Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/487

Rh A L B A L B especially of the first-mentioned, pass through the city annually. Besides its transit trade, its numerous foundries, its breweries, carriage and hat manufactories, and tanneries are of importance. In 1873, 536 vessels (83 sailing and 352 unrigged vessels and 101 steamers), of 68,682 tons, belonged to the port. Albany Avas founded by the Dutch in 1623, and is thus one of the oldest European settle ments in the United States, dating sixteen years after that of Jamestown in Virginia. It was captured &quot;by the British in 1664, who changed its name from Beaverwyck or Williamstadt in honour of the Duke of York and Albany. It received its charter in 1686, and became the capital of the state of New York in 1797. It is governed by a mayor and twenty aldermen, and is divided into ten wards. Popu lation in 1870, 69,422; number of families, 14,105 ; and of dwellings, 8748. ALBANY, LOUISA MARIA CAROLINE, COUNTESS OF, daughter of Prince Gustavus Adolphus of Stolberg-Gedern, was born at Mons on the 27th Sept. 1753, and assumed the title of Albany in 1772, when she married the Pretender, Charles Edward, grandson of James II. of England. Her husband was much older than herself, and their union proved very unhappy. There were no children, and the Pretender, who was a confirmed drunkard, treated his wife with such brutality that her health and even her life were endangered. In 1780 she obtained a legal separation, and entrusted herself to the care of her husband s brother, the Cardinal of York, who placed her in a convent, and after wards removed her to his own house at Borne. Here she was frequently visited by the poet Alfieri, who made her the object of what seems to have been the only pure attach ment of his life, and who, according to his own avowal, was indebted to her influence for all that was best in his works. (See ALFIERI.) In 1788 she was freed from her bonds by the death of the Pretender, and in the same year she is said to have been secretly married to Alfieri. For the remainder of her life she resided at Florence, where she continued to be known as Countess of Albany, and distinguished herself as a patroness of literary men and artists. Alfieri died at her house in 1803, and in 1810 she caused a monument to his memory, by Canova, to be erected in the church of San Croce. With the death of the Cardinal of York in 1807 the Stuart line became extinct, and the countess, who died on the 29th January 1824, was the last who was known by the name of Albany. She was buried beside Alfieri in the church of San Croce. ALBATEGNI, an Arabian astronomer, whose proper name is Mohammed Ibn Jdbir Ibn Sendn Abu Abdillah, derived this appellation from Batan in Mesopotamia, his native town, of which he is said to have been chief. His astronomical observations extended from 877 A.D. to his death in 929, and were principally conducted at Rakkah or Aracta, on the Euphrates, and at Antioch in Syria. His principal work, Zidje Sabi, the original MS. of which is in the Vatican, was published in a Latin translation by Plato Tiburtinus at Nuremberg in 1537, under the title De Scientia Stella-rum, and reprinted at Bologna in 1645. Among the unpublished works of Albategni are commen taries on the Almagest and Makalat of Ptolemy, and a Treatise on Astronomy and Geography. Instead of the tables of Ptolemy, which were imperfect, he computed new ones; these were adapted to the meridian of Rakkah, and were long iised as the best among the Arabs. Albategni gives the motion of the sun s apogee since Ptolemy s time, as well as the motion of the stars, which he estimated at 1 in 70 years. He makes the obliquity of the ecliptic 23 35 . His determination of the length of the tropical year is more exact than that of Ptolemy, being only 2m. 26s. short. Upon his observations were founded the Al- phonsine tables of the moon s motion. He first substi tuted sines for chords, and also introduced into trigonometry the use of tangents and versed sines. On account of his discoveries, the chief of which is the motion of the sun s apogee, he has been called the Arabian Ptolemy, and has been placed by some at the head of Arabian astronomers. ALBATROSS, a genus of aquatic birds (Diomedea), closely allied to the Petrels and Gulls, belonging to the family of Longipennatce, or long-winged birds, in the order Natatores. In the name Diomedea, assigned to them by Linna3iis, there is a reference to the mythical metamor phosis of the companions of the Greek warrior Diomedes into birds. They have the beak large, strong, and sharp- edged, the upper mandible terminating in a large hook; the wings are narrow and very long; the feet have no hind toe, and the three anterior toes are completely webbed. Of the three species that the genus includes the best known is the Common or Wandering Albatross (D. exulans), which occurs in all parts of the Southern Ocean, and in the seas that wash the coast of Asia to the south of Behring Strait. It is the largest and strongest of all sea-birds. The length of the body is stated at 4 feet, and the weight at from 15 to 25 ft&amp;gt;. It sometimes measures as much as 17 feet between the tips of the extended wings, averaging probably from 10 to 12 feet. Its strength of wing is very great. It often accompanies a ship for days not merely following it, but wheeling in wide circles round it without ever being observed to alight on the w r ater, and continues its flight, apparently untired, in tempestuous as well as in moderate weather. It has even been said to sleep on the wing, and Moore alludes to this fanciful &quot; cloud-rocked slumbering &quot; in his Fire Worshippers. It feeds on small fish and on the animal refuse that floats on the sea, eating to such excess at times that it is unable to fly, and rests helplessly on the water. The colour of the bird is a dusky white, the back being streaked transversely with black or brown bands, and the wings darker than the rest of the body. The flesh, though hard, dry, and unsavoury, is eaten by the inhabitants of Kamtchatka, who also capture the bird for its entrails, which they inflate for net-floats, and its long wing-bones, which they manufacture into various articles, particularly tobacco-pipes. The albatross lays one egg; it is white, with a few spots, and is about 4 inches long. In breeding-time the bird resorts to solitary island groups, like the Crozet Islands and the elerated Tristan da Cunha, where it has its nest a natural hollow or a circle of earth roughly scraped together on the open ground. The early explorers of the great Southern Sea cheered themselves with the companionship of the alba tross in its dreary solitudes; and the evil hap of him who shot with his cross-bow the bird of good omen is familiar to readers of Coleridge s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. ALBAY, a town of Luzon, the chief of the Philippine Islands, in 13 22 N. lat. and 123 52 E. long. It is the capital of the fertile province of the same name, and the residence of the governor, and has an active trade. Close to the town is an active volcano by which it has been fre quently devastated. Population, 13,115. I- -- 57