Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/387

 ALTONA ALUM 363 of Valenciennes and a corps at that of Dun- kirk, where he was killed. III. Johann Wilhelm Eduard d', a German naturalist, born in Aqui- leia in 1772, died in Bonn, May 11, 1840. He was educated at Vienna, visited Italy, and lived for a long time in the grand ducal park at Tieffurt, near Weimar, where he devoted himself to the study of the fine arts and natu- ral history, especially of the horse. In 1817 and 1818, in company with his friend Pander, he explored France, Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain, for scientific purposes. On his return he became professor of archaeology and fine arts at the university of Bonn. He left a fine collection of paintings and engravings, part of which were purchased by the university and part by Prince Albert, who was one of his Bonn pupils. D' Alton is the author of works on the " Natural History of the Horse " and "Comparative Osteology," accompanied with many superb plates, engraved by himself. He took an active part in Dollinger's and Pander's investigations on the development of chickens in the egg. IV. Johann Samuel Ednard, son of the preceding, born at St. Goar, July 17, 1803, died in Halle, July 25, 1854. In 1834 he was appointed professor of anatomy and physiology at Halle. He continued the " Comparative Osteology" of his father, and published be- tween 1827 and 1838 two volumes on the os- trich and birds of prey. In 1850 he published the first volume of his manual of the " Com- parative Anatomy of Man." In 185 he pub- lished De Monstris, quibus Extremitates Super- flum suspenses sunt, and in 1854, in concert with Burmeister, Der fossile Gavial von Soil in Wiirtemberg. ALTONA, the most important city of the duchy of Holstein, North Germany, situated on the right bank of the Elbe, below and im- mediately adjoining Hamburg, and for commer- cial purposes forming with it a single town ; pop. in 1871, 74,131. It is well built, is a free port, and enjoys privileges favorable to its trade and prosperity. It was set up by Denmark as a rival to Hamburg, and passed with Holstein into the possession of Prussia in 1867. It has six churches, a gymnasium with a library of up- ward of 20,000 volumes, an orphan hospital, an infirmary, a college, an observatory, and a mint. It has an extensive trade, and very considerable manufactories. The chief manu- facture is tobacco. There are also soap and oil works, sugar houses, distilleries, chemical works, rope walks, tanneries, and divers manu- factories of cotton, silk, and leather. Its ex- tensive railway and steamboat connections add materially to its importance. Altona was burned by the Swedes, under General Steen- bock, in January, 1713, with circumstances of great barbarity. ALTOONA, a city of Blair co., Penn., 244 m. by railroad W. N. W. of Philadelphia, and 115 m. E. of Pittsburgh ; pop. in 1860, 3,595 ; in 1870, 10,610. It was laid out in 1849, and is eituated at the head of Tuckahoe valley and at ! the foot of the Alleghanies. It is on the line of i the Pennsylvania central railroad, to which it the company situated here are the most exten- sive in the state. The city contains 1 1 churches, a high school, 2 banks, 6 hotels, and 3 daily newspapers. At Altoona the western-bound traveller begins the ascent of the Alleghanies. In the course of the next 11 m. some of the finest views and the greatest achievements of engineering skill on the entire line are to be seen. Within this distance the road reaches the ascent double power is required to move i the train, the entire 11 m. of descent are run without steam, the speed of the train being regulated by the brakes. The summit of the mountain is pierced by a tunnel 3,670 feet long. On the eastern slope is the famous "horse-shoe bend," formed by a very short curve in the road around the brink of a precipitous descent. ALTORF, or Altdorf, capital of the canton of Uri, Switzerland, in a deep, narrow valley on "the Reuss, near the S. E. extremity of Lake Lucerne, at the N. E. terminus of the St. Gothard road; pop. in 1870, 2,724. It is neatly built, and has a Capuchin con- vent and an old tower covered with paint- ings in honor of William Tell, which is pop- ularly believed to occupy the spot where he shot the apple from his son's head, though recent research has proved it to be of a date anterior to the time in which that hero of the Swiss legends figures. ALTO-RILIEYO, a term designating that species of sculpture in which the figure stands complete- ly out from the ground, being attached to it only in some places, and in others worked en- tirely round like single statues ; such are the metopes of the Elgin marbles in the British museum. Donatello's alti-rilievi at Florence are among the most perfect examples of this sort of art. The largest work ever executed in alto-rilievo is that by Algardi in St. Peter's at Rome, representing the repulse of Attila by St. Peter and St. Paul. I/IT K AS, a S. county of Idaho, bordering on Montana, and bounded S. and S. E. by Snake river ; pop. in 1870, 689, of whom 314 were Chinese. The Salmon river, a branch of the Columbia, is the principal stream. The N. part of the county is occupied by the Rocky mountains. There are 9 quartz mills. AH ,11, a name given to a remarkable series of double salts, of which potash alum may be taken as the type. The alums are more or less soluble in water, crystallize in regular oc- tahedra,- and differ from the normal compound in the fact that the alumina and potash are re- placed in whole or in part by their isomorphs. We can replace the alumina by the sesquioxide of iron, of manganese, or of chromium, and the potash by soda, the oxide of ammonium, the oxides of ammonium compounds, the oxides of rubidium, caesium, and thallium. Lithia is the only one of the alkalies that does no.t form
 * owes most of its prosperity ; the workshops of
 * the summit by so steep a grade that, while in