the sea in the Gulf of Arzeu, some 25 m. W. of the mouth of the Shelif. It is formed by the Habra (140 m.) and the Sig (130 m.), which rise in the Amur mountains and flowing north unite in a marshy plain, whence issues the Macta. On the lower courses of the Habra and the Sig, barrages have been built for irrigation purposes. The Habra barrage holds 38,000,000 cubic metres; that on the Sig 18,000,000. The Tafna (about 100 m.) rises in a large cavern in the mountains south of Tlemcen and flows N.E. to the sea at Rachgun. It has many affluents; the largest, the Isser (70 m.), joins it on the east bank about 30 m. above its mouth. The Harrach (40 m.), a picturesque stream, enters the Mediterranean in the Bay of Algiers. The Mazafran (50 m.) crosses the plains S.W of Algiers, reaching the sea N. of Kolea. The Mejerda and its affluent the Mellegue, rivers of Tunisia (q.v.), have their rise in Algeria, in the mountainous country east of Constantine. None of these rivers is navigable. Besides these there are a number of streams in the interior, but they are usually dry except in the rainy season.

Algeria abounds in extensive salt lakes and marshes. Of the lakes in the northern part of the country near the coast the principal are,--the Fezara, 14 m. S.W. of Bona; Sebkha and El Melah, south of Oran; and three small lakes in the immediate vicinity of La Calle. In the high plateaus are the Shat-el-Gharbi or Western Shat, the Shat-el-Shergui or Eastern Shat, the Zarhez- Gharbi and the Zarhez-Shergui, the Shat-el-Hodna and a number of others. South of the Jebel Aures is another series of salt lakes closely connected with the Shat-el-Jerid (of Tunisia). The chief of these is the Shat Melrir. There are a number of warm mineral springs, containing principally salts of lime, used with success by both Arabs and Europeans in several kinds of disease.

One of the most remarkable groups of springs is near Guelma, in the department of Constantine. There are two principal sources. Their waters unite in one stream whose course is marked by gigantic limestone cones, some of which are 36 ft. high. The water, which is at boiling point, falls into natural basins of a creamy white colour, formed by the deposit of carbonate of lime. The springs are known to the Arabs as Hammam Meskutin (the ``accursed baths''). The name and the cones are accounted for by a legend which represents that at this spot lived a sheikh who, finding his sister too beautiful to be married to anyone else, determined to espouse her himself. Whilst the marriage festivities were being celebrated the judgment of Heaven descended on the guilty pair; fire came from below; the water became hot and the sheikh and his sister were turned into stone. Within a mile of Hammam Meskutin are ferruginous and sulphureous springs.

[Geology.--The geology of Algeria has been worked out in considerable detail by French geologists. Rocks of Archean and Palaeozoic ages contribute only a small share, but there is a very complete sequence of formations from the Lias to those of recent date. An interesting and orderly petrological sequence of Tertiary igneous rocks has been determined.

Archean rocks form the cores of the ancient crystalline masses within the littoral zone from Algiers to Bona. They consist of gneiss, mica-schist, quartzites, crystalline limestones and conglomerates. Primary deposits are doubtfully represented by the detached fragments of unfossiliferous strata of Traras, Blida and east of Orleansville. Carboniferous and Permian strata are possibly represented by some black and grey micaceous shales with beds of coal in the Jurjura. At Jebel-kahar and west of Traras, Pomel attributes certain conglomerates, red sandstones and purple and green shales to the Permian. The rocks of Secondary and Tertiary ages have been profoundly affected by the Alpine movements, and are thrown into a series of complex folds, so that in numerous instances their stratigraphy is imperfectly understood. The gypsiferous and saliferous marls of Shellata, Suk Ahras and Ain Nussi have yielded Triassic fossils. Triassic rocks are considered to be present in Constantine and in the Jurjura. Rhaetic beds (Infra Lias), consisting of dolomites and siliceous limestones, have been recognized at Saida. The lower and middle divisions of the Jurassic, composed of massive limestones more or less siliceous and overlain by the marls and highly fossiliferous limestones of the Upper Lias, play an important part in the constitution of the chief mountains of the Tell. In south Oran they determine the principal axes of the mountain ranges. The Inferior Cretaceous rocks include the Neocomian and Gault (Albian and Aptian) subdivisions, and form the flanks of the mountains in the Tell. In the south the Albian subdivision of the Gault is alone represented. Rocks of Upper Cretaceous age are represented in all their stages. The Cenomanian presents two distinct facies. North of the Atlas it belongs to the European type, in the south it contains a fauna of oysters and sea-urchins belonging to the facies ``africano-syrian'' of Zittel. There is a continuous transition between the Senonian and Danian, proving that the Algerian region did not participate in the immersion which occurred in Provence and in the Corbieres of southern France during the Danian epoch. The Lower Eocene rocks contain the chief phosphatic deposits of Algeria, those of the Tebessa region being the best known. Certain species of nummulites, which are very common, distinguish the various subdivisions of the Eocene. The highest beds, consisting of quartzites, shales, marls and sandstones with the remains of fucoids, are found in the Jurjura and Shellata. The Oligocene period consists of a marine phase confined to the littoral zone of Kahylia, and of a continental phase occupying vast areas composed of lacustrine, alluvial, gypsiferous marls, sandstones and conglomerates. The Miocene formation obtains its greatest development in Oran and is much expanded in the Tell. At the close of the Lower Miocene period (beds with Ostrea crassissima) great modifications in the relief and limits of the Algerian formations took place. Hitherto marine conditions were confined to the littoral; in Middle Miocene times (Helvetian) the sea broke in and spread in a south-east direction in the form of long ramified fjords but did not extend as far as the Sahara. To the Pliocene period the marine deposits of the Sahel of Algiers and of the Sahel Jijelli must be attributed; also the lacustrine marls and limestone of the basin of Constantine, and the ancient alluviums of the basins and depressions which bear no relation to the existing valleys. Among the Tertiary volcanic rocks those of acid types (granites, granulites) were the first to appear and are developed latitudinally; rocks of intermediate type (dacites, andesites) characterize the Miocene and early Pliocene periods; while the basic rocks (ophites, elaeolite syenites and basalts) attained their maximum in later Pliocene and Quaternary times. Their development, feeble as compared with the acid rocks, is meridional. The Quaternary period includes an older stage containing fragments of fossils from the underlying formations; a later stage containing the bones of Hippopotamus, Elephas, Rhinoceros, Camelus, Equus; and finally the vast accumulations of sand which began to be formed in prehistoric times. The broad platforms of the hamada are covered with Quaternary deposits. (W. G.*)]

CIimate.--Although Algeria enjoys a warm climate, the temperature varies considerably in different parts, according to the elevation and configuration of the country. Along the coast the weather is very mild, the thermometer rarely falling to freezing-point even in winter. The coldest month is January, the hottest August. The mean annual temperature in the coast plains is 66 deg. F. Heavy rains prevail from December to March, and rain is not uncommon during other months also, excepting June, July, August and September, which are very hot and rainless. The average annual fall is 29 in. On the mountains and the high plateaus the winter is often very severe; snow lies for six months on the higher peaks of the Kabyle mountains. On the plateaus the temperature passes from one extreme to the other, and rain seldom falls. (For the climate of the Saharan region see SAHARA.) Throughout Algeria, especially in the summer, there is a great difference between day and night temperature, notably in the inland districts. Between May and September the sirocco, or hot wind of the desert, sweeps at intervals over the country, impregnating the air with fine sand; but in general, with the exception of the vicinity of the marshes, the climate is healthy. Its salubrity has been increased by the draining of many marshes in the neighbourhood of the larger towns.

Fauna and Flora.--The fauna of Algeria resembles that of the Mediterranean system generally, though many animals once common to South Europe and North Africa--such as the lion, panther, hyena and jackal--are now extinct in Europe. Lions, formerly plentiful, have disappeared, and leopards and panthers are rare; but jackals, hyenas and Algerian apes are not uncommon. Wild boars are found in the oak forests, and brown bears in the uplands. In the south are various species of antelope and wild goat. Red deer (Cervus elaphus barbarus), which differ from the typical European species only in the fact that the second tine is absent from their antlers, a peculiarity which they share with the red deer of Spain and Corsica, are still found in the forest of Beni Saleh in the department of Constantine, but are being exterminated by forest fires and poaching Arabs. Of domestic animals the camel and sheep are the most important. The chief wealth of the Arab tribes of the plateaus consists in their immense flocks of sheep. The horses and mules of Algeria are noted; and the native cattle are an excellent stock on which to graft the better European varieties. Of birds, eagles, vultures, hawks, owls and quails are common; snipe, curlews, plovers, storks and herons frequent the marshy parts; and the ostrich the desert. Partridges and woodcocks are fairly common. Among the reptiles are various species of serpents, tortoises, turtles, lizards, &c. Locusts are common and sometimes do great damage. Scorpions are numerous in the acid regions. Algerian prawns, especially those of Bona, are large and of a delicate flavour. Of the twenty-one species of freshwater fish, five are peculiar to the country, but none is of much economic value save the barbel and eel. A species of trout is found in the streams near Collo, but in none of the other rivers.

The flora of Algeria consists of about 3000 species, of which some 450 are indigenous to the country, 100 being peculiar to the Sahara. The flora of the Tell is South European in character. The agave and prickly pear, the myrtle, the olive and the dwarf palm grow luxuriantly; and the fields are covered with narcissus, iris and other flowers of every hue. Roses, geraniums, and the like, bloom throughout the winter. The flora of the high plateaus consists chiefly of grasses, notably various kinds of alfa or esparto, and aromatic herbs. In the Saharan oases the characteristic tree is the date palm--``the king of the desert.'' Over 11,000 sq. m. of the mountainous country near the coast are covered with forests of various species of oak, pine, fir, cedar, elm, ash, maple, olive, many of them of gigantic size, and other trees; and on the slopes of the mountains up to 3800 ft. above the sea the fig is common. Its fruit forms one of the staple articles of food among the Kabyles. Cork and carob trees are also very common. A magnificent conifer, the Atlantic pinsapo (Abies Pinsapo), is found on the heights round Bougie. The forests suffer great damage from fires, occasioned in part by the custom of burning up the grass every autumn, and in part by incendiarism. In 1902 alone, according to the British consular report, ``at a moderate estimate the number of trees damaged or destroyed might be put down at 6,000,000.'' Forestry is a state-protected industry, the government owning over 500,000 acres of forest. The chief tree which has commercial value is the cork, and the stripping of the bark is under official supervision. The first cork harvest was gathered in 1890, when 1474 cwt. were sold for L. 1361. Since that date the yield has been very great. Another tree of great commercial value is the soap tree (Sapindus utilis), introduced into the country in 1845 and grown extensively in low-lying lands near the coast.

Inhabitants.--Algeria had in 1906 a population of 5,231,850, consisting of a medley of European, Eastern and African races. The census showed that in addition to French settlers and their descendants (278,976) there were 117,475 Spaniards (most of whom are found in the department of Oran), 33,153 Italians (chiefly in the department of Constantine), 64,645 Jews, 6217 Maltese, and smaller communities of British, Germans, Levantines and Greeks. There were, moreover, 170,444 naturalized French citizens, mainly of Spanish and Italian origin. (These figures are exclusive of 73,790 persons counted apart, as not enjoying municipal rights. In the 73,799 the troops, French and native, are included). The total European population, in which category are reckoned the Jews, other than those of Mzab, was 680,263. Compared with the census of 1901 the figures of 1906 showed a decrease of 14,000 French, 36,000 Spaniards and 5000 Italians, but an increase of nearly 100,000 in the foreigners naturalized. Of other races: (1) The Berbers (q.v.) constitute 75% of the entire population. The Kabyles (q.v.), a division of the Berbers, occupy chiefly the more mountainous parts of the Tell, but some live in the plains and valleys. (2) Arabs, a numerous class, are found principally in the south. (3) The so-called ``Moors,'' generally of mixed blood, inhabit the towns and villages near the sea-coast. (4) Negroes, originally brought from the interior and sold as slaves, are now found chiefly in the towns, where they serve as labourers and domestic servants. (5) Mzabites (q.v.) or Beni-Mzab, a distinct branch of the Berber race, are for the most part engaged in petty trade, and are distinguished by their sleeveless coats of many colours. (6) A few Tuareg (q.v.), another division of the Berbers, are among the nomads found in the Algerian Sahara. The Kabyles, Mzabites, Tuareg, Arabs and Moors all profess Mahommedanism, though it is only among the Arabs that its tenets are held in any purity. The census of 1906 gave the number of the native population at 4,447,149. There were also 28,639 non-European foreigners in the country.

The Turks, though for a considerable period the dominant race, were never very numerous in Algeria. The majority of them were repatriated by the French. The Kuluglis, descendants of Turks by native women--once a distinct race noted for their energy, bravery and pride--have almost ceased to exist as a separate people, being merged in the Moors. Jews have long been settled in Algeria. Some are supposed to have fled thither when expelled from Cyrenaica in the reign of the emperor Hadrian, and others on their banishment from Italy in 1342. The purely ``African'' Jew is now found only in the oases in the extreme south of the country. In the towns the ``native'' Jews have intermarried with later arrivals from Europe. A remarkable feast is kept annually by the Algerian Jews to commemorate the defeat by the Turks of the emperor Charles V.'s attempt to capture Algiers (1541). The Jews, who enjoyed religious freedom under the Mahommedans, believed that the success of the Spaniards would but lead to their own persecution.

Chief Towns.--The chief towns are Algiers, the capital and principal seaport, with a population (1906), including Mustapha and other suburbs, of 154,049; Oran (100,499),2 a western seaport and capital of the department of the same name, and Constantine (46,806), an inland town, capital of the department of Constantine. Besides Algiers and Oran the principal seaports are Bona (36,004), Mostaganem (19,528), Philippeville (16,539), Bougie (10,419), Cherchel (4733) and La Calle (2774). Inland, besides Constantine, are the important towns of Tlemcen ( 24,060), Sidi-bel-Abbes (24,494), Mascara (18,989) and Blida (16,866). In the Sahara are Biskra (4218), El Wad (7586), Tuggurt (2073) and Wargla (3579). All these places are separately noticed.

Nemours (1229) is a seaport near the Moroccan frontier, which formerly bore an Arabic name pregnant with its history --Jamaa-el-Ghazuat (``rendezvous of the pirates''). The surrounding country is rich in mineral wealth. Arzeu (3085) occupies a site on the western side of the gulf of the same name. It has a good harbour, is the outlet for the produce of several fertile valleys, and the starting-point of a railway which penetrates into the Sahara. This railway passes Saida (6256), 106 m. south of Arzeu, one of the capitals of Abd-el-Kader, and serves to bring down from the high plateaus their rich crops of esparto grass. Four miles S.E. of Arzeu is a Berber village, where are interesting ruins of a Roman settlement, identified by some authorities as the Portus Magnus of Pliny; other authorities claim Oran as occupying the site of Portus Magnus. In the vicinity are the famous quarries of Numidian marbles. Tenes (3176) is a seaport situated about 100 m. east of Arzeu on the site of the Phoenician town, afterwards the Roman colony, of Cartenna. Outside the town to the west is a public garden in which are several Roman tombs with inscriptions. Between Tenes and Algiers are Tipasa (q.v.) and Castiglione (1634), formerly called Bu-Ismail, both pleasant watering-places. Five miles inland west of Castiglione is Kolea (2932), a town dating from 1550 and originally peopled by Moslem refugees from Spain. It was destroyed by earthquake in 1825 and has been rebuilt largely in European style. It contains the kubba of a celebrated marabout, Sidi Embarek, who lived in the 17th century. Dellys (3275), 50 m. by sea E. of Algiers, has a small harbour sheltered from the W. and N.W. winds only. It is a walled town regularly laid out, built by the French on the site of the Roman Ruscurium, the western ramparts of which may still be seen. Jijelli (4878), on the eastern side of the Gulf of Bougie, occupies the site of the Roman colony of Igilgilis. The old town, built on a rocky peninsula, was completely destroyed by earthquake in 1856. A new town arose eastward of the former site, which is now restored as a citadel. Twenty miles by sea west of Philippeville is Collo (2258), a city of considerable importance during the Roman occupation. It was the Kollops Magnus of Ptolemy.

Twenty-three miles S.W. by rail from Algiers is Bufarik (the ``hanging well''); pop. 5980. A thoroughly French town, it dates from 1835, when General Drouet d'Erlon established there an entrenched camp on a hillock in the midst of a pestilential swamp. Soon afterwards Marshal Clausel began to build a regular city, which was at first called Medina Clausel in his honour. The draining of the site and neighbourhood was a costly undertaking, and was only accomplished by the sacrifice of many lives. The town, surrounded by vast orchards and farms, is now one of the most flourishing in the country; and the most important market in the colony for the sale of cattle and agricultural produce is held there. Sixty-three miles S.W. of Algiers is Medea (4030)--supposed to stand on the site of a Roman town--finely situated on a plateau 3000 ft. above the sea. It is surrounded by a wall pierced by five gates. An ancient aqueduct is built into the eastern side of the wall. The town, which was chosen by the Turks as capital of the beylik of Titeri, is now French in character. Miliana (3991), which occupies the site of the Roman Milliana, lies about midway between Blida and Orleansville, is 2400 ft. above the sea, and is built on a plateau of the Zakkar mountains, commanding magnificent views of the valley of the Shelif. It possesses few remains of antiquity. An old Moorish minaret has been turned into a clock tower. The town, which is walled, has been rebuilt by the French. The chief streets are bordered by trees and have streams of water running down either side. Hammam R'Irha to the N.E. of Miliana, noted from the time of the Romans for its thermal springs, occupies a picturesque position 1800 ft. above the sea. Being the only place within easy distance of western Europe where patients can take with safety a course of baths during the winter months, it has become a resort of invalids. Orleansville (3510), on the extensive plain of the Shelif, 130 m. S.W. by rail from Algiers. and 132 m. N.E. from Oran, is an important military station. The basilica of St Reparatus, discovered in 1843, was allowed to be used as a public stable and has been completely destroyed. There was in it a beautiful mosaic of which, fortunately, drawings exist. From this it appears that the church was built in A.D. 324, and that St Reparatus, bishop of the diocese, was buried in it in 475. Orleansville occupies the site of the Roman Castellum Tingitanum.

Ninety miles S.W. of Bougie is Aumale (2350), a town and military post established by the French in 1846 on the site of the ancient Auzia. The Roman town was founded in the reign of Augustus, and it flourished for two centuries before it disappeared from history. Out of the materials of the ancient city the Turks built a fort, which at the time of the French occupation was itself a heap of ruins. Setif (12,261), the Sitifis Colonia of the Romans, is 50 m. S.E. of Bougie and 97 m. by rail W. of Constantine. It stands 3573 ft. above the sea, and is the junction of several great lines of communication. Its market is attended by Kabyles, Arabs of the plateaus and people from the Sahara. The town has been entirely rebuilt in the French style. Most of the Roman ruins, even those existing at the time of the French occupation (1839), have disappeared. The walls of the Roman city, restored probably by the Byzantines, have been incorporated in the French walls, which are pierced by four gates. Batna (5279), a walled town 3350 ft. above the sea, 50 m. S. of Constantine by the railway to Biskra, commands the passage of the Aures mountains by which the nomads of the Sahara were wont to enter the Tell. Its importance rests on its strategic position. On the railway between Constantine and Bona and 76 m. from the latter, is Guelma (6584), the Roman Kalama, finely situated on the right bank of the Seybuse. The French occupied the place in 1836 and built their town out of the Roman ruins. Thirty miles S.E. of Guelma is Suk Ahras (7602), a station on the railway to Tunis, identified with the Roman city Tagaste, the birthplace of St Augustine.

Towns in the Sahara.--On the southern slopes of the Great Atlas, 2437 ft. above the sea, looking out on the Saharan desert, and 200 m. in a straight line S.W. of Algiers, is the ancient town of El Aghuat (erroneously written Laghouat); pop. 5660. It formerly belonged to Morocco, by whom it was ceded to the Turks towards the close of the 17th century. It was stormed on the 4th of December 1852 by the French, who almost entirely destroyed the Arab town. The modern town contains little of interest, but is an important military station. One hundred and twelve miles S. of El Aghuat, and 36 m. W.N.W. of Wargla, is Ghardaia (pop. 7868), the capital of the Mzab country, annexed by France in 1882. This country consists of seven oases, five in close proximity and two isolated. The town of Ghardaia (in the local documents Taghardeit) is situated on a mosque-crowned hill in the middle of the Wadi Mzab, 1755 ft. above the sea. Ghardaia, which is divided by walls into three quarters, is built of limestone and the houses are in terraces one above the other. The central quarter is the home of the ruling tribe, the Beni-Mzab. The eastern quarter belongs to the Jews, of whom there are about 300 families; the western is occupied by the Medabia, Arabs from the Jebel Amur. The gardens belong exclusively to the Beni-Mzab. According to native accounts the town was founded about the middle of the 16th century. Aghrem Baba Saad, a small ruined town to the west of Ghardaia, is the fortified post in which the Beni-Mzab took refuge when the Turks under Salah Rais (about 1555) attempted unsuccessfully to subjugate the country. Next to Ghardaia the most important Mzabite town is Beni-Isguen (pop. 4916), an active trading centre. Guerrara, one of the two isolated oases, 37 m. N.E. of Ghardaia, contains a flourishing commercial town with 1912 inhabitants. The caravan route south from Ghardaia brings the traveller, after a journey of 130 m., to the oasis and town of El Golea (pop. about 2500). The town consists of three portions--the citadel on a limestone hill, the upper and the lower town--separated by irregular plantations of date trees. The place is an important station for the caravan trade between Algeria and the countries to the south. It was occupied by the French under General Gallifet in 1873. El Golea was originally a settlement of the Zenata Berbers, by whom it was known as Taorert, and there is still a considerable Berber element in its population. The full Arab name is El Golea'a el Menia'a, or the ``little fortress well defended.''

Archaeology.--Algeria is rich in prehistoric memorials of man, especially in megalithic remains, of which nearly every known kind has been found in the country. Numerous flints of palaeolithic type have been discovered, notably at Tlemcen and Kolea. Near Jelfa, in the Great Atlas, and at Mechera-Sfa (``ford of the flat stones''), a peninsula in the valley of the river Mina not far from Tiaret in the department of Oran, are vast numbers of megalithic monuments. In the Kubr-er-Rumia--``grave of the Roman lady'' (Roman being used by the Arabs to designate strangers of Christian origin)--the Medrassen and the Jedars, Algeria possesses a remarkable series of sepulchral monuments. The Kubr-er-Rumia--best known by its French name, Tombeau de la Chretienne, tradition making it the burial-place of the beautiful and unfortunate daughter of Count Julian--is near Kolea, and is known to be the tomb of the Mauretanian king Juba II. and of his wife Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, and Mark Antony. It is built on a hill 756 ft. above the sea. Resting on a lower platform, 209 ft. square, is a circular stone building surmounted by a pyramid. Originally the monument was about 130 ft. in height, but it has been wantonly damaged. Its height is now 100 ft. 8 in.: the cylindrical portion 36 ft. 6 in., the pyramid 64 ft. 2 in. The base, 198 ft. in diameter, is ornamented with 60 engaged Ionic columns. The capitals of the columns have disappeared, but their design is preserved among the drawings of James Bruce, the African traveller. In the centre of the tomb are two vaulted chambers, reached by a spiral passage or gallery 6 1/2 ft. broad, about the same height and 489 ft. long. The sepulchral chambers are separated by a short passage, and are cut off from the gallery by stone doors made of a single slab which can be moved up and down by levers, like a portcullis. The larger of the two chambers is 142 ft. long by 11 ft. broad and 11 ft. high. The other chamber is somewhat smaller. The tomb was early violated, probably in search of treasure. In 1555 Salah Rais, pasha of Algiers, set men to work to pull it down, but the records say that the attempt was given up because big black wasps came from under the stones and stung them to death. At the end of the 18th century Baba Mahommed tried in vain to batter down the tomb with artillery. In 1866 it was explored by order of the emperor Napoleon III., the work being carried out by Adrian Berbrugger and Oscar Maccarthy.

The Medrassen is a monument similar to the Kubr-er-Rumia, but older. It was built about 150 B.C. as the burial-place of the Numidian kings, and is situated 35 m. S.W. of Constantine. The form is that of a truncated cone, placed on a cylindrical base, 196 ft. in diameter. It is 60 ft. high. The columns encircling the cylindrical portion are stunted and much broader at the base than the top; the capitals are Doric. Many of the columns, 60 in number, have been much damaged. When the sepulchral chamber was opened in 1873 by Bauchetet, a French engineer officer, clear evidence was found that at some remote period the tomb had been rifled and an attempt made to destroy it by fire.

The Jedars (Arab. ``walls'' or ``buildings'') are in the department of Oran. The name is given to a number of sepulchral monuments placed on hill-tops. A rectangular or square podium is in each case surmounted by a pyramid. The tombs date from the 5th to the 7th century of the Christian era, and lie in two distinct groups between Tiaret and Frenda, a distance of 35 m. Tiaret (pop. 5778), an ancient town modernized by the French, can be reached by railway from Mostaganem. Near Frenda (2063), which has largely preserved its old Berber character, are numerous dolmens and prehistoric rock sculptures.

Algeria contains many Roman remains besides those mentioned and is also rich in monuments of Saracenic art. For a description of the chief antiquities see the separate town articles, including, besides those already cited, Lambessa, Tebessa, Tipasa and Timgad.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us