Page:EB1911 - Volume 01.djvu/505

 with the Tallapoosa; the channel of the river has been considerably improved by the Federal government. The navigation of the Tallapoosa river (which has its source in Paulding county, Georgia, and is about 250 m. long) is prevented by shoals and a 60-ft. fall at Tallassee, a few miles N. of its junction with the Coosa. The Alabama is navigable throughout the year. In 1878 the Federal government undertook to make a channel the length of the Alabama 200 ft. wide and 4 ft. deep; an amendment in 1891 provided for a 6-ft. channel at low water, and in June 1907 this work was reported as “10% completed” at an expenditure of $303,659. The Mobile river is navigable for vessels of about 14 ft. draft. The Alabama is an important carrier of cotton, cotton seed, fertilizer, cereals, lumber, naval stores, &c.; and in the fiscal year 1906–1907 the freight tonnage was 417,041 tons.

 ALABASTER,, WILLIAM (1567–1640), English Latin poet and scholar, was born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, in 1567. He was, so Fuller states, a nephew by marriage of Dr John Still, bishop of Bath and Wells. His surname, sometimes written Arblastier, is one of the many variants of arbalester, a cross-bowman. Alabaster was educated at Westminster school, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1583. He became a fellow, and in 1592 was incorporated of the university of Oxford. About 1592 he produced at Trinity College his Latin tragedy of Roxana. It is modelled on the tragedies of Seneca, and is a stiff and spiritless work. Fuller and Anthony à Wood bestowed exaggerated praise on it, while Samuel Johnson regarded it as the only Latin verse worthy of notice produced in England before Milton’s elegies. Roxana is founded on the La Dalida (Venice, 1567) of Luigi Groto, known as Cieco di Hadria, and Hallam asserts that it is a plagiarism (Literature of Europe, iii. 54). A surreptitious edition in 1632 was followed by an authorized version a plagiarii unguibus vindicata, aucta et agnita ab Authore, Gulielmo Alabastro. One book of an epic poem in Latin hexameters, in honour of Queen Elizabeth, is preserved in MS. in the library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. This poem, Elisaeis, Apotheosis poetica, Spenser highly esteemed. “Who lives that can match that heroick song?” he says in Colin Clout’s come home againe, and begs “Cynthia” to withdraw the poet from his obscurity. In June 1596 Alabaster sailed with Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, on the expedition to Cadiz in the capacity of chaplain, and, while he was in Spain, he became a Roman Catholic. An account of his change of faith is given in an obscurely worded sonnet contained in a MS. copy of Divine Meditations, by Mr Alabaster (see J. P. Collier, Hist. of Eng. Dram. Poetry, ii. 341). He defended his conversion in a pamphlet, Seven Motives, of which no copy is extant. The proof of its publication only remains in two tracts, A Booke of the Seuen Planets, or Seuen wandring motives of William Alablaster’s (sic) wit. . ., by John Racster (1598), and An Answer to William Alabaster, his Motives, by Roger Fenton (1599). From these it appears that Alabaster was imprisoned for his change of faith in the Tower of London during 1598 and 1599. In 1607 he published at Antwerp Apparatus in Revelationem Jesu Christi, in which his study of the Kabbalah was turned to account in a mystical interpretation of scripture which drew down the censure alike of Protestants and Catholics. The book was placed on the Index librorum prohibitorum at Rome early in 1610. Alabaster says in the preface to his Ecce sponsus venit (1633), a treatise on the time of the second advent of Christ, that he went to Rome and was there imprisoned by the Inquisition but succeeded in escaping to England and again embraced the Protestant faith. He received a prebend in St Paul’s cathedral, London, and the living of Therfield, Hertfordshire. He died in 1640. Alabaster’s other cabalistic writings are Commentarius de Bestia Apocalyptica (1621) and Spiraculum tubarum (1633), a mystical interpretation of the Pentateuch. It was by these theological writings that he won the praise of Robert Herrick, who calls him “the triumph of the day” and the “one only glory of a million” (“To Doctor Alabaster” in Hesperides, 1648). He also published (1637) Lexicon Pentaglotton, Hebraicum, Chaldaicum, Syriacum, Talmudico-Rabbinicon et Arabicum.

 ALABASTER, a name applied to two distinct mineral substances, the one a hydrous sulphate of lime and the other a carbonate of lime. The former is the alabaster of the present day, the latter is generally the alabaster of the ancients. The two kinds are readily distinguished from each other by their relative hardness. The modern alabaster is so soft as to be readily scratched even by the finger-nail (hardness＝1·5 to 2), whilst the stone called alabaster by the ancients is too hard to be scratched in this way (hardness＝3), though it yields readily to a knife. Moreover, the ancient alabaster, being a carbonate, effervesces on being touched with hydrochloric acid, whereas the modern alabaster when so treated remains practically unaffected.

Ancient Alabaster.—This substance, the “alabaster” of scripture, is often termed Oriental alabaster, since the early examples came from the East. The Greek name  is said to be derived from the town of Alabastron, in Egypt, where the stone was quarried, but the locality probably owed its name to the mineral; the origin of the mineral-name is obscure, and it has been suggested that it may have had an Arabic origin. The Oriental alabaster was highly esteemed for making small perfume-bottles or ointment vases called alabastra; and this has been conjectured to be a possible source of the name. Alabaster was also employed in Egypt for Canopic jars and various other sacred and sepulchral objects. A splendid sarcophagus, sculptured in a single block of translucent Oriental alabaster from Alabastron, is in the Soane Museum, London. This was discovered by Giovanni Belzoni, in 1817, in the tomb of Seti I., near Thebes, and was purchased by Sir John Soane, having previously been offered to the British Museum for £2000.

Oriental alabaster is either a stalagmitic deposit, from the floor and walls of limestone-caverns, or a kind of travertine, deposited from springs of calcareous water. Its deposition in successive layers gives rise to the banded appearance which the marble often shows on cross-section, whence it is known as onyx-marble or alabaster-onyx, or sometimes simply as onyx—a term which should, however, be restricted to a siliceous mineral. The Egyptian alabaster has been extensively worked near Suef and near Assiut; there are many ancient quarries in the hills overlooking the plain of Tell el Amarna. The Algerian onyx-marble has been largely quarried in the province of Oran. In Mexico there are famous deposits of a delicate green variety at La Pedrara, in the district of Tecali, near Puebla. Onyx-marble occurs also in the district of Tehuacan and at several localities in California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Virginia.

Modern Alabaster.—When the term “alabaster” is used without any qualification it invariably means, at the present day, a finely granular variety of (q.v.). This mineral, or alabaster proper, occurs in England in the Keuper marls of the Midlands, especially at Chellaston in Derbyshire, at Fauld in Staffordshire and near Newark in Nottinghamshire. At all these localities it has been extensively worked. It is also found, though in subordinate quantity, at Watchet in Somersetshire, near Penarth in Glamorganshire, and elsewhere. In Cumberland and Westmorland it occurs largely in the New Red rocks, but at a lower geological horizon. The alabaster of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire is found in thick nodular beds or “floors,” in spheroidal masses known as “balls” or “bowls,” and in smaller lenticular masses termed “cakes.” At Chellaston, where the alabaster is known as “Patrick,” it has been worked into ornaments under the name of “Derbyshire spar”—a term applied also to fluor-spar. The finer kinds of alabaster are largely employed as an ornamental stone, especially for ecclesiastical decoration, and for the walls of staircases and halls. Its softness enables it to be readily carved into elaborate forms,