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 refrigerators and salt. The city owns and operates the electric-lighting plant; the water-works system is privately owned, and the water supply is obtained from deep wells at San Leandro. A settlement existed here before the end of the Mexican period. In 1854 it was incorporated as a town and in 1885 was chartered as a city. In 1906 the city adopted a freehold charter, centralizing power in the mayor and providing for a referendum. The county was organized in 1853.

ALAMOS DE BARRIENTOS, BALTASAR (1555–1640), Spanish scholar, was born at Medina del Campo in 1555. His friendship with Antonio Perez caused him to be arrested in 1590 and imprisoned for nearly thirteen years. His Tácito español ilustrado con aforismos (Madrid, 1614) is the only work which bears his name, but he is probably the author of the Discurso del gobierno ascribed to Perez. Through the influence of Lerma (to whom the Tacito is dedicated) and of Olivares, he subsequently attained high official position.

ÅLAND ISLANDS, an archipelago at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia, about 25 m. from the coast of Sweden, and 15 from that of Finland. The group, which forms part of the Finnish province of Åbo-Björneborg, consists of nearly three hundred islands, of which about eighty are inhabited, the remainder being desolate rocks. These islands form a continuation of a dangerous granite reef extending along the south coast of Finland. They formerly belonged to Sweden, and in the neighbourhood the first victory of the Russian fleet Over the Swedes was gained by Peter the Great in 1714. They were ceded to Russia in 1809. They occupy a total area of 1426 sq. km., and their present population is estimated at about 19,000. The majority of these occupy the island of Åland, upon which is situated the town of Mariehamn with a population of 1171. The inhabitants are mostly of Swedish descent, and are hardy seamen and fishermen. The surface of the islands is generally sandy, the soil thin and the climate keen; yet Scotch fir, spruce and birch are grown; and rye, barley, flax and vegetables are produced in sufficient quantity for the wants of the people. Great numbers of cattle are reared; and cheese, butter and hides, as well as salted meat and fish, are exported. There are several excellent harbours (notably that of Ytternäs), which were at one time of great importance to Russia from the fact that they are frozen up for a much briefer period than those on the coast of Finland.

The Åland Islands occupy a position of the greatest strategic importance, commanding as they do both the entrance to the port of Stockholm and the approaches to the Gulf of Bothnia, through which the greater part of the trade of Sweden is carried on. When, by the 4th article of the treaty of Fredrikshavn (Friedrichshamn), 5/17 September 1809, the islands were ceded to Russia, together with the territories forming the grand-duchy of Finland on the mainland, the Swedes were unable to secure a provision that the islands should not be fortified. The question was, however, a vital one not only for Sweden but for Great Britain, whose trade in the Baltic was threatened. In 1854, accordingly, during the Crimean War, an Anglo-French force attacked and destroyed the fortress of Bomersund, against the erection of which Palmerston had protested without effect some twenty years previously. By the “Åland Convention,” concluded between Great Britain, France and Russia on the 30th of March 1856, it was stipulated that “the Åland Islands shall not be fortified, and that no military or naval establishments shall be maintained or created on them.” By the 33rd article of the treaty of Paris (1856) this convention, annexed to the final act, was given “the same force and validity as if it formed part thereof,” Palmerston declaring in the House of Commons (May 6) that it had “placed a barrier between Russia and the north of Europe.” Some attention was attracted to this arrangement when in 1906 it was asserted that Russia, under pretext of stopping the smuggling of arms into Finland, was massing considerable naval and military forces at the islands. The question of the Åland Islands created some discussion in 1907 and 1908 in connexion with the new North Sea agreements, and undoubtedly Russia considered the convention of 1856 as rather humiliating. But it was plainly shown by other powers that they did not propose to regard it as modified or open to question, and the point was not definitely and officially raised.

ALANI (Gr.  ; Chinese ’O-lan-na; since the 9th century they have been called As, Russ. Jasy, Georgian Ossi), the easternmost division of the Sarmatians (see ), Iranian nomads with some Altaic admixture. First met with north of the Caspian, and later (c. 1st century ) spreading into the steppes of Russia, the Alans made incursions into both the Danubian and the Caucasian provinces of the Roman empire. By the Huns they were cut into two portions, of which the western joined the Germanic nations in their invasion of southern Europe, and, following the fortunes of the Vandals, disappeared in North Africa. Those of the eastern division, though dispersed about the steppes until late medieval times, were by fresh invading hordes forced into the Caucasus, where they remain as the Ossetes. At one time partially Christianized by Byzantine missionaries, they had almost relapsed into heathenism, but are now under Russian influence returning to Christianity.

ALARCÓN, HERNANDO DE, Spanish navigator of the 16th century, is known only in connexion with the expedition to the coast of California, of which he was leader. He set sail on the 9th of May 1540 with orders from the Spanish court to await at a certain point on the coast the arrival of an expedition by land under the command of Vasquez de Coronado. The junction was not effected, though Alarcón reached the appointed place and left letters, which were afterwards found by Diaz, another explorer. Alarcón was the first to determine with certainty that California was a peninsula and not an island, as had been supposed. He made a careful survey of the coast, ascended the Rio del Tizon or Rio de Buena Guia (Colorado) for 85 Spanish m., and was thus able on his return to New Spain in 1541 to construct an excellent map of California.

ALARCÓN, JUAN RUIZ DE Spanish dramatist, was born about 1581 at Tlacho (Mexico), where his father was superintendent of mines. He came to Europe in 1600, studied law at Salamanca, and in 1608 went back to Mexico to compete for a professorial chair. Returning to Spain in 1611, he entered the household of the marquis de Salinas, became a successful dramatist, and was nominated a member of the council of the Indies in 1623. He died at Madrid on the 4th of August 1639. His plays were published in 1628 and 1634; the most famous of these is La Verdad sospechosa, which was adapted by Corneille as the Menteur. Alarcón had the misfortune to be a hunchback, to be embittered by his deformity, and to be constantly engaged in personal quarrels with his rivals; but his attitude in these polemics is always dignified, and his crushing retort to Lope de Vega in Los pechos privilegiados is an unsurpassable example of cold, scornful invective. More than any other Spanish dramatist, Alarcón is preoccupied with ethical aims, and his gift of dramatic presentation is as brilliant as his dialogue is natural and vivacious. It has been alleged that his foreign origin is noticeable in his plays, and there is some foundation for the criticism; but his workmanship is exceptionally conscientious, and in El Tejedor de Segovia he had produced a masterpiece of national art, national sentiment and national expression.

ALARCÓN, PEDRO ANTONIO DE (1833–1891), Spanish writer, was born on the 10th of March 1833 at Guadix. He graduated at the university of Granada, studied law and theology privately, and made his first appearance as a dramatist before he was of age. Deciding to follow literature as a profession, he joined with Torcuato Tárrago y Mateos in editing a Cadiz newspaper entitled El Eco de Occidente. In 1853 he travelled to