The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 42

ATHEISM, MODERN, ascribed by Ruskin to "the unfortunate persistence of the clergy in teaching children what they cannot understand, and in employing young consecrate persons to a.s.sert in pulpits what they do not know."

ATHELNEY, ISLE OF, an island in a marsh near the confluence of the Tone and Parret, Somerset; Alfred's place of refuge from the Danes.

ATHE'NA, the Greek virgin G.o.ddess of wisdom, particularly in the arts, of war as of peace, happily called by Ruskin the "'Queen of the Air,' in the heavens, in the earth, and in the heart"; is said to have been the conception of Metis, to have issued full-armed from the brain of Zeus, and in this way the child of both wisdom and power; wears a helmet, and bears on her left arm the aegis with the Medusa's head; the olive among trees, and the owl among animals, were sacred to her.

ATHENaeUM, a school of learning established in Rome about 133 by Hadrian.

ATHENaeUS, a Greek writer of the 3rd century, wrote a curious miscellany of a book ent.i.tled "Deipnosophistae, or the Suppers of the Learned," extant only in an imperfect state.

ATHENAG'ORAS, an able Christian apologist of the 2nd century, was Athenian and a pagan by birth, but being converted to Christianity, wrote an apology in its defence, and a treatise on the resurrection of the dead.

ATH'ENS, the capital of Attica, and the chief city of ancient Greece, at once the brain and the heart of it; the resort in ancient times of all the able and wise men, particularly in the domain of literature and art, from all parts of the country and lands beyond; while the monuments of temple and statue that still adorn it give evidence of a culture among the citizens such as the inhabitants of no other city of the world have had the genius to surpa.s.s, though the name Athens has been adopted by or applied to several cities, Edinburgh in particular, that have been considered to rival it in this respect, and is the name of over twenty places in the United States. The two chief monuments of the architecture of ancient Athens, both erected on the Acropolis, are the PARTHENON (q. v.), dedicated to Athena, the finest building on the finest site in the world, and the Erechtheum, a temple dedicated to Poseidon close by; is the capital (100) of modern Greece, the seat of the government, and the residence of the king.

ATHLONE (7), a market-town on the Shannon, which divides it, and a chief military station.

ATHOLE, a district in the N. of Perthshire, which gives name to a branch of the Murray family.

ATHOLE-BROSE, oatmeal, honey, and whisky mixed.

ATHOLE, SIR JOHN JAMES HUGH STEWART-MURRAY, 7TH DUKE OF, honourably distinguished for having devoted years of his life to editing the records of the family and the related history; _b_. 1840

A'THOS, MOUNT, or MONTE SANTO (6), a mountain 6780 ft. high at the southern extremity of the most northerly peninsula of Salonica, in Turkey, covered with monasteries, inhabited exclusively by monks of the Greek Church, and rich in curious ma.n.u.scripts; the monks devote themselves to gardening, bee-culture, and other rural occupations, the more devout among them at one time celebrated for the edification they derived from the study of their own navels.

ATLANTA (65), the largest city in Georgia, U.S.; a large manufacturing and railway centre.

ATLANTES, figures of men used in architecture instead of pillars.

ATLANTIC, THE, the most important, best known, most traversed and best provided for traffic of all the oceans on the globe, connecting, rather than separating, the Old World and the New; covers nearly one-fifth of the surface of the earth; length 9000 m., its average breadth 2700 m.; its average depth 15,000 ft., or from 3 to 5 m., with waves in consequence of greater height and volume than those of any other sea.

ATLAN'TIS, an island alleged by tradition to have existed in the ocean W. of the Pillars of Hercules; Plato has given a beautiful picture of this island, and an account of its fabulous history. THE NEW, a Utopia figured as existing somewhere in the Atlantic, which Lord Bacon began to outline but never finished.

AT'LAS, a t.i.tan who, for his audacity in attempting to dethrone Zeus, was doomed to bear the heavens on his shoulders; although another account makes him a king of Mauritania whom Perseus, for his want of hospitality, changed into a mountain by exposing to view the head of the Medusa.

ATLAS MOUNTAINS, a range in N. Africa, the highest 11,000 feet, the GREATER in Morocco, the LESSER extending besides through Algeria and Tunis, and the whole system extending from Cape Nun, in Morocco, to Cape Bon, in Tunis.

ATMAN, THE, in the Hindu philosophy, the divine spirit in man, conceived of as a small being having its seat in the heart, where it may be felt stirring, travelling whence along the arteries it peers out as a small image in the eye, the pupil; it is centred in the heart of the universe, and appears with dazzling effect in the sun, the heart and eye of the world, and is the same there as in the heart of man.

AT'OLL, the name, a Polynesian one, given to a coral island consisting of a ring of coral enclosing a lagoon.

ATOMIC THEORY, the theory that all compound bodies are made up of elementary in fixed proportions.

ATOMIC WEIGHT, the weight of an atom of any body compared with that of hydrogen, the unit.

ATRA'TO, a river in Colombia which flows N. into the Gulf of Darien; is navigable for 200 m., proposed, since the failure of the Panama scheme, to be converted, along with San Juan River, into a ca.n.a.l to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific.

A'TREUS, a son of Pelops and king of Mycenae, who, to avenge a wrong done him by his brother Thyestes, killed his two sons, and served them up in a banquet to him, for which act, as tradition shows, his descendants had to pay heavy penalties.

ATRI'DES, descendants of Atreus, particularly Agamemnon and Menelaus, a family frequently referred to as capable of and doomed to perpetrating the most atrocious crimes.

AT'ROPOS, one of the three Fates, the one who cut asunder the thread of life; one of her sisters, Clotho, appointed to spin the thread, and the other, Lachesis, to direct it.

AT'TALUS, the name of three kings of Pergamos: A. I., founded the library of Pergamos and joined the Romans against Philip and the Achaeans (241-197 B.C.); A. II., kept up the league with Rome (157-137); A. III., bequeathed his wealth to the Roman people (137-132).

ATTERBURY, FRANCIS, an English prelate, in succession dean of Christ Church, bishop of Rochester, and dean of Westminster; a zealous Churchman and Jacobite, which last brought him into trouble on the accession of the House of Hanover and led to his banishment; died in Paris. He was a scholarly man, an eloquent preacher, and wrote an eloquent style (1662-1731).

ATTIC BEE, Sophocles, from the sweetness and beauty of his productions.

ATTIC FAITH, inviolable faith, opposed to Punic.

ATTIC MUSE, Xenophon, from the simplicity and elegance of his style.

ATTIC SALT, pointed and delicate wit.

ATTIC STYLE, a pure, cla.s.sical, and elegant style.