deen, in 1841 had a population of 393. The Scots under Malcolm II., and the Danes under village stands on the burn of Foveran, near its Canute, afterwards king of England. In 1411, junction with the Ythan, the mouth of which during the captivity of King James I. and the forms the port of Newburgh, to which eight small regency of the duke of Albany, the bloody battle vessels belong. Newbyth, or New Byth, is in of Harlaw, in Chapel of Garioch parish, was the parish of King Edward and district of Turriff, fought between 10,000 highlanders, under Do13 miles S.E. from Banff. It had in 1841 a nald, Lord of the Isles, and the royal forces population of 1369, of whom about 300 are in (lowlanders), under the earl of Mar, in which the village. Strichen, Mormond, and New Leeds Donald was completely defeated. In the great are in the parish of Strichen, in the district of civil war of Charles I., A.D. 1644, Montrose deBuchan. Strichen is well built, and has a neat feated the Covenanters under Lord Burley, not town-house, a commodious church, a branch bank, far from Aberdeen, which he entered. Monk a savings' bank, and a post-office. Mormond is occupied Aberdeen in 1651; and the troops of regularly built, with a number of good, commo- the Pretender, under Lord Lewis Gordon, occudious, slated houses. The population of New pied it and levied contributions on it in 1745. Leeds in 1841 was 203; that of the other villages was not distinguished in the return. Stuartfield, or Stewartfield, in the parish of Old Deer, in the district of Buchan, had in 1841 a population of 614.

The principal memorials of the middle ages are the ruins of feudal castles. On the north coast, between Fraserburgh and Banff, are the remains of the ancient castle of Dundargue, situated on a red sandstone rock, which rises from the sea to Divisions for Ecclesiastical and Legal Pur- the height of above 60 feet, and is connected poses.-The county is for the most part included with the mainland, at high water only, by a in the jurisdiction of the Synod of Aberdeen, narrow ledge of rock. On the same coast, near which comprehends, in addition, nearly the whole Banff, are the remains of Ken-Edgar Castle, once of Banffshire and part of Kincardineshire. The the seat of the Comyns, or Cumins, earls of number of parishes wholly or partly in this Buchan. Pitsligo and Pitullie castles are both county according to the Population Returns of on the coast near Fraserburgh. Craigston Castle, 1841 is 90. These are parishes both for ecclesi- in the same neighbourhood, built in the sevenastical and civil purposes. There are besides 14 quoad sacra' parishes, that is, districts dismembered from the above, and constituted distinct parishes for ecclesiastical purposes alone; 10 of these quoad sacra parishes have been formed in the city of Aberdeen.

There are two universities, namely, King's College, in Old Aberdeen, and Marischal College, in New Aberdeen. [ABERDEEN.] The shire is well supplied with schools.

There is a county prison and a bridewell at Aberdeen, and small burgh prisons at Old Aberdeen, Old Meldrum, Inverury, Kintore, Peterhead, and Fraserburgh; but these are used only occasionally and for very brief confinement. There is a new prison at Peterhead.

The county of Aberdeen returns one member to Parliament; the number of electors of all qualifications in 1835-36 was 2986; in 1839-40, 3181. The city of Aberdeen returns one member. Peterhead, Inverury, and Kintore are included in the Elgin district of burghs, which returns one member; the other burghs of the district are Elgin, Cullen, and Banff.

History and Antiquities.-At the earliest historical period, Aberdeenshire was occupied by the Taczali of Ptolemy. The south-western part of the county was probably included in the territory of the Vacomagi of Ptolemy. The Ituna of Richard of Cirencester may be identified with the Ythan. Of the most ancient period of its history Aberdeenshire contains various monuments; such as cairns, barrows, Druidical stones, and the structures sometimes called Picts' houses. There are also some ancient camps, two or three of which are supposed to be Roman.

The principal events of the middle ages and of later days were the battle of Cruden, in the beginning of the eleventh century, between the

teenth century by one of the Urquharts of Cromarty, is a fine old building in good preservation. Fedderessett Castle, near New Deer, was a fortress of considerable strength. On the eastern coast are the ruins of Slains Castle, once the seat of the earls of Errol; and on the north-eastern bank of the Ythan stands Fyvie Castle, one of the finest Gothic edifices in the county. There are numerous other ruins of ancient castles or towers. The monastic and other ecclesiastical remains are very few.

(New Statistical Account of Scotland; Gazetteer of Scotland, published by Fullarton and Co., of Edinburgh; Parliamentary Papers.)

ABERDEVINE, or Siskin (Carduelis spinus, Cuv.; Fringilla ligurina, Ranzine; Le Tarin, Buff.)

then a permanent resident, yet there are not his mind and his habits of study, predicted that he wanting instances of its breeding within our would one day acquire fame if not fortune. shores. Mr. Selby assures us that it is ascer- Though he appeared before the public early as an tained to breed in some of the pine-woods in the author, and though his very first works stamped highlands of Scotland. Near Killin,' he says, him as a man of genius, endowed with a philo'these birds were observed by Sir W. Jardine sophical and original mind, yet he did not rise and myself to be in pairs in the month of June, into reputation nor acquire practice with rapidity. inhabiting a wood of very old and lofty pines, In 1787 he succeeded Mr. Pott as assistant-surbut we were unable to procure the nests from geon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and shortly the height and inaccessible nature of the trees.' afterwards took the place of that gentleman as This confirms Temminck's account, who states lecturer on anatomy and surgery, and on the that the siskin builds in the highest branches of death of Sir Charles Blick, he was elected surthe pine, and not (as Sepp has delineated its nest) geon in his room; and, subsequently, St. Barthoin the clefts of the oak; the eggs are bluish white, lomew's Hospital obtained under him a reputation speckled with purplish red. which it had never before acquired.

The Siskin or Aberdevine soon becomes famiAbernethy was one of the first surgeons who liar in captivity, and utters a trifling though not pointed out the fact that local diseases may have unpleasing twitter; it is sometimes paired with a constitutional origin. In a work abounding the canary, a mule progeny being the result. with acute and original observation, and exhibitThe colours of the male, in full plumage, are as fol- ing comprehensive and philosophical views, enlows:-Top of the head, black; ear-coverts, dusky; titled, The Constitutional Origin and Treata line above the eye; sides of neck, throat, and ment of Local Diseases,' he lays down and estachest, lemon yellow; back and shoulders, dark blishes this great principle-that local diseases olive green, with obscure dusky dashes; quills, are symptoms of a disordered constitution, not brown, with an oblique yellow bar, and another primary and independent maladies; and that they above produced by the yellow edging of the are to be cured by remedies calculated to make a greater coverts; flanks, dusky, with a few brown salutary impression on the general frame, not by dashes; rump, yellow, slightly washed with green; topical dressing, nor any mere manipulations of two middle tail feathers, dark brown, the rest surgery. This principle influenced the entire field yellow, tipped with brown; bill and legs, horn of surgery, and gave a great impulse to its colour; length, 4 inches; tail, short and forked. improvement. And to this first principle he The plumage of the female is far less bright, and less decidedly marked.

added a second, the range of which is less extensive, but the practical importance of which is scarcely inferior to that of the first-namely, that this disordered state of the constitution either originates from or is rigorously allied with derangements of the stomach and bowels, and that it can only be reached by remedies which first exercise a curative influence upon these organs.

ABERGAVENNY, a town in the county of Monmouth, is situated at the confluence of the Usk and Gavenny in 51° 49′ N. lat., 3° 1′ W. long. There is a fine old bridge, of fifteen arches, over the Usk; also an ancient and spacious church, as well as the remains of a castle, and of a Benedictine priory founded soon after the Con- The same philosophical view of the structure quest. The town is long and straggling, the and functions of the human frame, which enabled streets narrow, and the houses irregularly built; Abernethy so greatly to improve the theory but considerable improvements have been made and practice of surgery, suggested, and at by enlarging the market-place and removing pro- the same time armed him with the courage to jections. There are several Dissenters' meeting-perform, two operations in surgery bolder than houses and a Roman Catholic chapel. The any that had ever before been achieved, and the grammar-school was founded by letters patent repetition of which has since been attended with of Henry VIII., July 24, 1543. The principal trade is in wool. The supply of coal and iron from the neighbouring mountains has given rise to several iron-works in the surrounding district. The population of the town in 1841 was 2720. The Monmouthshire and Brecon canal passes near the town, and gives facilities for its trade and that of the neighbourhood. Abergavenny is 14 miles W. by N. of Monmouth, and 143 W. by N. of London.

frequent success-namely, the tying the carotid and the external iliac arteries. The announcement of the performance of these capital operations, at once established his reputation as a surgeon, and increased the credit of the English school throughout Europe.

Great however as was the reputation which this distinguished man acquired as an anatomist, physiologist, and surgeon, it is probable that he owed his celebrity chiefly to his success as a ABERNETHY, JOHN, surgeon, was born in teacher. Gifted with the genius to master and London, in the year 1765. He died at Enfield, after extend his science, he was endowed with the still a protracted illness, on the 18th of April, 1831. rarer capacity of communicating to others in a At the usual age he was apprenticed to Sir Charles clear, succinct, impressive, and fascinating manner, Blick, surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, whatever he himself knew. Easy and fluent, yet under whom, and especially in the wards of this not inelegant-abounding with illustration and hospital, he had ample opportunities of acquiring a anecdote, yet methodical-logical, yet often witty, thorough knowledge of his profession, of which he and occasionally humorous almost to coarseness availed himself with diligence. Competent judges, seldom impassioned, yet always impressive, who observed at this early period the qualities of and never allowing the attention of his audience

as the angle CAB is nearer to or further from a on. This deviation is completed in the course of right angle, and is greatest when CAB is a right a year. angle. This result may readily be proved by those who understand trigonometry, if they recollect that AB and as are given, being the velocity of the earth and the apparent velocity of light, and that

AB
sin a BA =
a A

When the star itself is in the pole of the ecliptic, or is seen in the direction SA, the angle ASN is always a right angle, the aberration is always of the same magnitude, and the apparent path of the star is a circle. As we take stars in which SB is more inclined to the ecliptic, the oval becomes sin CAB. flattened in proportion to its length, so that when the star is in the ecliptic, it appears to vibrate backwards and forwards in a straight line, going and returning once in each year.

If the star be on the solstitial colure, the points P and Q will be the equinoxes, and R and м the solstices. The aberration will consequently be greatest at the solstices, and least at the equinoxes.

The stars appear to us to lie on a large sphere, of which we are the centre. We may represent the phenomenon on a common globe by drawing a small ellipse or oval round the star, the major axis of which is parallel to the ecliptic, and the figure of which is more or less flattened as the star is nearer to, or further from, the ecliptic. The major axis will always be an arc of 41", and the minor axis will be 41" multiplied by the sine of BST or the star's latitude. [BRADLEY.]

The greatest aberration, as we have observed, is parallel to the ecliptic, and is the greatest semidiameter of the apparent annual ellipse of a star. This ought to be the same for all stars, if the rays which come from them move with the same velocity. Hitherto it has not been discovered that the greatest aberrations of different stars differ by more than may reasonably be imputed to instrumental errors; we must therefore conclude that, as far as we know, the light of every star moves with the same velocity. Bradley made the greatest aberration 20"; others have deduced different values, varying from 201" to 20"; but the best recent observations make it extremely near to 20"; which result is the more entitled to confidence, as it does not differ more than onetenth of a second from the mean of all the results previously obtained.

Let us suppose, which will be exact enough for our purpose, that the earth moves in a circle (the ecliptic), of which the sun is in the centre. The line SA, perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, looks towards the pole of the ecliptic. Let SB be the direction of a star, PSQ perpendicular in the plane of the ecliptic to SB, and RST perpendicular to rsq in the same plane. When the earth is at E, it is moving in the direction EM perpendicular to SE, and the star, from its great distance, is in the direction Ec parallel to SB. Hence the aberration takes place in the plane, CEM, that is, the star little lowered towards EM, and appears in the direction ED. Let the needle SN move round the circle with the earth, so as always to indicate the direction in which the earth is moving, that is, SN is always parallel to EM, and perpendicular to SE. The plane B S N being parallel to the plane σ EM, is the plane in which aberration would appear It is well known that solar light is composed of to take place if the spectator were at s, and s were several colours, which admit of separation from moving; but as the spectator does not perceive his one another. The light of the stars is also comown motion, let us suppose him placed at s, and pounded of several colours; for though different the same aberration to take place in the plane tinges predominate in different stars, no one gives ESS, which really does take place in CEM. By a perfectly pure colour. The phenomenon of abwhat has been said, the aberration is greatest erration proves that these different lights move when the needle points to Q or P, that is, when with the same velocity; for two lights, moving the earth is at T or R; and least, when the needle with different velocities from the same star, would points to T or R, that is, when the earth is at P or give different quantities of aberration; that is, 9; because the angle BSN is a right angle when N would make differently coloured images of the is at p oro; and differs most from a right angle star in different places, that image being nearest when N is at T or R. Hence the aberration in- to the real place of the star, the colour of which creases as the earth moves from P to T, diminishes moves with the greatest velocity. But as no infrom T to Q, increases from Q to R, and decreases dication of such an appearance is observable in the again from E to P. The line in which the star ap- very best telescopes, we are, therefore, bound to pears, moves round SB in the course of a year, conclude, that all the different coloured light of and describes a cone, while the star appears which white light is composed, moves with the to describe a small oval or ellipse about B, the same velocity. greater axis of which is parallel to PQ, and the lesser to RT; such as prqt, in which p is the apparent place when the earth is at P, and so

We have hitherto considered only the case of a star which has no motion of its own; let us now take that of a planet, comet, or the moon, which

E

moves while the earth moves. Let the planet move from A to a, and the earth from E to e, in the time which it takes the A B light to move from the planet to the earth. Then, by what has been said, the earth at e receives the ray Ae, which is imagined to be in the direction Be; and if the planet had remained fixed at A, ACB would have been the aberration, or the angle contained between its true and its apparent direction. But in the meanwhile the The expression that the freehold or the inheritplanet has moved to a, and if light were trans-ance of an estate is in abeyance, means that there mitted instantaneously, would appear in the di- is no person in whom the freehold or the inheritrection ea. Hence de B is the aberration: that ance is then vested, and that the ownership of the is, to the former angle, the planet's motion round freehold or of the inheritance is waiting or exe, during the passage of the light, must be added pecting for an owner who is to be ascertained. or subtracted, according as the earth and planet This doctrine of the suspense of the freehold or of move in the contrary or same directions. The the inheritance, is repugnant to the general pringreatest aberration of Mercury is nearly one ciples of the tenure of land in England. By minute; that of the moon only two-thirds of a the old law, it was always necessary that some second. To the sun, which has no motion of its person should be in existence as the representaown, the rule for a star in the ecliptic may be ap- tive of the fee or freehold, for the discharge of the plied; recollecting, however, that as a line drawn feudal duties, and to answer the actions which from the sun to the earth is always at right might be brought for the fief; and thus the maxim angles, or very nearly so, to the direction of the arose that the freehold of lands could never be in earth's motion, the aberration is always at its abeyance. Still it was admitted that both the greatest value, or nearly so, and is nearly 20". inheritance and the freehold might in some cases be in abeyance. Thus, in the case of glebe lands belonging to parsons, and of lands held by bishops and other corporations sole, it is said that the inheritance must always be in abeyance, as no one can, under any circumstances, be entitled to more than an estate for life in these lands; and during a vacancy of the church, it is said that the freehold is in abeyance, for there is then no parson to have it, and it is said that the freehold cannot be in the patron, who, though he possesses a right to present to the benefice, has no direct interest in the land annexed to it.

note the necessity of the true interpretation of words. If tenant pur terme d'autre vie dieth, the freehold is said to be in abeyance until the occupant entereth. If a man makes a lease for life, the remainder to the right heirs of J. S., the feesimple is in abeyance until J. S. dieth. And so in the case of the parson, the fee and right is in abeyance, that is, in expectation, in remembrance, entendment or consideration of law, in consideratione sive intelligentia legis; because it is not in any man living.'

ABERYSTWITH, a town on the coast of Cardiganshire, in South Wales, on a kind of peninsula, between the river Rheidiol and the sea. The river Ystwith, from which the town takes its name, enters the sea about half a mile from the embouchure of the Rheidiol; but there is a tradition that the sea has here encroached on the land, and there may have been a town formerly at the outlet of the Ystwith. Aberystwith was formerly defended by walls and a castle, but they are now in ruins. The streets are narrow, and the houses covered with the black slate of the county. An act for improving the town, and Titles of honour are also sometimes said to be supplying it with water, was passed in 1835. in abeyance, which occurs when the persons next It is a busy place; and in addition to its com- in inheritance to the last possessor are several merce, and its fisheries of cod, whiting, herring, females or co-parceners. In this case the title is and mackarel, some woollen manufactures are not extinct, but is said to be in abeyance; and carried on, and small vessels built. The har- may be revived at any time by the king. Several bour is small, and a bar keeps out vessels of instances of the exercise of this prerogative are on large size. In 1836 an act was passed for al-record both in ancient and modern times. But tering and amending an act for repairing, en- the correct doctrine appears to be that in this larging, and preserving the harbour." The ves- supposed case of a dignity, it reverts to the crown, sels belonging to the port amounted, in December which may grant it again. (Cameys's Case, 5 Bing. 31, 1845 (according to a Parliamentary Return), New Cases, 754; Coke upon Littleton, 165; to 158, the average burthen of which was 7824 Cruise, Digest, i., 52, 55.) tons. Population, in 1831, 4128; in 1841, 4916. Aberystwith is in the Cardigan district of boroughs, and returns one member to Parliament. Aberystwith is 39 miles N.E. from Cardigan, and 208 W.N.W. from London, 52° 25′ N. lat., 4° 5' W. long.

ABIB (Hebrew Month). [YEAR]

ABIES, in Botany (the Fir), a genus of trees of the coniferous tribe, well known for the valuable timber which is produced by many of the species. It was formerly considered a part of the genus Pinus; but modern botanists have made it a separate genus.

ABEYANCE is a legal term, derived from the French bayer, which, says Richelet, means to From Pinus, or the pine-tree, the fir is obvi 'look at anything with mouth wide open.' Coke onsly distinguished by its more pyramidal form, (Co. Litt. 342, b.) explains the term thus, En by its leaves arising singly from around the stem, abeiance, that is, in expectation, of the French not by twos, or threes, or a greater number, from bayer, to expect. For when a parson dieth, we out of a membranous shrivelling sheath, and by say that the freehold is in abeyance, because a the characters of its fructification. Its species successor is in expectation to take it; and here form four very natural tribes, of the first of which