Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/213

 AGtfONE AGOSTA 189 AGNONE, a town of S. Italy, province of Mo- lise, 18 m. N. N. E. of Isernia; pop. in 1861, 9,355. It has five monts deplete, which make loans of seed corn to the peasants, and is the seat of the principal copper manufactures in the kingdom. AGNUS DEI. I. In the Koman Catholic church, a cake of wax bearing the image of a lamb holding the banner of the cross, and blessed by the pope. Fragments of such cakes, enclosed in the figure of a heart, are worn around the neck by devout Catholics. II. A cloth embroidered with the figure of a lamb, with which, in the Greek church, the cup at the Lord's supper is covered. AGOBARD, Saint, a Frankish theologian, born in 779, died June 6, 840. He became arch- bishop of Lyons in 816, and was deposed by the council of Thionville in 835 for the part he had taken in the revolt of Lothaire against Louis le Debonnaire (833), but was promptly restored, having become reconciled with the emperor. He wrote several controversial theo- logical works against image worship, the belief in witchcraft, and duelling ; his principal oppo- nent in discussing these questions was Felix of Urgel. Editions of Agobard's works were published in 1605 and in 1666 in Paris, and a book of his against the Jews was translated into German in 1852. AGONIC LINE (Gr. a, without, and yuvia,. an- gle), a word introduced by the modern investi- gators of terrestrial magnetism, and applied to a line uniting all points where the declination of the compass needle is zero, that is, where it points exactly north and south. As the mag- netic poles of the earth do not coincide with the geographical poles, the magnetic meridians are different from the geographical meridians ; and as the former are determined by the decli- nation of the compass needle, they are by no means regular arcs of great circles, as is the case with the latter, the magnetic force which, di- rects the compass needle being very irregular over the earth's surface. Therefore the agonic line is not that geographical meridian which passes through the magnetic poles of our earth, but an irregular line at present crossing the east- ern portion of South America at about 20 S. latitude and 30 of longitude E. of Washington, skirting the Antilles, entering North Carolina near Cape Lookout, passing over Virginia, Ohio, Lakes Erie and Huron, crossing through the Dominion of Canada, and reaching Hudson bay and the magnetic north pole. At the other side of this pole it passes through the unexplored regions of the geographical north pole till it reaches the northern coast of Siberia in about Ion. 115 E. of Washington, and lat. 75 N., passes south through the Caspian sea and the Persian gulf, then bends southeast through the Indian archipelago, crosses the continent of Australia in about Ion. 190 E., and then takes a more southern direction to the as yet undiscovered magnetic south pole, beyond which it undoubtedly passes through the south polar regions to unite again with the agonic line in the southern Atlantic ocean. A most perplexing fact is the discovery that there is in the eastern hemisphere a second agonic line, independent of the main one just described. It enters China from the south in Ion. 185 E., runs north through Tartary, reaches Siberia in lat. 65 N., then bends toward the east, then southeast, when it enters the ocean; it runs southward over Japan, then southwest, and finally west, and unites with the line entering the south of China. It thus forms a closed elliptical ring, nearly 2,500 m. long and 1,500 m. wide, inside of which the declination of the compass needle is eastward. If the modern theory be correct, that the earth's magnetism is caused by electric currents running from east to west through the earth's crust, and to which, according to the law of Oersted, the compass needle places itself at right angles, these peculiarities would only indicate that the direction of these currents is somewhat irregu- lar, and that they only run exactly east and west at the localities through which the agonic lines have been traced. The most difficult phenomenon, however, is the fact that both this agonic line and the magnetic pole have a slow motion from east to west ; in 1580 it ran through Sweden and Germany, in 1620 through Holland, in 1660 through London, England, in 1700 through the western coast of Ireland ; it arrived on the American continent about 1780, and in Pennsylvania in 1800 ; it is now in Ohio, and constantly moves west with a velocity which seems to indicate that, if persisted in, it will make one revolution around the earth in about 600 years. Trustworthy observations, however, extend thus far over too short a period of time to warrant any legitimate conclusion. AGONISTICI, a sect of Donatist ascetics who inhabited the northern part of Africa in the 4th century. They were opposed to labor, and to marriage as well as to monasticism, which was then just beginning to gain ground. They were mostly rough, uneducated peasants, who begged among the inhabitants, and often destroyed the idols, regardless of the martyr- dom which was frequently then* reward. They eagerly sought a voluntary death by means of fire or water. Upon the invasion of the Van- dals the sect was totally extinguished. AGOSTA, or Augusta, a seaport town on the E. coast of Sicily, 12 m. N. of Syracuse, and 18 m. S. of Catania; pop. in 1861, 9,223. It is built on a low peninsula in the Mediter-