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Rh his face against all innovations which, like railways and telegraphs, might give Europeans a foothold within his country. His adventurous life, his forcible character, the position of his State as a barrier between the Indian and the Russian empires, and the skill with which he held the balance in dealing with them, combined to make him a prominent figure in contemporary Asiatic politics, and will mark his reign as an epoch in the history of Afghanistan.

The Amir received an annual subsidy from the British Government of 18½ lakhs of rupees. He was allowed to import munitions of war. In 1896 he adopted the title of Zia-ul-Millat-ud-Din (Light of the nation and religion); and his zeal for the cause of Islam induced him to publish treatises on Jehad. His eldest son Habibulla Khan, with his brother Nasrulla Khan, was born at Samarkhand. His youngest son, Mahommed Umar Jan, was born in 1889 of an Afghan mother, connected by descent with the Barakzaie family.

See also The Amir Abdur Rahman. London, 1895.—The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, Q.C.B., G.C.S.I., edited by. 2 vols., London, 1900. Also the article. (A. C. L.)

Abel, Sir Frederick Augustus,. (1827- ), English chemist, was born in London, 17th July 1827. Determining to adopt chemistry as his profession, he was one of the first students to enter the Royal College of Chemistry, which was established in 1845 under the direction of the distinguished German chemist, von Hofmann. After remaining there for six years, during five of which he acted as one of Hofmann's assistants, he became Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Military Academy in 1851, and three years later was appointed Chemist to the War Department and Chemical Referee to the Government. During his tenure of this office, which lasted until 1888, he carried out a large amount of work in connexion with the chemistry of explosives, one of the most important of his investigations having to do with the manufacture of gun-cotton. Continuing and supplementing the work of Lenk in Austria, he devised a process which enabled it to be prepared with practically no danger, and which at the same time yielded the product in a form that increased its usefulness. This consisted essentially in reducing the cotton, after nitration, to fine pulp. A double advantage was thereby gained; the material could be more certainly washed free from every trace of the acid which, if not removed, renders it liable to spontaneous combustion, while control over the rate of explosion, which is largely a question of mechanical condition, could be gained by hydraulic compression of the pulp into masses of whatever size and shape might be found desirable. These improvements in the manufacture of gun-cotton contributed in an important degree to the preparation of the smokeless powders, which in the latter part of the 19th century came into general use for military purposes all over the world. Cordite, the particular form adopted by the British Government, was the joint invention of Abel and Professor Dewar, who, with Dr Dupré, constituted the special Committee on Explosives which sat from 1888 to 1891 to select a smokeless powder for the British army and navy. For his services as chairman of, this committee Abel was made a K.C.B. Our knowledge of the explosion of ordinary black powder was also greatly added to by him, and in conjunction with Sir A. Noble he carried out one of the most complete inquiries on record into its behaviour when fired. The invention of the apparatus, legalized in 1879, for the determination of the flash-point of petroleum, was another piece of work which fell to him by virtue of his official position. His first instrument, the open-test apparatus, was prescribed by the Act of 1868, but, being found to possess certain defects, it was superseded in 1879 by the Abel close-test instrument. The earlier Act imposed restrictions on the storage of petroleum having a flashpoint below 100° F., as ascertained by the open-test instrument, and by the second one it was intended to maintain the same standard. It therefore became necessary to ascertain the relation between the two tests, and for this purpose Abel superintended a long series of experiments, which showed that, on the average, oil which flashed at 100° open-test flashed at only 73° close-test. The latter figure was therefore legalized as the equivalent of the former under the new conditions. Abel's researches were not confined to chemistry. In electricity he studied the construction of electrical fuzes and other applications of that form of energy to warlike purposes, and in 1877 he served as president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (then the Society of Telegraph Engineers). Problems of steel manufacture also-engaged his attention, and in 1891-93 he was president of the Iron and Steel Institute, whose Bessemer medal he was awarded in 1897. Of the Royal Society he became a member in 1860, receiving a Royal medal in 1887. He took an important part in the work of the Inventions Exhibition in 1885, and in 1887 became organizing secretary and first director of the Imperial Institute. Among the books he has published are Handbook of Chemistry (with Bloxam), Modern History of Gunpowder (1866), Gun-cotton (1866), On Explosive Agents (1872), Researches in Explosives (1875), and Electricity applied to Explosive Purposes (1884). He also wrote several important articles in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Abeokuta. See.

Aberavon, a municipal and contributory parliamentary borough and railway station of Glamorganshire, Wales, near the mouth of the Avon, 11 miles E.S.E. of Swansea. It belongs to the Swansea parliamentary district of boroughs. The port of Aberavon is Port Talbot, where there is a dock over a mile long, and from 240 to 900 feet wide. Area of municipal borough, 2060 acres. Population in 1881, 4859; in 1891, 6300; in 1901, 7553.

Abercarn, a large village in the southern parliamentary division of Monmouthshire, England, 10 miles N.W. from Newport by rail. There are collieries and ironworks in the district. The urban district includes part of the civil parish of Mynyddyslwyr; area, 9504 acres; population in 1881, 5964; in 1891, 10,464; in 1900, 12,607.

Aberconway. See.

Aberdare, a market-town and railway station of Glamorganshire, Wales, 4 miles S.W. of Merthyr Tydfil, of which parliamentary borough it forms part. The town has continued to advance rapidly both in numbers and in general prosperity. The new erections include Established and Presbyterian churches, an infectious diseases hospital, a cottage hospital, a theatre, a memorial hall, a theological college, and a technical and intermediate school; there is also a commodious industrial training school, and the town now possesses two extensive public parks. Besides the prosperous mineral industries, there are brick and pottery works, and several breweries. Population of township in 1881, 35,533; in 1891, 40,917; of urban district in 1891, 38,431; in 1901, 43,357.

Aberdeen, a royal burgh, city, and county of a city (1899), and the county town of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, situated on a bay between the mouths of the rivers Dee and Don, 111 miles N. of Edinburgh by road and 130$1/6$, by rail (Forth Bridge route). The city