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 and pickled olives, retaining their characteristic flavour, have been found among the buried stores of Pompeii. The bitter juice or refuse deposited during expression of the oil (called amurca), and the astringent leaves of the tree have many virtues attributed to them by ancient authors. The oil of the bitter wild olive was employed by the Roman physicians in medicine, but does not appear ever to have been used as food or in the culinary art.

In modern times the olive has been spread widely over the world; and, though the Mediterranean lands that were its ancient home still yield the chief supply of the oil, the tree is now cultivated successfully in many regions unknown to its early distributors. Soon after the discovery of the American continent it was conveyed thither by the Spanish settlers. In Chile it flourishes as luxuriantly as in its native land, the trunk sometimes becoming of large girth, while oil of fair quality is yielded by the fruit. To Peru it was carried at a later date, but has not there been equally successful. Introduced into Mexico by the Jesuit missionaries of the 17th century, it was planted by similar agency in Upper California, where it has prospered latterly under the more careful management of the Anglo-Saxon conqueror. Its cultivation has also been attempted in the south-eastern states, especially in S. Carolina, Florida and Mississippi. In the eastern hemisphere the olive has been established in many inland districts which would have been anciently considered ill-adapted for its culture. To Armenia and Persia it was known at a comparatively early period of history, and many olive-yards now exist in Upper Egypt. The tree has been introduced into Chinese agriculture, and has become an important addition to the resources of the Australian planter. In Queensland the olive has found a climate specially suited to its wants; in South Australia, near Adelaide, it also grows vigorously; and there are probably few coast districts of the vast island-continent where the tree would not flourish. It has likewise been successfully introduced into some parts of Cape Colony.

OLIVEIRA MARTINS, JOAQUIM PEDRO DE (1845–1894), Portuguese writer, was born in Lisbon and received his early education at the Lycéo Nacional and the Academia das Bellas Artes. At the age of fourteen his father’s death compelled him to seek a living as clerk in a commercial house, but he gradually improved his position until in 1870 he was appointed manager of the mine of St Eufemia near Cordova. In Spain he wrote O. Socialismo, and developed that sympathy for the industrial classes of which he gave proof throughout his life. Returning to Portugal in 1874, he became administrator of the railway from Oporto to Povoa, residing in Oporto. He had married when only nineteen, and for many years devoted his leisure hours to the study of economics, geography and history. In 1878 his memoir A Circulação fiduciaria brought him the gold medal and membership of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Lisbon. Two years later he was elected president of the Society of Commercial Geography of Oporto, and in 1884 he became director of the Industrial and Commercial Museum in that city. In 1885 he entered public life, and in the following year represented Vianna do Castello in parliament, and in 1887 Oporto. Removing to Lisbon in 1888, he continued the journalistic work which he had commenced when living in the north, by editing the Reporter, and in 1889 he was named administrator of the Tobacco Regie. He represented Portugal at international conferences in Berlin and Madrid in 1890, and was chosen to speak at the celebration of the fourth centenary of Columbus held in Madrid in 1891, which gained him membership of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. He became minister of finance on the 17th of January 1892, and later vice-president of the Junta do Credito Publico. His health, however, began to break down as a result of a life spent in unremitting toil, and he died on the 24th of August 1894.

His youthful struggles and privations had taught him a serious view of life, which, with his acute sensibility, gave him a reserved manner, but Oliveira Martins was one of the most generous and noble of men. Like Anthero de Quental, he was impregnated with modern German philosophy, and his perception of the low moral standard prevailing in public life made him a pessimist who despaired of his country’s future, but his sense of proportion, and the necessity which impelled him to work, saved him from the fate which befell his friend, and he died a believing Catholic. At once a gifted psychologist, a profound sociologist, a stern moralist, and an ardent patriot, Oliveira Martins deserved his European reputation. His Bibliotheca das sciencias sociaes, a veritable encyclopaedia, comprises literary criticism, socialism, economics, anthropology, histories of Iberian civilization, of the Roman Republic, Portugal and Brazil. Towards the end of his life he specialized in the 15th century and produced two notable volumes, Os fithos de D. João I. and A vida de Nun’ Alvares, leaving unfinished O principe perfeito, a study on King John II., which was edited by his friend Henrique de Barros Gomes.

As the literary leader of a national revival, Oliveira Martins occupied an almost unique position in Portugal during the last third of the 19th century. If he judged and condemned the parliamentary regime and destroyed many illusions in his sensational Contemporary Portugal, and if in his philosophic History of Portugal he showed, in a series of impressionist pictures, the slow decline of his country commencing in the golden age of the discoveries and conquests, he at the same time directed the gaze of his countrymen to the days of their real greatness under the House of Aviz, and incited them to work for a better future by describing the faith and patriotism which had animated the foremost men of the race in the middle ages. He had neither time nor opportunity for original research, but his powerful imagination and picturesque style enabled him to evoke the past and make it present to his readers.

The chief characteristics of the man—psychological imagination combined with realism and a gentle irony—make his strength as a historian and his charm as a writer. When some critics objected that his Historia de Portugal ought rather to be named “Ideas on Portuguese History,” he replied that a synthetic and dramatic picture of one of those collective beings called nations gives the mind a clearer, truer and more lasting impression than a summary narrative of successive events. But just because he possessed the talents and temperament of a poet, Oliveira Martins was fated to make frequent mistakes as well as to discover important truths. He must be read with care because he is emotional, and cannot let facts speak for themselves, but interrupts the narrative with expressions of praise or blame. Some of his books resemble a series of visions, while, despite his immense erudition, he does not always supply notes or refer to authorities. He can draw admirable portraits, rich with colour and life; in his Historia de Portugal and Contemporaneo Portugal those of King Pedro I. and Herculano are among the best known. He describes to perfection such striking events as the Lisbon earthquake, and excels in the appreciation of an epoch. In these respects Castelar considered him superior to Macaulay, and declared that few men in Europe possessed the universal aptitude and the fullness of knowledge displayed by Oliveira Martins.

OLIVENITE, a mineral consisting of basic copper arsenate with the formula Cu2(OH)AsO4. It crystallizes in the ortho-