Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 03.djvu/559

LEFT EXATEEINOSLAV 485 ELBEBTON German people. This hostile feeling finally resulted in his assassination on Feb. 21, 1919, while he was walking in KURT EISNER the streets of Munich, on his way from the foreign office to the Parliament. EKATERINOSLAV (e-ka-te-re-no- 8lav'),a town of southern Russia, capital of a government of the same name, on the right bank of the Dnieper, 250 miles N. E. of Odessa. It was founded in 1787 by Prince Potemkin, and consists of a number of long, broad streets. Pop. about 195,000. The government, which is intersected by the Dnieper and at one point reaches the Sea of Azov, mostly consists of steppes; area 24,477 square miles; pop. about 3,150,000. EEBON, the northernmost of the five great cities of the Philistines, on the borders of Judah and Dan. Beelzebub was its god. ELAM, a district mentioned in Scrip- ture, lying S. of Assyria and E. of Persia proper, apparently the same as the Su- siana of Strabo. Its chief city, Susa (Shushan), early attained great impor- tanoe in Mesopotamia. It appears that the primitive Semitic Elamites were overcome at an early period by a Hamitic or Cushite race from Babylon, called by the Greeks Cossseans. ELATEEITJM, a drug obtained from the fruits of the squirting cucumber, a native of the S. of Europe, common on rubbish in the villages of Greece and the Archipelago. The fruit breaks from its stalk, and violently expels its seeds with the surrounding mucus through the opening thus made. This is not due to any true contractility, but much, in fact, as ripe gooseberries burst after prolonged rainy weather. It is the thick green mucus surrounding the seeds which yields the elaterium. Elaterium is used in medicine as a drastic hydragogue cathartic. Its active principle is a body called elaterin, CrxHisOi, which is probably the most powerful purgative known, the ordinary dose being only from 7^ to Vie grain. Both elaterium and elaterin are officinal in the British pharmacopoeia. It is an exceedingly drastic purgative, used in dropsy. ELBA, a small island belonging to the Kingdom of Italy, in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Tuscany, and with several much smaller isles, lying at the mouth of the Gulf of Piombino. The island of Elba is 18 miles from E. to W., with a width varying from 2^/2 to 12 miles in its widest part. The mountain- ous districts of the island yield quanti- ties of superior iron, marble, loadstones, and alum, besides wines and fmits. On the first abdication of Napoleon in 1814, Elba was assigned to him as a residence and empire. Here he accordingly took up his residence, in the month of May; and on Feb. 26, 1815, he secretly left the island, and, landing in France, began that brief and final career known in his- tory as the Hundred Days. Elba was a place of celebrity in the time of the Ro- mans, and famed then, as now, for its yield of iron. Pop. about 25,500. ELBE (el'be), a river of Germany, one of the largest in Europe. It rises on the S. W. slopes of the Schneekoppe or Snowcap, one of the Riesengebirge, between Bohemia and Silesia. From this point it flows nearly due S. into Bohemia for about 50 miles, when it turns to the W., and after about 40 miles takes a gen- eral N. N. W. direction till it falls into the North Sea, intersecting Saxony, a considerable portion of Prussia, and in the latter part of its course separating Holstein on its right from Hanover on the left. The length, including wind- ings, is upward of 780 miles. The Elbe is stocked with fine fish. ELBEBTON, a city of Georgia, the county-seat of Elbert co. It is on the Seaboard Air Line and the Southern railroads. The city is the center of the cotton-growing region and contains a cotton factory, cottonseed-oil mill, fertil- izer works, iron works, etc. There is a public library. Pop. (1910) 6,483; (1920) 6,475.