Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/869

 and 59 of the regulations annexed to the Hague Convention of the 29th of July 1899, relating to the Laws and Customs of War on Land. (See .)

ATACAMA, a province of northern Chile, bounded N. and S. respectively by the provinces of Antofagasta and Coquimbo, and extending from the Pacific coast E. to the Argentine boundary line. It has an area of 30,729 sq. m., lying in great part within the Atacama desert region (see below), and a population (1902) of 71,446. The silver and copper mines of the province are numerous, some of them ranking among the most productive known, but the majority are worked with limited capital and on a small scale. The silver ore was first discovered in 1832 by a shepherd at a place which bears his name, Juan Godoi. The nitrate and borax deposits are extensive and productive, and common salt is a natural product of large areas in the elevated desert regions of the Andes. The exports include copper and silver and their ores, nitrate of soda, borax, guano and other minerals in small quantities. The capital, Copiapó (est. pop. 8991 in 1902), is situated on a small river of the same name 37 m. from the coast and 51 m. south-east by rail from Caldera, the principal port of this great mining district. Before 1842, when guano began to attract notice as an exportable product, Atacama was considered as Bolivian territory, and Coquimbo the extreme northern province of Chile. In that year Chile decided to explore the desert coast, and in 1843 that part of the desert extending north to the 26th parallel was organized into the province of Atacama. ATACAMA, DESERT OF, an arid, barren and saline region of western South America, covering the greater part of the Chilean provinces of Atacama and Antofagasta, the Argentine territory of Los Andes, and the south-western corner of the Bolivian department of Potosí. The higher elevations are known as the Puna de Atacama, which is practically a continuation southward of the great puna region of Peru and Bolivia. It is a broken, mountainous region, volcanic in places, saline in others, and ranges from 7000 to 13,500 ft. in general elevation. Its culminating ridges are marked by an irregular line of peaks and extinct volcanoes extending north by east from about 28° S. into southern Bolivia. On the eastern side, occasional rainfalls occur and streams from the snow-clads peaks produce some slight displays of fertility, but the general aspect of the plateaus, which are dry and cold in winter and in summer are swept by rainstorms and covered by occasional tufts of coarse grass, is barren and forbidding. They are also broken by great saline lagoons and dry salt basins. This region forms the Argentine territory of Los Andes and is habitable in places. On the western slope the land descends gradually to the Pacific, being broken into great basins, or terraces, by mountainous ridges in its higher elevations, widening out into gently-sloping sandy plains below, famous for their nitrate deposits, and terminating on the coast with sharply-sloping bluffs, having an elevation of 800 to 1500 ft., and looking from the sea like a range of flat-topped hills. This desolate region, which is rainless and absolutely barren, and was considered worthless for three and a half centuries, is now a treasure-house of mineral wealth, abounding in copper, silver, lead, nickel, cobalt, iron, nitrates and borax. It is occupied by many mining settlements, and includes some of the most productive copper and silver mines of the world.

ATACAMITE, a mineral found originally in the desert of Atacama, and named by D. de Gallizen in 1801. It is a cupric oxychloride, having the formula CuCl2·3Cu(OH)2, and crystallizing in the orthorhombic system. Its hardness is about 3 and its specific gravity 3·7, while its colour presents various shades of green, usually dark. Atacamite is a comparatively rare mineral, formed in some cases by the action of sea-water on various copper-ores, and occurring also as a volcanic product on Vesuvian lavas. Some of the finest crystals have been yielded by the copper-mines of South Australia, especially at Wallaroo. It occurs also, with malachite, at Bembe, near Ambriz, in West Africa. From one of its localities in Chile, Los Remolinos, it was termed Remolinite by Brooke and Miller. Atacamite, in a pulverulent state, was formerly used as a pounce under the name of “Peruvian green sand,” and was known in Chile as arsenillo.

ATAHUALLPA (atahu, Lat. virtus, and allpa, sweet), “the last of the Incas” (or Yncas) of Peru, was the son of the ruler Huayna Capac, by Pacha, the daughter of the conquered sovereign of Quito. His brother Huascar succeeded Huayna Capac in 1527; for, as Atahuallpa was not descended on both sides from the line of Incas, Peruvian law considered him illegitimate. He obtained, however, the kingdom of Quito. A jealous feeling soon sprang up between him and Huascar, who insisted that Quito should be held as a dependent province of his empire. A civil war broke out between the brothers, and, about the time when the Spanish conqueror Pizarro was beginning to move inland from the town of San Miguel, Huascar had been defeated and thrown into prison, and Atahuallpa had become Inca. Pizarro set out in September 1532, and made for Caxamarca, where the Inca was. Messengers passed frequently between them, and the Spaniards on their march were hospitably received by the inhabitants. On the 15th of November, Pizarro entered Caxamarca, and sent his brother and Ferdinando de Soto to request an interview with the Inca. On the evening of the next day, Atahuallpa entered the great square of Caxamarca, accompanied by some five or six thousand men, who were either unarmed or armed only with short clubs and slings concealed under their dresses. Pizarro’s artillery and soldiers were planted in readiness in the streets opening off the square. The interview was carried on by the priest Vicente de Valverde, who addressed the Inca through an interpreter. He stated briefly and dogmatically the principal points of the Christian faith and the Roman Catholic policy, and concluded by calling upon Atahuallpa to become a Christian, obey the commands of the pope, give up the administration of his kingdom, and pay tribute to Charles V., to whom had been granted the conquest of these lands. To this extraordinary harangue, which from its own nature and the faults of the interpreter must have been completely unintelligible, the Inca at first returned a very temperate answer. He pointed out what seemed to him certain difficulties in the Christian religion, and declined to accept as monarch of his dominions this Charles, of whom he knew nothing. He then took a bible from the priest’s hands, and, after looking at it, threw it violently from him, and began a more impassioned speech, in which he exposed the designs of the Spaniards, and upbraided them with the cruelties they had perpetrated. The priest retired, and Pizarro at once gave the signal for attack. The Spaniards rushed out suddenly, and the Peruvians, astonished and defenceless, were cut down in hundreds. Pizarro himself seized the Inca, and in endeavouring to preserve him alive, received, accidentally, on his hand the only wound inflicted that day on a Spaniard. Atahuallpa, thus treacherously captured, offered an enormous sum of money as a ransom, and fulfilled his engagement; but Pizarro still detained him, until the Spaniards should have arrived in sufficient numbers to secure the country. While in captivity, Atahuallpa gave secret orders for the assassination of his brother Huascar, and also endeavoured to raise an army to expel the invaders. His plans were betrayed, and Pizarro at once brought him to trial. He was condemned to death, and, as being an idolater, to death by fire. Atahuallpa, however, professed himself a Christian, received baptism, and his sentence was then altered into death by strangulation (August 29, 1533). His body was afterwards burned, and the ashes conveyed to Quito. (See also : History.) ATALANTA, in Greek legend, the name of two Greek heroines. (1) The Arcadian Atalanta was the daughter of Iasius or Iasion and Clymene. At her birth, she had been exposed on a hill, her father having expected a son. At first she was suckled by a she-bear, and then saved by huntsmen, among whom she grew