The sugar maple does not generally succeed very well in England, where it is rarely seen, and where, even when in health, it is not more than 15 or 16 feet high. particularly valuable, being chiefly used for coarse work, where lightness and toughness are required, yet there is scarcely any more universally cultivated for the sake of the striking effect it produces, whether as a single tree, or planted in Cultivation. The hardy maples, which are the avenues, or in masses. It thrives upon poor only kinds of any importance in this country, are sandy or gravelly soil, especially near the sea, all increased either by seeds or layers. The where few other trees will succeed; and will even European species readily yield their keys, which bear the smoke of London, although not so well should be gathered when fully ripe, and immedias some others. Many varieties are known to ately buried in heaps of river sand, where they gardeners, of which the following are the most may remain till the following February; they may deserving notice:-1. The Red or Gold-striped. then be sown in beds, rather thinly, and, when -Leaves stained with yellow and red. 2. The one year old, should be transplanted and treated Silver-striped.—Leaves marked with streaks of like other forest trees. They ought never to be white. 3. The Golden.--Leaves having altoge- headed back, as oaks and Spanish chestnuts are. ther a yellow tint. 4. The Corstorphine Plane. From layers they all make excellent plants very -Distinguished by its broad leaves, and more rapidly. They are occasionally budded upon the vigorous mode of growth. common sycamore, but this mode is little practised in England. ACERATHE'RIUM. There is also found in the woods of Hungary, near Szánto, what botanists consider a variety, Some fossil Rhinocewith the lower lobes of the leaves as large as the rata have been thus named by Kaup. upper. By some this is called A. palmifolium. ACERI NEÆ, a tribe of plants comprehendAcer Platanoides, the Norway maple, is a fine ing only the maples [ACER] and the ash-leaved tree, with very handsome glossy deep-green leaves, maples [NEGUNDO]. They belong to the Polyfor the sake of which it is a great deal cultivated. petalous division of the Dicotyledonous class, The northern and midland parts of Europe, and and are related to TILIACEE, or the Linden the north of Asia, as far as the Ural chain, pro- tribe: they are also akin to a tribe of tropical duce this species. In the Russian empire it plants called MALPIGHIACEÆ. They are known passes from the state of a shrub, in the northern-1, by their flowers being what is called unprovinces, to that of a handsome tree with a trunk symmetrical, that is, not having the various parts two feet thick, in the more southern districts. agreeing in number: for instance, while the calyx Its wood is valued for turners' work; from its and corolla are divided each into five parts, there ascending sap a kind of coarse sugar has been pro- are seven, eight, or nine stamens, and three divicured, in the same way as from the A. sacchari- sions of the pistillum-2, by their stamens being , in America. Two varieties are known to hypogynous, and inserted upon a disk-3, by gardeners; one, the silver-striped, in which the their winged fruit, or keys---and, 4, by their petals leaves are slightly stained with white; and the having no appendages upon them. The species other, the cat-leaved, in which the leaves are are all trees or shrubs, with opposite stalked exdeeply and irregularly jagged. When the foot- stipulate leaves, and are found exclusively in the stalks of the leaves are broken they exude a north of Europe, Asia, America, and India. A milky fluid. sweet mucilaginous sap is common in these plants, from which sugar can be manufactured. ACERVULA'RIA, a genus of fossil Madre phyllica. Acer saccharinum, the sugar maple. From a little to the north of Saint Jean, in Canada, to the woods of Upper Virginia, and probably still farther south, this species prevails; and it forms! ACETAL, a compound first called by Döbea large portion of the vegetation of New Bruns- reiner oxygenated æther. It is formed, together wick, Nova Scotia, Vermont, and New Hamp- with aldehyde, acetic acid, and acetic æther, by a shire, sometimes becoming as much as 80 feet slow action of alcoholic vapour on precipitated high. In the autumn the woods of those coun- platinum. It is a thin colourless liquid, of a puntries are dyed of a crimson hue by the changing gent æthereal odour; its density is 0-823, and leaves of the sugar maple. The wood is hard, its boiling point 204°. It is soluble in seven and has a satiny lustre, but it is readily attacked parts of water, and miscible with alcohol in all by insects, and is not of much value, except when proportions. It consists of its grain is accidentally waved, and then it is in request for the cabinet-makers. Michaux states, that it may be at all times known from that of the red maple by a very simple test. If you pour a drop or two of the solution of sulphate of iron upon the wood of the sugar maple, ACETATE, a salt resulting from a combinain a minute it becomes of a greenish cast, while that tion of acetic acid with an alkaline, earthy, meof the red maple becomes deep blue. The saccha- tallic, or vegeto-alkaline base-four varieties rine matter contained in its ascending sap is the which may be exemplified by the acetates of principal cause of this species being in so much soda, lime, lead, and morphia. Although the request. From this sap, obtained by tapping the acetates possess some properties in common, yet, trunk in the spring, during the space of six weeks, from the very different nature of their bases, they a very considerable quantity of a fine brown sugar are variously affected by heat; some being merely is procured; as much, it is said, as 331b. per tree. evaporated, and others wholly decomposed, at The younger 8 equivalents of carbon = 48 Equivalent = 9 - 81 high temperatures. Some of the metallic acetates, The acetic acid thus procured is fluid and such as that of silver, when subjected to distilla- colourless, its smell is exceedingly pungent, and tion at a high temperature, yield a large portion its taste very acrid and sour. If applied to the of acetic acid; while others, such as those of skin it occasions smarting, and even raises blislead and zinc, furnish, besides acetic acid, a pe- ters. When heated, the vapour which rises from culiar volatile inflammable fluid called pyro-acetic it takes fire if a lighted taper is exposed to it. spirit. When metallic acetates are decomposed At about 45° of Fahr. a portion of this acid beby heat during distillation, their bases, in some comes solid, and shoots into beautiful crystals; instances, remain in the metallic state, and in and at 60° Fahr. the crystals melt. Acetic acid others in the form of oxides: the residue in both consists of 3 atoms or equivalents of oxygen, 3 cases being combined with carbon from the acetic of hydrogen, and 4 of carbon; and its atomic acid. The vegeto-alkaline acetates, such as those of number or combining equivalent is 51. [ATOMIC morphia, quina, &c., are decomposed and totally THEORY.] The crystals are formed of 1 atom acid dissipated when exposed to heat in open vessels. = 51, and 1 atom water 9, so that their equiThe acetates are a very important class of valent is 60. compounds. Some of them are used in the pre- Acetic acid, in the form of pyroligneous acid, paration of acetic acid. The acetate of alumina and is employed to preserve meat, and to impart to it the acetate of iron are largely employed by calico- the smoky flavour usually obtained by drying. printers; and many of the metallic acetates are Pure acetic acid is used in chemical researches, used also by them, and by dyers and colour-makers. and especially for preparing various acetates. In ACETIC ACID, or Acetous Acid, is the a less pure state it is employed in the arts, for sour part of vinegar, and that to which its pecu- preparing acetate or sugar of lead, acetate of liar and valuable properties are owing. It is copper, or verdigris, and acetate of alumina, which procured, first, by the fermentation of saccharine is largely used by calico-printers as a mordant. or sugary matter,-secondly, by the action of ACETONE, Pyro-acetic Spirit, is obtained by heat upon wood; the product of the former consti- the decomposition of acetic acid, either from dry tuting vinegar, and of the latter pyroligneous acid. acetate of lead, or by passing acetic acid in vapour 1. Vinegar. When certain vegetable juices through a red-hot iron tube. Acetone is a colourwhich contain much sugar, such as that of the less limpid liquid; its odour is peculiar, penegrape, are fermented, the sugar undergoes the trating, and somewhat aromatic; its specific gravinous fermentation [FERMENTATION], by which vity is 0.792; it boils at 1320, and the density alcohol is produced; and if this process be carried of its vapour is 2:019. It mixes in all proporbeyond a certain stage, a further fermentation tions with alcohol, æther, and oil of turpentine. called the acetous fermentation ensues, by which It is very inflammable, and is not affected by exvinegar is produced so that, in effect, sugar posure to the air. It is composed of becomes alcohol, and then alcohol becomes vine-| gar. How this is managed in practice is explained under VINEGAR. 3 equivalents of carbon = 18 3 equivalents of hydrogen = = Equivalent . co co 29 Vinegar (or rather Acetic Acid) possesses the usual property of acids to redden vegetable blue colours; it combines with the alkalis, earths, and metallic oxides to form the salts which are termed ACHEA, one of the ancient great divisions of acetates. Vinegar is purified from the sulphuric the Peloponnesus, now the Morea, extending from acid and colouring matter which it contains by the river Larissus, near Cape Araxus, along the distillation; but its smell and taste are then less coast of the Corinthian Bay (Gulf of Lepanto), as agreeable, and it is weaker than acetic acid other-far east as the small territory of Sicyon, which wise procured. When vinegar is exposed to a separated it from that of Corinth. The Sythas, low temperature, it is principally the watery part a petty stream, separated Achæa from Sicyonia. which freezes. The greatest length, in a straight line between 2. Pyroligneous Acid. The second method of the western and castern boundaries, is about obtaining acetic acid is by heating wood, as the 65 English miles. The breadth of the province dried branches of trees, in hollow iron cylinders, with a proper arrangement of coolers, or condensers, and receivers. The pyroligneous acid thus procured is of a dark brown colour, has a strong burnt acid smell, is very sour to the taste, and acts strongly on vegetable blue colours. It contains a quantity of tar and oily matter; from these it is purified, in a considerable degree, by redistillation; and a further purification with lime converts it into a pyrolignite of lime. This pyrolignite, by the chemical action of dilute sulphate of soda, produces acetate of soda, which is Before this country was occupied by the Achæi, a crystalline salt. From these crystals pure it was called Ægialos, afterwards Ionia, and someacetic acid is produced, by exposing them to the times Ægialeian Ionia, which probably means no action of sulphuric acid, which combines with the more than Ionia on the sea-const:' it then consoda of the acetate, and leaves the acetic acid free. | tained twelve cities or states. The same number varies irregularly from about 12 to 20 miles. Being, for the most part, only a narrow slip between the Arcadian mountains and the sea, the courses of the numerous streams that flow into the Corinthian Gulf are short; and many of them are quite dry in summer. The province contains many defiles and mountain-passes formed by branches of the great Arcadian ridge, which, in some parts, run down to the Corinthian Gulf. The coast is generally low, and has few good ports. of political divisions subsisted under the Achæi in stronger under the influence of Callicrates, and the time of Herodotus; at present Patre, now the league remained, in appearance at least, on Patras, situated on the coast, about 6 miles from the side of the Romans in their final struggle with the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth, is the only Perseus, king of Macedonia, which ended in the Achaean town of any importance. defeat of the king (B.c. 168). After the Roman conquest of Greece, the term The last war of the league was with Sparta, Achæa comprehended a much larger extent of which was occasioned in B.c. 150, through the country. The Roman province of Achæa com- influence of Critolaus. This, which the Romans prised all Peloponnesus, with Northern Greece considered as a kind of attack on themselves, south of Thessaly; the rest of Northern Greece joined to the contumacious treatment of some belonged to Macedonia. But it is exceedingly Roman commissioners at Corinth, induced the difficult to fix the precise limits of the Roman republic to send L. Mummius to chastise the provinces of Macedonia and Achæa. Nicopolis, a Achæans. The Achæan general, Diæus, met town which Augustus built near the northern Mummius on the isthmus of Corinth, and fell an entrance of the Ambraciot Gulf (Gulf of Arta) to easy prey to the Roman general, who, after the commemorate his victory at Actium, is included battle, burned Corinth to the ground (B.c. 146). in the province of Achæa, in a passage of Tacitus. Mummius and ten other senators then changed ACHEAN CONFEDERATION or Greece into the Roman province of Achæa, leavLEAGUE. The Achæans, who formed that ing, however, to certain cities, such as Athens, federal union which is commonly called the Achæ- Delphi, and others, the rank of free towns. Coan League, inhabited the tract which lies along rinth afterwards received a Roman colony. the southern coast of the Corinthian Gulf (Gulf of Each state which belonged to the Achæan Lepanto). They formed twelve small independ- league, had equal political rank, retained its inent states. The history of the Achæans is an ternal regulations, and its coins, weights, and inconsiderable part of the general history of measures, though the general government also had Greece, till about B.C. 251. During the invasion its coins, weights, and measures, which were of Greece by the Persians, they took no share in uniform. The ordinary general assemblies were the battles of Marathon, E.c. 490, Salamis, B.C. held twice a year, and they deliberated for three 480, and Platea, B.c. 479; nor during the long war of twenty-seven years, did they take any thing more than a kind of forced part in this protracted struggle between Athens and Sparta. At the commencement of this war (B.C. 431), they were, with the exception of Pellene, neutral; but afterwards favoured the Lacedæmonian interest, in compliance with the general feeling in the peninsula. During the struggles of the Southern Greeks against the successors of Alexander, the Achæans wished to remain neutral, but they ultimately became the prey of the Macedonians. Some cities were compelled to receive the garrisons of Demetries and Cassander, and afterwards those of Antigonus Genatas, or to submit to tyrants. days. The general assemblies decided upon all Four of the western states of Achæa, Dyme, Patra, Tritan, and Phare (Polybius, ii. 41), was elected for a single year, and appears not to seeing the difficulties in which Antigonus Go- have been re-eligible till he had been one year natas, king of Macedonia, was involved, formed out of office. But Aratus filled the office of a union for mutual protection, B.C. 281. Three strategos seventeen times in twenty-nine years, other towns afterwards joined the league. In and Philopomen was elected eight times in B.C. 251, Aratus having delivered Sicyon, which twenty-four years. The functions of the ten was not an Achæan town, brought it over to the demiurgi are not clearly ascertained. confederacy, of which he was elected general in It may be asked how was the general council B.C. 245. Corinth, Megaris, Epidaurus, and Tre- composed, particularly after the league comprised zen, also became members of the league. During within itself so many states? Did the states the long career of Aratus, other Peloponnesian send deputies? Had they, in fact, a representstates were included in the union; and in fact ative government? It is difficult to answer this Aratus is called by Polybius the founder of the question, though we are inclined to think that confederation. In the year B.C. 208, five years there was no strict system of representation. The after the death of Aratus, Philopomen was elected short time for discussion, the two yearly meetings, general of the confederacy. In 191 Sparta be- the general character of Greek democracy, as well came a member of the Achæan league, and the as most passages in which the congress is spoken design of its leaders was to include all the Pelo- of, lead us to infer that this deliberative body ponnesus within its limits. After the death of consisted of every qualified citizen of the confedePhilopamen (B.c. 183) the Roman party, which rate states who chose to attend. It appears that had been established in Greece after the defeat of all the citizens of the several states, who were Philip V. of Macedonia (B.c. 197), grew still thirty years of age, and rich enough not to carry on any handicraft in order to get a living, might attend the yearly meeting, speak, and vote. which in ancient times were called Echinades. Great changes are supposed to have taken place Though we are so imperfectly acquainted with in the number and position of these in the lapse the federal constitution of the Achæans, and un- of ages. Homer speaks of the Echinades as able to reconstruct it completely from the scanty sending troops to Troy: Herodotus observed their fragments which remain, we may safely conclude alluvial formation: Thucydides speaks of their that it was no inefficient union which called increasing numbers, and predicts their junction to forth from Polybius the following commendation: the main land, but says they were uninhabited in 'Their union is so entire and perfect that they his time. are not only joined together in bonds of friendship and alliance, but even make use of the same laws, the same weights, coins, and measures, the same magistrates, counsellors, and judges: so that the inhabitants of this whole tract of Greece seem in all respects to form but one single city, except only that they are not enclosed within the circuit of the same walls. In every other point, both through the whole republic, and in every separate state, we find the most exact resemblance and conformity. (Polybius, ii. 37, ed. Bekker, and Hampton's Translation). The chief authority for the history of the Achæan League, is Polybius, book ii., &c. ACHEI. [ACHEA; ACHEAN CONFEDERATION; ACHILLES; OLIANS.] ACHARD, FRANZ KARL, was born at Berlin, April 28, 1754, and died April 20, 1821. He was the author of various works, written in German, on experimental physics, chemistry, and agriculture. In 1780 he published, at Berlin, a work entitled 'Chymisch-Physische Schriften,' which contains a great number of experiments on the subject of the adhesion of different bodies to each other. A'CHERON, a small stream of Elis, which runs into the Alpheus. Acheron was also the name of one of the rivers of the realms below, over which the dead were fabled to pass. There was another Acheron in Thesprotis, a part of Epirus: this stream rises in the mountain range of Pindus, forms, in its course, a considerable lake, called Acherusia, and finally enters the sea, forming a bay, called by Strabo Glykys Limen (Sweet Port'), and now Porto Phanari. There was a third river called Acheron, in Southern Italy. The name Acherusia was given to the Lucrine lake, or else to the lake of Avernus, in Italy; and the hot springs in the neighbourhood were supposed to be near Pyrophlegethon, or the river of fire, in the infernal regions. On the coast of the Euxine, near Heraclea (Erekli), there was a peninsula called Acherusia, where Hercules is said to have descended to bring up the dog Cerberus. ACHILLE'A, a genus of plants, consisting of sixty or seventy species, found exclusively in the coider climates of the northern hemisphere. They are all herbaceous perennial weeds, of little importance, except to botanists, and are only seen in cultivation in the collections of the curious. Achard is however chiefly known for his proposal to extract sugar from beet-root. Another ACHI'LLES, one of the most celebrated Prussian chemist, Margraff, had discovered the personages of the mythic age of Greece-the hero existence of a certain portion of sugar in this root of the Iliad. He belongs to that intermediate as early as 1747, but deemed his discovery of period between truth and fiction, during which it little practical importance. Achard, on the con- is generally hard to say how much is real-how trary, described beet-root as 'one of the most much imaginary. In the circumstances of his bountiful gifts which the divine munificence had life, however, as they are told by Homer, there awarded to man upon the earth.' The institute is scarcely anything impossible, or even improbaof Paris, in 1800, honoured him with a vote of ble, allowing for a reasonable quantity of poetical thanks, but reported unfavourably of the practi- embellishment. Beyond Homer's account, howcability of his plan. Napoleon however, in 1812, ever, everything is fabulous. [HOMER.] formed an imperial manufactory at Rambouillet, The most valuable historical facts relative to when the plan of Achard was put in practice, and Achilles are contained in the following passage of partly succeeded. Since then the manufacture of Homer's Iliad, book ii. 681, &c., where he is sugar from beet-root has been carried on very giving a list of the warriors who went to Troy: extensively in France. The manufacture how- -I will now tell of those who inhabited Pelasever is a forced one, and therefore of very gic Argos, with Alus, Alope, and Trechis; and questionable policy. those who dwelt in Phthia and Hellas, famed for ACHELO US (now Aspro Potamo, or White beautiful women, and were called Myrmidons, River) is the largest stream in Greece Proper. and Hellenes and Achai: the commander of their The Achelous rises in the lofty mountain range of fifty ships was Achilles.' From this we learn Pindus, and, after flowing through a very uneven that there was a people in Thessaly called Achæi, country, enters the level land of Acarnania. Here as well as a people in the Peloponnesus; and we it discharges itself into the sea; in ancient times see also that the name of Hellenes, afterwards having near its outlet the town of Eniada. Its the generic name of the Greek nations, originated, general course is from north to south, and its as far back as we can trace it, in the basin of length may be from 120 to 140 miles. In the Thessaly. time of Thucydides (B.c. 431) the lower waters ACHILLES TA'TIUS, a Greek astronomer. of the Achelous were considered as belonging to There is still extant a fragment of Achilles TaAcarnania, but at a later period this river formed tius, entitled 'An Introduction to the Phænomena a boundary between Acarnania and Ætolia. At of Áratus : it may be seen in the 'Uranologion' of the mouth of the river are several alluvial islands, Petavius. (Paris, 1630, folio.) Suidas, the lexi cographer, confounds this Achilles Tatius with oxygen or hydrogen, producing the oxacids and The date of the astronomer is uncertain; but (See an article on the Greek romances in the ACHILLE UM, a genus of fossil Spongiada, Acids occur in all the kingdoms of nature; the agency. Although oxygen or hydrogen is present in ACONITE, WINTER. [ERANTHIS.] ACIDA SPIS, a genus of fossil Crustacea, of ACIDS. The acids are a numerous and im- named. No simple or elementary substance has the being sufficient to kill a sparrow in a few minutes, ACONITUM, a genus of poisonous plants be- The common species, A. Napellus, is one of It is a native of Alpine pastures in Switzerland |