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ATHABASCA

and machine, furniture, carriage and wagon shops. St. Benedict College, St. Scholas-tica^s Academy (R. C.), the Midland College (Lutheran), the Atchison Latin School, and excellent public and parish schools are in the city. Besides, there are an orphans' home, an insane asylum, a hospital and three parks. The city has grown rapidly. Its population is 16,429.

Athabas'ca, a former district in northwest Canada, now has the status of a province, and is known as Alberta.

, partly in Alberta and partly in Saskatchewan (Canada); area 2,843 miles. River of the same name, 765 miles long, flows into this lake. A considerable stretch of it navigable. Athabasca Landing, a place of some commercial importance, is on its banks. The Athabasca is the most southerly of the rivers that go to make up the Mackenzie basin. It has its source in Yellow Head Pass high up in perpetual snow. It flows easterly and northerly collecting in its course the waters of the Baptiste, Macleod, Freeman, Pem-bina, Lesser Slave and other streams. It is one mile wide where it empties into Lake Athabasca (Lake of the Hills), and 1,100 miles from its source high up in the Rockies.

Athaliah (&th-a-ti'a), the Daughter of A.hab, king of Israel, married Jehoram, king of Judah, and brought the worship of Baal into Judah. After the death of her son, Ahaziah, who succeeded Jehoram but reigned only one year, she tried to pave her way to the throne by destroying all the members of the royal family. But Ahaziah's son, Joash, was hidden by his aunt, and after Athaliah had reigned six years, the high priest, Jehoiada, placed Joash on the throne and caused Athaliah to be killed. Handel, in an oratorio, has told this story, and Racine also, in his drama Athalie, for which Mendelssohn composed the music.

Athena. See MINERVA.

Ath'ens, the capital of Attica and the center of ancient Greek culture. The city is beautifully situated. In its center is the rocky height called the Acropolis, rising about 500 feet above the Attic plains; and grouped around it are the Areopagus or Hill of Mars, the Museum or Hill of the Muses, the Hill of the Pnyx and the Hill of the Nymphs. The river Ilissus can be seen to the north and east, and the Cephissus to the south and west, while the Attic plain is itself girdled by hills.

In legend Athens dates back to the hero Cecrops, from whom the city was called Cecfof>ia, as well as the far more famous name, Athens, in honor of its patron goddess, Athena. The mythic ^King Theseus also plays an honored part in the forming of the early city; while under the hands of Solon and. the tyrants Pisistratus and Clisthenes was formed that democratic government which made the city so famous in history, and beginnings were made in the erection of imposing buildings. The ruins of the colossal temple to Zeus, called the Olympium, date back to this period.

During the Persian  wars  the  city  was abandoned  and   burned,    but    after   the

victories of Salamis and Plataea, it was splendidly rebuilt and the Athenians entered upon the most brilliant epoch of their career. The energy of Themistocles secured the building of the walls around the Acropolis, and the city walls, about five miles in circumference, with their ninety-seven towers and ten gates. Just outside one of these gates was the Ceramicus or burying-ground, where are still to be seen beautiful tomb bas-reliefs. The fortification of the harbor, called .Peiraeus, and the building of the famous "long walls," 500 feet apart, some years later, completed the defenses Of the city.

The age of Pericles was the most glorious in the history of Athens. Then flourished Monesicles and Ictinus in architecture, Phidias and Myron in sculpture, ^schylus and Sophocles in tragedy, Socrates and Plato in ,philosophy, Herodotus and Thuey-dides as historians and Pindar and Sim-onides as poets. In this period many of the finest buildings of Athens were built— the Parthenon, considered the most beautiful ruin in the world, the Erechtheum, the Temple of Wingless Victory, the The-seum and many other temples and monuments. At that time the city had more than 10,000 dwellings and 100,000 free in: habitants, with at least twice as many slaves.

The close of the Pelopbnnesian Waj marked the fall of Athens. Her splendid