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 ALBATEGNIUS ALBEMARLE 249 bany, who was her senior by 33 years. The marriage was said to have been arranged with the hope of menacing the English sovereign with a legitimate heir to the rival Stuart dy- nasty. It proved most unhappy. She was young, refined, intellectual ; he old, coarse, and intemperate. They lived at Florence, where she became acquainted with the poet Alfieri, who conceived a passionate regard for her. It was under her guidance that he began to write his tragedies. She was never charged with in- fidelity to her husband, whose brutality, how- ever, became so unendurable that she left him, and sought refuge in a Florentine and subse- quently in a Roman convent. In 1783 she obtained a formal separation from him through the interposition of Gustavus III. of Sweden, who also procured for her a pension from the French government, which was withdrawn after the outbreak of the revolution. About a year after her husband's death (1788) the countess is said to have been secretly married to Alfieri, but they never appeared in public as husband and wife, though he was constantly in her society at Paris, London, and Florence, where she was received with distinction in the highest circles. In Florence her social and" political influence was so great that Napoleon dreaded it almost as much as that of Mme. de Stael and of Mme. R6camier, especially in view of Alfieri's opposition to his rule. After the death of Alfieri (1803) the countess resided chiefly at Florence, where she is said to have formed an intimate relation with Francois Xavier Favre, a French painter. Alfieri says in his autobiography that without her inspiring influence he would have achieved nothing. She was buried in the church of Santa Croce at Florence, in the same tomb with Alfieri, which is adorned with a monument by Canova. A biographical work entitled Die Grqfin von Albany has been published by Reumont (2 vols., Berlin, 1860). ALBATEGNIUS, or Albategni (properly MOHAM- MED BEN GEBEB ALBATANI), an Arabian prince and astronomer, died about A. D. 929. He is also called Muhamedes Aractensis. His princi- pal astronomical work mainly an abridgment of the Almagest of Ptolemy, though containing many original principles and observations was translated into Latin by Plato of Tibur, and published at Nuremberg in 1537, and afterward at Bologna in 1645. In the opinion of Lalande, he was one of the 20 most eminent astrono- mers that ever lived. ALBATROSS (diomedea), a genus of web-footed sea birds, which has three species the com- mon albatross, D. exulans, the albatross of China, D. fuliginosa, and the yellow and black- beaked albatross, D. chlororynchos. The genus is distinguished principally by a very strong, hard, straight beak, which suddenly curves downward, with a sharp hook at the point. The feet are short; the three toes long and completely webbed ; the wings very long and narrow. The common albatross is the largest sea bird known, weighing from 12 to 28 Ibs. The usual extent of its wings is about 11 feet; but a specimen in the Leverian museum Albatross (Diomedea exulans). measured 13 feet, and one was shot off the Cape of Good Hope of 17^ feet in extent. The top of its head is ruddy gray ; all the rest of its plumage white, with the exception of a few transverse black bands on its back, and a few of the wing feathers. It is abundant from the Southern ocean to Behring strait and the coast of Kamtchatka, frequenting the inner sea about the Kurile islands and the bay of Penshinsk, in vast flocks, but scarcely visit- ing at all the eastern or American coasts. Its voracity is extreme, and it is said that it will often swallow whole a salmon of four or five pounds weight. Its ordinary food is fish, fish spawn, and small shell fish; but it does not hesitate to take any animal substance found floating on the surface of the waves, and is often taken by sailors with a line and hook baited with a piece of fat pork. Its powers on the wing are extraordinary, as might be pre- supposed from the extreme lightness of its im- mense hollow wing bones, which are said by Edwards to be as long as the whole body, and which the Kamtchatdales use as tobacco pipes ; and from the great height, power, and contin- uance of its flight, sailors, who know it gener- ally as the "man-of-war bird," among other strange notions, believe that it sleeps on the wing. AL-BELADORI, Abnl Hassan Ahmed, an Arabian historian, died about 895. He was minister of religion at Bagdad, resided at the court of the caliph Motawakkel, and was intrusted with the education of one of the princes of the caliph's family. He wrote a work giving the history of the conquest of Syria, Cyprus, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Egypt, Nubia, northern Africa, Spain, and the Mediterranean islands, and an account of the spread of the Mohammedan religion over Persia, Transoxiana, and the countries on the shores of the Indus. ALBEMARLE, a central county of Virginia, bounded N. W. by the Blue Ridge mountains and S. by the James river, and watered by its branches; area, 700 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 27,544, of whom 14,994 were colored. The sur- face is undulating, soil very rich in the valleys and river bottoms, and the scenery picturesque.