The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 20

ALMA, a river in the Crimea, half-way between Eupatoria and Sebastopol, where the allied English, French, and Turkish armies defeated the Russians under Prince Menschikoff, Sept. 20, 1854.

ALMACK'S, a suite of a.s.sembly rooms, afterwards known as Willis's Rooms, where select b.a.l.l.s used to be given, admission to which was a certificate of high social standing.

ALMADEN (9), a town on the northern slope of the Sierra Morena, in Spain, with rich mines of quicksilver.

ALMA'GRO, DIEGO D', a confederate of Pizzaro in the conquest of Peru, but a quarrel with the brothers of Pizzaro about the division of the spoil on the capture of Cuzco, the capital of Chile, led to his imprisonment and death (1475-1538).--DIEGO D', his son, who avenged his death by killing Pizzaro, but being conquered by Vaca de Castro, was himself put to death (1520-1542).

AL-MAMOUN, the son of HAROUN-EL-RASCHID, the 7th Abbaside caliph, a great promoter of science and learning; _b_. 833.

ALMANACH DE GOTHA, a kind of European peerage, published annually by Perthes at Gotha; of late years extended so as to include statesmen and military people, as well as statistical information.

ALMANSUR, ABU GIAFAR, the 2nd Abbaside caliph and the first of the caliphs to patronise learning; founded Bagdad, and made it the seat of the caliphate; _d_. 775.

ALMANSUR, ABU MOHAMMED, a great Moorish general in the end of the 10th century, had overrun and nearly made himself master of all Spain, when he was repulsed and totally defeated by the kings of Leon and Navarre in 948.

AL'MA-TAD'EMA, LAURENCE, a distinguished artist of Dutch descent, settled in London; famous for his highly-finished treatment of cla.s.sic subjects; _b_. 1836.

ALMAVIVA, a character in Beaumarchais' _Marriage de Figaro_, representative of one of the old n.o.blesse of France, recalling all their manners and vices, who is duped by his valet Figaro, a personification of wit, talent, and intrigue.

ALMEIDA, a strong fortress in the province of Beira, on the Spanish frontier of Portugal.

ALMEIDA, FRANCESCO, the first Portuguese viceroy of India, a firm and wise governor, superseded by Albuquerque, and killed on his way home by the Kaffirs at the Cape in 1510.--LORENZO, his son, acting under him, distinguished himself in the Indian seas, and made Ceylon tributary to Portugal.

ALMERIA (37), a chief town and seaport in the S. of Spain, an important and flouris.h.i.+ng place, next to Granada, under the Moors, and at one time a nest of pirates more formidable than those of Algiers.

ALMIGHTY DOLLAR, the Almighty whom the Americans are charged with wors.h.i.+pping, first applied to them, it would seem, by Was.h.i.+ngton Irving.

ALMOHADES, a Moslem dynasty which ruled in N. Africa and Spain from 1129 to 1273.

ALMO'RA, a high-lying town at the foot of the Himalayas, 85 m. N. of Bareilly.

ALMORAVIDES, a Moslem dynasty which subdued first Fez and Morocco, and then S. Spain, from 1055 to 1147.

ALNWICK, the county town of Northumberland, on the Aln; at the north entrance is Alnwick Castle, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland, one of the most magnificent structures of the kind in England, and during the Border wars a place of great strength.

ALOE, a genus of succulent plants embracing 200 species, the majority natives of S. Africa, valuable in medicine, in particular a purgative from the juice of the leaves of several species.

ALOES WOOD, the heart of certain tropical trees, which yields a fragrant resinous substance and admits of high polish.

ALOST (25), a Belgian town on the Dender, 19 m. NW. from Brussels, with a cathedral, one of the grandest in Belgium, which contains a famous painting by Rubens, "St. Roche beseeching Christ to arrest the Plague at Alost."

ALOYSIUS, ST., See GONZAGA.

ALOYSIUS, ST., an Italian n.o.bleman, who joined the Society of Jesus; canonised for his devotion to the sick during the plague in Rome, to which he himself fell a victim, June 21, 1591.

ALPACA, a gregarious ruminant of the camel family, a native of the Andes, and particularly the tablelands of Chile and Peru; is covered with a long soft silky wool, of which textile fabrics are woven; in appearance resembles a sheep, but is larger in size, and has a long erect neck with a handsome head.

ALP-ARSLAN (Brave Lion), a sultan of the Seljuk dynasty in Persia, added Armenia and Georgia to his dominions (1030-1072).

ALPES, three departments in SE. France: the Ba.s.sES-A, in NE.

part of Provence, bounded by Hautes-Alpes on the N. and Var on the S., sterile in the N., fertile in the S., cap. Digne; HAUTES-A., forming part of Dauphine, traversed by the Cottian Alps, climate severe, cap.

Gap; A. MARITIMES, E. of the Ba.s.ses-A., bordering on Italy and the Mediterranean, made up of the territory of Nice, ceded by Italy, and of Monaco and Var; cap. Nice.

ALPHE'US, a river in the Peloponnesus, flowing west, with its source in Arcadia; also the name of the river-G.o.d enamoured of the nymph Arethusa, and who pursued her under the sea as far as Sicily, where he overtook her and was wedded to her.

ALPINE CLUB, a club of English gentlemen devoted to mountaineering, first of all in the Alps, members of which have successfully addressed themselves to attempts of the kind on loftier mountains.

ALPINE PLANTS, plants whose natural habitat approaches the line of perpetual snow.

ALPS, THE, the vastest mountain system in Europe; form the boundary between France, Germany, and Switzerland on the N. and W., and Italy on the S., their peaks mostly covered with perpetual snow, the highest being Mont Blanc, within the frontiers of France. According to height, they have been distributed into _Fore, Middle_, and _High:_ the Fore rising to the limit of trees; the Middle, to the line of perpetual snow; and the High, above the snow-line. In respect of range or extent, they have been distributed into _Western, Middle_, and _Eastern:_ the Western, including the Maritime, the Cottian, the Dauphine, and the Graian, extend from the Mediterranean to Mont Blanc; the Middle, including the Pennine and Bernese, extend from Mont Blanc to the Brenner Pa.s.s; and the Eastern, including the Dolomite, the Julian, and the Dinaric, extend from the Brenner and Hungarian plain to the Danube. These giant ma.s.ses occupy an area of 90,000 sq. m., and extend from the 44th to the 48th parallel of lat.i.tude.

ALPUJAR'RAS, a rich and lovely valley which stretches S. from the Sierra Nevada in Spain.

ALRUNA-WIFE, the household G.o.ddess of a German family.

ALSACE-LORRAINE' (1,640), a territory originally of the German empire, ceded to Louis XIV. by the peace of Westphalia in 1648, but restored to Germany after the Franco-German war in 1870-71, by the peace of Frankfort; is under a governor general bearing the t.i.tle of "Statthalter"; is a great wine-producing country, yields cereals and tobacco, its cotton manufacture the most important in Germany.