Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/455

 AMES AMHERST 423 valuable compilation, and made more so by the subsequent additions of Herbert and Dr. Dib- din. He was the author of some other anti- quarian works, was a fellow of the royal so- ciety, and secretary of the antiquarian society from 1741 till his death. AMES, William, D. D., an English Independent divine, born in Norfolk county in 1576, died in Rotterdam in November, 1633. He was educated at Christ's college, Cambridge, of which he be- came a fellow. In the reign of James I. he left the university in order to avoid expulsion for nonconformity, and retired to the Hague, where he became minister of an English church. Sub- sequently he filled for twelve years the chair of divinity of the university of Franeker. He then removed to Rotterdam, and intended to emigrate to New England, but this design was frustrated by his death. His widow and chil- dren, however, did sail for America. He left many controversial writings against the Armin- ians and others, and his Medulla Theologies was famous in its day. AMESBURY, a town of Essex county, Mass., about 40 m. N. of Boston,, and 6 m. N. W. of Newburyport, extending from the N. bank of the Merrimack river to the New Hampshire line; pop. in 1870, 5,581. A branch of the Eastern railroad extends from Salisbury to this point. Manufacturing is extensively pursued. The town contains 5 woollen mills, with 46 sets of machinery, using annually $1,257,500 worth of stock, and employing 270 males and 372 females ; 1 brickyard, 2 manufactories of hats and caps, 18 of carriages, 1 of carriage wheels, 3 of harnesses, 3 saw mills, and 21 blacksmith shops. There are several churches, good schools, and a weekly newspaper. It is the home of the poet John G. "Whittier, who is frequently called the bard of Amesbury. Josiah Bartlett, M. D., one of the signers of the dec- laration of independence, was born here in 1729. AMETHYST (Gr. afii-Qvarog, preventing intoxi- cation, so named because it was supposed by the ancient Persians that cups made of it would prevent the liquor they contained from intoxi- cating), a stone consisting of crystallized quartz of a purple or bluish violet color, probably de- rived from a very small amount of oxide of manganese or, according to Heintz, from a compound of iron and soda. The color is not always uniformly diffused through it, and is less brilliant by candlelight. The name was used by the ancients for several other minerals, which had a color similar to the amethyst. In mineralogy, amethyst is that variety of quartz that exhibits a wrinkled fracture, instead of the usual conchoidal one. For oriental ame- thyst, see SAPPHIRE. AMGA, a river in Siberia, which rises in the Yablonnoy mountain range, flows in a N. N. E. direction nearly 460 m., and falls into the Aldan, the principal eastern affluent of the Lena. At its passage through the village of Amginsk, where 'it is bounded on each side by steep rocks up- ward of 30 feet in height, it attains a breadth of 3,000 feet. AMHARIC LANGUAGE, the language of Am- hara, the largest division of Abyssinia, includ-. ing all that portion which lies between the Blue Nile and the Tacazze rivers, and having Lake Tzana hi the centre. It is spoken with some variations of dialect throughout Abyssinia, and a knowledge of it is therefore essential to an Abyssinian traveller. It is of ancient Semitic origin, and related to the old Ethiopian or Geez, which it superseded in the early part of the 14th century as the language of the court, and gradually also as the popular idiom. It resem- bles, however, the Geez much less than doea the Tigre, the dialect of the northern province of Abyssinia, being to a great degree corrupted by non-Semitic African admixtures, and stinted in its grammatical forms. Its alphabet is the Geez, slightly modified. (See ETHIOPIAN LAN- GUAGE.) Very little is known of the Amharic language, though the British and Foreign Bible society have published first the New Testament (1829) and later the whole Bible in that tongue. AMHERST, a W. central county of Virginia, bounded S. E. and S. W. by the James river, and N. W. by the Blue Ridge ; area, 418 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 14,900, of whom 6,704 were colored. It abounds in fine scenery, of which the passage of the James river through the Blue Ridge is specially noted. Its soil is fertile, and largely covered with forests and plantations. The productions in 1870 were 75,065 bushels of wheat, 160,655 of corn, 117,608 of oats, 1,285,471 Ibs. of tobacco, and 109,773 of but- ter. The "Washington City, Virginia Midland, and Great Southern railroads pass through the county. Capital, Amherst Court House. AMHERST, a town of Hampshire county, Mass., 82 m. W. of Boston, on a branch of the Con- necticut river; pop. in 1870, 4,035. The situa- tion of the town affords extensive views of the Connecticut valley and adjacent mountain ranges. It contains 5 Congregational churches, 1 Baptist, and 1 Episcopal. The preparatory high school is considered one of the best in the state. There are 4 paper mills, an establish- ment for the preparation of palm leaf for hats, bonnets, &c., and one for their manufacture. A weekly newspaper, and a semi-monthly periodical are published in the town. The Massachusetts agricultural college, with its ex- tensive dormitories and greenhouses, is about a mile N. of the town, and possesses with other objects of interest the Durfee plant house, which is well stocked with rare and beautiful plants. Since its opening in 1866 this institution has become the largest and most successful agricul- tural school in the country. Amherst college, one of the chief seats of learning hi New Eng- land, was founded in this town in 1821, under the auspices of the Orthodox Congregational- ists. Its projectors had in view the gratuitous education of young men for the ministry, and the charity fund devoted exclusively to this object now amounts to about $70,000. There