The the Silver Fir may be taken as the representa- | measuring trom two to three feet in diameter. It tive; of the second, the Norway Spruce; of the appears to be of slow growth, not arriving at its third, the Larch; and of the fourth, the Cedar of full dimensions in less than 200 years. Lebanon. Most of these are interesting either wood is of little value, being neither sound nor for the excellence of their wood, or as objects durable: it is chiefly employed for the manufacof ornament: we shall briefly notice the most ture of laths and for coarse in-door work. The interesting. bark is exceedingly valuable for tanning; mixed SET. L Leaves growing singly round the with oak bark, it is said to be much better than branches, and all turned towards one side.-oak bark alone. It bears clipping well, and is SILVERS therefore adapted, like the yew, to the construction of live fences. A great deal of the Essence of Spruce is extracted from its shoots. SECT. II. Leaves growing singly round the branches, and all spreading equally.-SPRUCES. Abies excelsa, the Norway Spruce Fir, is a native of the mountainous parts of the north of Europe, where it sometimes constitutes, as in Norway, the principal timber. It is found all over Siberia as high as 70° N. lat. ; in that region it is considered by the wandering tribes a certain sign of the presence of springs of fresh water, for Abies Picea, the Silver Fir, is a native of the mountains of the middle and south of Europe, in stony, dry, exposed situations. Its favourite district seems to be on the Pollino and in the forest of Rubia, in the kingdom of Naples, where it is found in all its grandeur, often growing from 130 to 150 feet in height, and richly meriting the name pulcherrima (most beautiful), applied to it by Virgil This tree is readily known by its leaves having their points all turned towards the sky, and being mealy underneath, as well as by its long, erect, stalkless cones, of a greenish-purple it is only seen in moist and springy places; a colour, bristling with reflexed taper points of the bractea that subtend the scales. It is the sapin of the French. Planks of indifferent quality, on account of their softness, are sawn from its trunk, which also yields Burgundy pitch and Strasburg turpentine. For its successful cultivation in this country it requires strong land, such as will suit the oak, and a sheltered situation; it will then become a very large tree. property transferred to Abies picea by the late Sir James Smith, who has most strangely misapplied the statement of the Russian botanist Gmelin. When in perfection, and occasionally it arrives at its greatest perfection in this country, it acquires a height of 150 feet. The wood is of a white colour, of a fine even grain, and very durable: in the market it is known under the name of White or Christiana Deal. In Norway it Abies Balsamea, the Balm of Gilead Fir, is arrives at maturity in seventy or eighty years. found, along with Abies nigra and alba, in the Trees of such an age are what are usually cut coldest parts of North America, but always as down for exportation, and each yields on an individuals, and never in large masses. The average three pieces of timber eleven or twelve English name has been given in consequence of a feet long. The spruce is readily known by its resemblance between the clear transparent green- leaves of one uniform dull green colour, spread ish-yellow turpentine, which is obtained from equally round the branches, and by its long numerous cysts in its bark, and the Balm of pendant cones. Gilead of the shops. This turpentine is commonly known under the name of Canadian Balsam. Abies alba, the White Spruce Fir, is found along with Abies nigra in the colder regions of North America. According to Michaux, it does Abies Welbiana, Webb's Fir. According to not advance so far to the northward as that spethe account of Captain Webb, who first discovered cies, from which it is known not only by its it, this remarkable species attains the height of smaller size, the trunks rarely exceeding forty or eighty or ninety feet, with a diameter near the fifty feet in height, but also by the bluish cast ground of three or four feet. Its wood seems to which characterizes the foliage, and which gives be valuable; in India it is used by plane-makers. it a much lighter appearance than the sombre From what has been reported of its general ap- Abies nigra: Dr. Richardson however states that pearance, it is probably one of the most interest-it was the most northerly tree observed in Franking species that has yet been discovered. In-lin's Polar journey. The timber is of inferior habiting the colder regions of northern India, and quality. From the fibres of the root, macerated found among a flora that is more Siberian in its in water, the Canadians prepare the thread with character than Indian, there can be no doubt of its being well able to stand the winters of this country. which they sew together the birch bark that forms their canoes. Its resin is also used to render the seams water-tight. The bark is said to be occasionally used for tanning. Abies Canadensis, the Hemlock Spruce Fir. The most northerly situation in which this tree is Abies nigra, the Black or Red Spruce Fir, is a found is about Hudson's Bay, in 51° N. lat. Near native of the most inclement regions of North Quebec it forms extensive forests; in Nova Sco- America, especially in swampy situations, and in tia, New Brunswick, Vermont, and the upper the valleys between ridges of low hills, where the part of New Hampshire, it is very common; soil is deep, black, and humid. From its young but in the middle and southern states it is con- branches is extracted the Essence of Spruce, so fined to the Alleghanies and their dependent well known as a useful antiscorbutic in long voyridges, where it inhabits the sides of torrents and ages, and not from those of the Abies alba, accordthe bleakest situations. It is a noble species, ing to Michaux. By some it has been thought rising to the height of seventy or eighty feet, and that North America produces a red as well as a black spruce, the former being of better quality of common leaven when the latter is destroyed. than the latter; but the researches of Michaux as it frequently is, by the intense cold to which show that such differences as exist are due exclu- hunters are exposed in the pursuit of game. sively to the influence of soil, and have no dependence upon specific peculiarities. The bark of the larch is nearly as valuable to the tanner as oak-bark; it also produces the substance called Venice Turpentine, which flows in abundance when the lower part of the trunk of old trees is wounded. A sort of manna, called Briançon Manna, exudes from its leaves in the form of a white flocculent substance, which finally becomes concreted into small lumps. Abies Douglasii, the Douglas Fir. According to Mr. Douglas, the discoverer of this gigantic species, it is found in immense forests in North-West America, from 43° to 52° N. lat. The trunks vary from 2 to 10 feet in diameter, and from 100 to 180 feet in height. Occasionally it arrives at still greater dimensions; there still It is believed that this species was the irus exists, near Fort George, on the Columbia River, of the ancient Greeks. The origin of the more a stump which, without the bark, and at 3 feet modern word larix is uncertain. By some it is from the ground, measures 48 feet in circumference. derived from the Celtic lar, fat, in allusion to its It is an evergreen tree, with an erect taper trunk, unctuous, inflammable resin; by others from the which, when old, is covered with a rough, rugged Welsh lär, wide-spreading: it is, however, more bark from 6 to 9 inches thick, abounding in a likely to have been in some way connected with clear yellow resin, and making excellent fuel. the word l'aris, which appears, from a very cuThe young branches have their bark filled with rious paper by Mr. Drummond Hay, read some receptacles of resin, as in the balm of Gilead. time since to the Horticultural Society, to be the The timber is heavy, firm, of as deep a colour Berber name of a large coniferous tree, found in as yew, with very few knots, and not in the least Rif, or Er rif, and in all the higher sierras of liable to warp. Morocco. SECT. III. Leaves growing in clusters; deciduous.-LARCHES. SECT. IV. Leaves growing in clusters; evergreen.-CEDARS. Abies Larix, the Common Larch Fir, is a native of the mountains of the middle of Europe, of Russia, and of Siberia. In the latter country it is the commonest of all trees, delighting in dry elevated situations, where it forms vast forests, sparingly intermixed with pines. Its trunk grows very erect, with graceful drooping branches, gradually diminishing from the base to the apex, and giving it a regularly pyramidal form. In the spring, when its young leaves have just burst into life, it has a peculiar bright yellowish-green tint, which is possessed by no other tree of our forests. The larch has been now, for many years, extensively cultivated upon barren exposed land, both in England and Scotland, and it has been found Abies Deodara, the Sacred Indian Fir, a native one of the most profitable of all trees to the planter, of the mountains of India, in Rohilcund, and on provided the land be well drained; but it will the mountains of Nepaul and Tibet, at a height not succeed in swampy situations. It grows with of 10,000 or 12,000 feet. It is a large tree, great rapidity, is subject to very few accidents, with a trunk about 4 feet in diameter, resemtransplants with little risk, and produces tim- bling the cedar of Lebanon, from which it differs ber of great excellence and value, not only for in having its cones upon stalks, and its leaves domestic but for naval purposes. In mountain- longer and more distinctly three-sided, and also ous districts in Scotland the Dukes of Athol have in the quality of its timber. According to Mr. planted it in immense quantities; and it appears, Moorcroft, from whose notes, in Mr. Lambert's from a report of one of those noblemen to the Horti- monograph of the genus, we borrow much of our cultural Society, that in situations 1500 to 1600 feet information, the Hindoos call it the Devadara, above the level of the sea, he has felled trees, eighty or God Tree, and hold it in a sort of veneration. years old, that have each yielded six loads of the The wood is extremely durable, and so resinous finest timber. Three varieties are mentioned by that laths made of it are used for candles. Spars botanical writers; of these the first is remarkable of it have been taken out of Indian temples, for the young cones being pale green instead of known to have been erected from 200 to 400 crimson; the second has a weeping habit: both years, uninjured, except in those parts which these are natives of the Tyrol. The third sort originally were sap-wood. Mr. Moorcroft prois of a slow stunted growth, and an inelegant appearance, leafing early, and very subject to injury from spring frosts; it was raised by one of the Dukes of Athol from Archangel seeds. Abies Cedrus, the Cedar of Lebanon Fir. Mount Lebanon and the range of Taurus are the native spots of this most stately and magnificent tree, which compensates for its want of height by its huge wide-spreading arms, each of which is almost a tree in itself. According to Labillardière, a French traveller in Syria, the largest of those now remaining on Lebanon is, at least, 9 feet in diameter; the trees are held in great veneration. Its growth is far from being so slow as some have imagined; on the contrary, the observations of those who have cultivated it with care prove that will vie in rapidity of growth with almost any forest tree. From the boiled inner bark, mixed with ryeflour, and afterwards buried for a few hours in the snow, the hardy Siberian hunters prepare a sort of leaven, with which they supply the place cured specimens from the starlings of a bridge in Ladakh, where it had been exposed to the water for nearly 400 years. Mr. Lambert says, that its wood takes an excellent polish, being very close-grained. The genus of resinous plants called Abies, which we have thus described, comprehends many forest trees of great importance. Some of them, ́ A BIES, in Fossil Botany, a name given by Adolphe Brongniart to a single incomplete specimen of a fruit resembling that of some spruce fir, but of which not even the locality is known. It is called Abies laricioides. such as the Larch, the Norway Spruce, the Silver was, by several regulations in the reign of Henry Fir, and the Balm of Gilead, are raised in VIII., in a great measure discontinued, and at nurseries in the open ground, in large quanti- length, by the statute 21 James I. c. 28, all privities, for the supply of our plantations; others, lege of sanctuary and abjuration consequent upon such as the Cedar of Lebanon and the Doug- it were entirely abolished. In the reign of Queen las Fir, are procured in much less abundance, Elizabeth, however, Roman Catholics and Protestand are treated with more care, being usually ant Dissenters convicted of having refused to kept in pots until they are finally committed to attend the divine service of the Church of Engthe earth in the situation they may be subse- land, might by statute (35 Eliz. c. 2.) be required quently destined to occupy. to abjure the realm, and if they refused to swear, or to depart, or returned to England without licence after their departure, they were to be adjudged felons, and to suffer death without benefit of clergy. Thus the punishment of abjuration inflicted by this Act of Parliament, was far more ABIETINEE. [CONIFERE.] severe than abjuration for felony at the common ABINGDON, a town in Berkshire, is plea-law: in the latter case the felon had the benefit santly situated at the junction of the Ock and of clergy; in the former, it was expressly taken the Thames, just above where the Wilts and away. Protestant Dissenters are exempted from Berks canal joins the Thames, 51° 40′ N. lat., 1° this severe enactment by the Toleration Act 16' W. long. The streets are most of them spacious, (1 Wm. III. c. 18); but Popish recusants convict diverging from the market-place, and are paved and were liable to be called upon to abjure the realm lighted; the supply of water is also good. The for their recusancy, until a statute, passed in the market-house is an elegant structure of freestone. 31 Geo. III. c. 32 (1791), relieved them from Abingdon returns one member to Parliament. The population of the parliamentary borough in 1841 was 5502. There are two handsome churches, and meeting-houses for the Baptists, Independents, Quakers, and Wesleyan Methodists. There is a free grammar-school well endowed, founded in 1563, a National and a British school, and some other foundations for the purposes of education. There are also many almshouses. The trade of Abingdon consists of malting, hemp-dressing, and sack-cloth and sail-cloth making. The corn-market is large. Capacious wharfs and warehouses have been erected at the entrance of the Wilts and Berks canal into the Thames. Abingdon is 26 miles N. W. from Reading, and 56 W. N. W. from London. A branch railway from the Great Western Railway, at Didcot, to Oxford, passes by Abingdon, where there is a station. that and many other penal restrictions, upon their taking the oaths of allegiance and abjuration. The form of the oath was altered by the Roman Catholic Relief Act, 10 Geo. IV. c. 7. ABJURATION, OATH OF, is an oath which asserts the title of the present royal family to the crown of England. It is imposed by 13 Will. III. c. 6; 1 Geo. I. c. 13; and 6 Geo. III. c. 53. The taker of the oath (juror) recognizes the right of the king under the Act of Settlement, engages to support him to the utmost of the juror's power, promises to disclose all traitorous conspiracies against him, and disclaims any right to the crown of England by the descendants of the Pretender. The juror next declares that he rejects the opinion that princes excommunicated by the Pope may be deposed or murdered; that he does not believe that the Pope of Rome or any other foreign prince, prelate, or person, has or ought to ABJURATION OF THE REALM signifies a have jurisdiction, directly or indirectly, within the swern banishment, or the taking of an oath to realm. The form of oath taken by Roman Cathorenounce and depart from the realm for ever. By lics who sit in either House of Parliament, is given the ancient common law of England, if a person in 10 Geo. IV. c. 7. (the Roman Catholic Relief guilty of any felony, excepting sacrilege, fled to a Act). The first part of the oath is similar in subparish church or churchyard for sanctuary, he stance to the form required under 6 Geo. III. might, within forty days afterwards, go clothed in c. 53. The following part of the oath is new:sackcloth before the coroner, confess the full par- 'I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abticulars of his guilt, and take an oath to abjure jure any intention to subvert the present Church the kingdom for ever, and not to return without Establishment as settled by law within this realm; the king's licence. Upon making his confession and taking this oath, he became attainted of the felony; he had forty days from the day of his appearance before the coroner to prepare for his departure, and the coroner assigned him such port as he chose for his embarkation, to which he was bound to repair immediately with a cross in his hand, and to embark with all convenient speed. If he did not go immediately out of the kingdom, or if he afterwards returned into England without licence, he was condemned to be hanged, unless he happened to be a clerk, in which case he was allowed the benefit of clergy. This practice, which has obvious marks of a religious origin, and I do solemnly swear that I will never exercise any privilege to which I am or may become entitled to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant government in the United Kingdom; and I do solemnly, in the presence of God, profess, testify and declare that I do make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words of this oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever.' The word Abjuratio does not occur in classical Latin writers, and the verb Abjurare, which often occurs, signifies to deny a thing falsely upon oath. ABLANCOURT, NICOLAS PERROT D', a translator of Greek and Roman writers into the | land prior to and different from those whom Julius French language, was born at Châlons-sur-Marne, Cæsar found here, then the Britons of Caesar's April 5, 1606, and died at his seat of Ablancourt, time are the aborigines of this island. in Champagne, Nov. 17, 1664. Of D'Ablancourt's The term aborigines first occurs in the Greek numerous translations those most known are the and Roman writers who treated of the earlier whole of Tacitus, of which there have been ten periods of Roman history. editions; four orations of Cicero; Cæsar; the ABOU-HANNES (Ibis religiosa, Cuvier; Tan Wars of Alexander by Arrian, the most esteemed talus Ethiopicus, Latham). ABLATIVE CASE. [DECLENSION.] ABO, a town in Finland, is situated in 60° 27' N. lat., 22° 17' E. long. on both sides of the Aurajoki river, a short distance above its outfall into the Gulf of Bothnia. Abo formerly contained upwards of 14,000 inhabitants, had a flourishing commerce, considerable trade, and a well-attended university; but a fire which happened in 1827 destroyed 780 houses, together with the buildings of the university and its library of 40,000 volumes. The university was then removed to Helsingfors, which had been made the capital of Finland, after its acquisition by Russia, in 1809, instead of Abo, which was the capital while Finland belonged to Sweden. This bird, called Abou Hannes, or Father John, The university of Abo was at first an academy by the Arabs of Upper Egypt, and Abou-Menzel, instituted by Gustavus Adolphus in 1628, and or Father Sickle-Bill, in Lower Egypt, is no doubt was raised to the rank of a university by Queen the white or Sacred Ibis, described by Herodotus Christina in 1640. The town of Abo has been as being familiar with man, and having no fearebuilt with wide and regular streets, but the thers on the head and neck; white all over, excommerce of the port, the trade of the town, and cept the head and neck, the tips of the wings, and the population, are all greatly diminished; its the tail, which are very black.' (Herod., ii. 76.) once celebrated observatory has been converted In ancient times this bird was regarded by the into a naval school, and its fine old castle on the Egyptians with great veneration; it was kept heights above the entrance of the river is little tame in their temples; it was delineated in their more than a picturesque ruin. sculptures; it was embalmed after death, and ABORIGINES, a term by which we some-mummies of it remain to the present day. The times denote the primitive inhabitants of a country. cause of this reverence is attributed by Herodotus Thus, to take one of the most striking instances, to the destruction it annually made among serwhen the continent and islands of America were pents in those parts of Egypt; but the structure discovered, they were found to be inhabited by of the curved beak, long, slender, blunt at the various races of people, of whose immigration into edges, and roundish at the tip, does not appear those regions we have no historical accounts. All to render it a very serviccable instrument for the tribes, then, of North America may, for the such work; and though Cuvier detected the skin present, be considered as aborigines. We can, and scales of a snake in the mummy of an Ibis indeed, since the discovery of America, trace the which he examined, we doubt whether these repmovements of various tribes from one part of the tiles form its habitual food. Indeed, M. Savigny continent to another; and, in this point of view, (L'Histoire Nat. et Mythol. de l'Ibis') found in when we compare the tribes one with another, we the crops of the fresh killed specimens which he cannot call a tribe which has changed its place of examined in Egypt, only land and fresh-water abode, aboriginal, with reference to the new coun-shells; and these, with worms and soft mollusks, try which it has occupied. The North American we suspect, constitute its ordinary diet. tribes that have moved from the east side of the With more reason may we connect the reverMississippi to the west of that river are not abo-ence in which this bird was once held to its rigines in their new territories. But the whole mass appearance in Egypt at the time of the annual of American Indians must, for the present, be con- rise of the Nile. Breeding, most probably, in sidered as aboriginal with respect to the rest of the more central latitudes of Africa, the Abou the world. The English, French, Germans, and others who have settled in America, are, of course, not aborigines with reference to that continent, but settlers, or colonists. Hannes visits Egypt in June, about the summer solstice, and continues during the increase of the waters till September: with the spread of the inundation its numbers increase, and they diminish If there is no reason to suppose that we can as the waters subside. On their first arrival the discover traces of any people who inhabited Eng-birds repair to the low lands, over which the water is beginning to flow; and as its depth and extent augment, they gradually retire to higher grounds, and spread themselves either singly or in small companies along the sides of canals and water-courses, intersecting the country; here they may be seen exploring the mud with the bill in quest of food, or sweeping on powerful wings and with a lofty flight from one spot to another, uttering at intervals hoarse loud cries. ABOUSAMBUL, IPSAMBUL, or EBSAMBUL, a place remarkable for containing two of the most perfect specimens of Egyptian rock-cut temples. These excavations are in Nubia, on the west side of the Nile, 22° 22′ N. lat., 31° 40′ E. long. Near Abousambul the river flows from S. W. to N.E., through sandstone hills; on the west bank a valley opens and displays two faces or walls of rock, each of which has been fashioned into the front of a temple. The excavations are made in the solid mass of the mountain. The smaller temple stands 20 feet above the present level of the river, and is in a state almost as perfect as when it was just completed. Strabo notices this bird, the Sacred Ibis, as frequenting the coast to the east of the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb; and Mr. Salt, sailing from the south, after getting round Cape Guardafui, saw near the coast a lagune abounding in wildfowl, on the borders of which were numbers of these The façade of this excavation is the exact probirds, the true Ibis of the Egyptians. The range totype of those masses of Egyptian architecture of this species would therefore appear to extend called própyla: the face slopes outwards towards from Egypt to the equator, and it is in these the base, thus preserving one chief characteristic southern latitudes that it is supposed to breed; of the pyramidal style of building. On each side for it is essentially migratory in Egypt, and does of the door-way are three standing colossal figures, not breed there, nor is its mode of nidification about 30 feet high, cut out of the rock and deep known. It is to Bruce that the recognition of sunk in niches, to the back part of which they this bird as the Sacred This is due; and Cuvier, are attached by a portion of the rock that has Savigny, Geoffroy, and other scientific men, have confirmed his opinion.-See an admirable article on the Ibis. in Cuvier's Theory of the Earth;' or in the Annales du Muséum' for 1804; and also Regne Animal.' The Sacred Ibis is about the size of a fowl, out with longer legs, bare above the joint. When young, the neck is partially covered with blackish down, but this soon disappears, leaving the bead and neck quite bare, and, as are also the beak and legs, of a decided black colour. The general plumage is white, with the exception of the tips of the quill feathers, which are of a glossy black, with violet reflections; as are also the last four secondaries, which have the barbs singularly elongated, so as to form a graceful pendant plume. This bird is the type of a family among the order Grallatores. [IBIS.] ABOU-HARB, the Arabic name of the Leucoryx Antelope. ABOU-HOSSEIN, the Arabic name of a species of Fox (Canis pallidus), found in Darfur and Kordofan. (Rüppel, Zool. Atlas.) ABOU-SCHOM, the Arabic name of a species of Fox (Canis variegatus), found in Nubia and Upper Egypt. It does not burrow, but resides among rocks. (Rüppel, Zool. Atlas, p. 31.) been allowed to remain. The figures are in a standing position, with one foot advanced, and looking towards the river. On each side of the larger figures stand smaller ones, from 4 to 6 feet high. The whole façade is ornamented with hieroglyphics, which, it is now ascertained, contain various repetitions of the name of Ramses, one of the several ancient monarchs of Egypt who bore that name. The width of the front of this temple is about 90 feet, the depth 76 feet. From the door a passage leads to a room 35 feet by 36), supported by six square pillars, three on each side, with Isis-headed capitals. From this apartment we pass into a narrow kind of vestibule, and thence into the adytum or recess, which contains the remains of a sitting statue cut in the rock. The interior of this excavation is richly adorned with painted bas-reliefs, representing offerings of palm branches and the lotus to Osiris, with other subjects usually found in the Egyptian sculptures. But this excavation, magnificent as it is, sinks into insignificance when compared with another rock-cut temple, which is found a few hundred feet distant on the opposite side of the valley. The front of this temple was almost covered with ABOUKIR. The castle of Aboukir is in 31° sand, except the head and shoulders of one of the 20′ N. lat., 30° 5′ E. long., and about 13 miles four colossi which decorate the façade, and the N.E. of the town of Alexandria: it stands on frieze and head of an enormous hawk. Belzoni, the extreme north-eastern point of the low barrier in the year 1817, succeeded in finding the entrance; of limestone rocks that form the breast work of the but he had to remove 31 feet of sand before he coast of Alexandria. It marks, in fact, the ex-came to the top of the door. height 86 feet: the height from the top of the door to the top of the cornice is 66 feet 6 inches; the height of the door is 20 feet. There are four enormous sitting colossi in front, which are the largest in all Egypt or Nubia. treme eastern limit, along the northern coast, of This excavation is about 100 feet above the the rocks of the African continent, being im-level of the river. The width of the front is 117 mediately followed by the old Canopic mouth of feet (127 according to Colonel Stratton), and the the Nile and the alluvium of the Delta. The small island which lies near Aboukir Point bears evident marks of having once been larger than it is at present. This little spot is now commonly called Nelson's Island, in commemoration of the victory which the English admiral obtained over the French fleet, under Brueys, in Aboukir bay, August 1, 1798. The following are some of the dimensions of one of these enormous figures; 25 feet 4 inches across the shoulders, the face 7 feet long, the nose 2 feet |