Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/676

Rh 638 A L S A L T that the reign of the saints on earth was to begin in 1694. ALSTON, CHARLES, M.D., a botanical and medical writer, was born in the west of Scotland in the year 1683. He began his studies at the university of Glasgow; and on the death of his father, prosecuted them under the patron age of the Duchess of Hamilton. After studying at Ley- den under Boerhaave, along with Alexander Monro (1716- 19), he returned to Edinburgh, and shared with Monro, Rutherford, Sinclair, and Plummer, the honour of laying the foundation of the renowned school of medicine there. He lectured on botany and materia medica with increasing reputation till his death in November 1760. He was a man of great ability, and an assiduous student of science. His most valuable work is his Lectures on Materia Medica, 2 vols., 1770. ALSTROEMER, JONAS, a Swedish industrial reformer, was born at Alingsaes, in West Gothland, on the 7th Jan. 1685. He left his native village at an early age, and in 1707 became clerk to Alberg, a merchant of Stockholm, whom he accompanied to London. After carrying on business for three years, Alberg failed, and Alstrom (as the clerk then called himself) engaged in the business of shipbroker on his own account, which eventually proved very successful. After travelling for several years on the Continent, he was seized with the patriotic desire to trans plant to his native country some of the industries he had seen nourishing in Britain. He accordingly returned to Alingsaes, and in 1724 established a woollen factory in the village, which after preliminary difficulties was completely successful. He next established a sugar refinery at Gothen burg ; introduced improvements in the cultivation of potatoes and of plants suitable for dyeing ; and directed attention to improved methods in shipbuilding, tanning, and the manufacture of cutlery. But his most successful undertaking was the importation of sheep from England, Spain, and Angora. In return for his services he received many marks of distinction. He was created (1748) knight of the order of the North Star ; and a few years later re ceived letters of nobility, with permission to change his name to Alstromer. He died June 2, 1761, leaving several works on practical industrial subjects. A statue was erected to his honour in the exchange at Stockholm. One of his sons, Clas (i.e., Claude), was a naturalist of considerable eminence. ALT, or ALUTA, a tributary of the Danube, which, rising in the eastern Carpathian mountains, flows through Transylvania and Wallachia, entering the latter by the pass of llothenthurm, and joins the Danube opposite Nicopoli, after a course of more than 300 miles. ALTAI MOUNTAINS, a group of mountains in central Asia, separating the table-lands of Mongolia from Siberia. The irregular chains of which the group consists extend from 85 to 103 E. long., and from 48 to 34 N. lat. The great Siberian rivers, the Obi, Irtish, and Yenesei, take their rise in these mountains, which are said to abound in scenes of picturesque beauty. The highest summits exceed 12,000 feet. The range is rich in mineral produc tions, particularly silver, copper, and iron. See ASIA, and GEOGRAPHY, PHYSICAL. ALTAMURA, a cathedral town in the south of Italy, province of Terra di Bari, 28 miles S.W. of Bari. It is situated in a fertile country, which produces wine and oil, and is said to occupy the site of the ancient Lupatia. Population, 17,365. ALTAR, in Classical Antiquity, was a solid base or pedestal on which supplication was made and sacrifice offered to the gods and deified heroes. According to this difference in the service for which they were employed, altars fell into two classes, of which the one, smaller and FIG. 1. Greek altar: usual form. lower so that the suppliant could kneel upon it, stood inside temples, in front of the sacred image ; while the other, destined for burnt sacrifice, was placed in the open air, and, if connected with a temple, in front of the entrance. Possibly altars of the former class were substitutes for, and Greek ai rendered the same service in historical times as, in an early Roman age, the base of the sacred image within a temple. In Altars, this case the altar of Apollo at Delphi, on which Neopto- lemus is frequently represented on the Greek vases as taking refuge from Orestes, might be regarded as the pedestal of an invisible image of the god, and as fulfilling the same function as did the base of the actual image of Minerva in Troy, towards which Cas sandra fled from Ajax. The other class of altars, called /Sco/xot by the Greeks and altaria by the Romans, appear to have originated in such temporary construc tions as heaps of earth, turf, or stone, made as occasion offered for kindling a fire for sacrifice. The next step was to allow the bones and ashes of the victims sacrificed to accumulate, and upon this to kindle new fires. Altars so raised were viewed with particular sanctity, the most remarkable recorded instances of them being the altars of Juno at Samus and at Olympia (Pausanias, v. 14, 5; v. 15, 6), of Apollo at Thebes (Pausanias, ix. 11, 5), and of Jupiter at Olympia. The last-mentioned stood on a platform (7rpo0uo-ts) measuring 125 feet in circumference, and led up to by steps, the altar itself being 22 feet high. Women were excluded from the platform. Where heca tombs were sacrificed, the Trpo^Wis necessarily assumed colossal proportions, as in the case of the altar at Parion, where it measured on each side 600 feet. The altar of Apollo at Delos (6 /cepcmvos /Jtoyuos) was made of the horns of deer believed to have been slain by Diana ; while at Miletus was an altar composed of the blood of victims sacrificed. The altar used at the festival in honour of Dtedalus on Mount Citha3ron was of wood, and was consumed along with the sacrifice (Pausanias, ix. 3, 2). Others, of bronze, are mentioned; but while these were exceptional, the usual material of an altar was marble, and its form, both among the Greeks and Romans, either square or round ; polygo nal altars, of which ex amples still exist, being exceptions. When sculp tured decorations were added they frequently took the form of imita tions of the actual festoons with which it was usual to ornament altars, or of sym bols, such as crania and horns of oxen, referring to the victims sacrificed. As a rule, the altars which existed apart from temples bore the name of the person by whom they were dedicated, and the names of the deities in whose service they were; or, if not the name, some obvious representation of the deity. Such is the purpose of the figures of the Muses on an altar to them in the British Museum. An altar was retained for the service of one particular god, except where, through local tradition, two or more deities had become intimately asso ciated, as in the case of the altar at Olympia to Diana and Alpheus jointly, or that of Neptune and Erechtheus in the Erechtheum at Athens, and others. Such deities were styled FIG. 2. Polygonal Greek Alta