Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/625

 APOTHECARY APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS 589 APOTHECARY (Lat. apothecarius, from Gr. 'cnrodf/Kt}, a shop or store), one who prepares and dispenses medicines. Apothecaries formerly sold herbs and drugs and spices, and by long practice in the art of preparing tinctures, sir- ups, powders, extracts, pills, and medicated waters, they became a special corporation, dis- tinct from grocers and in some places from druggists, and were organized into a privileged body in the civilized parts of Europe, during the middle ages. In England the corporation still exists, in virtue of a royal charter, and with power to confer licenses on its members, who are invested with the right to administer medi- cine, as well as to prepare it and sell it in shops. A large proportion of the medical practitioners in England are only apothecaries ; but the cor- poration enlarges its curriculum of studies and examinations as occasion may require. The royal college of surgeons hi London also has a charter, and a right to give diplomas, which are honorary, and confer no legal right to practise medicine and to sue for payment. Most young apothecaries, however, now obtain them before they venture to practise as surgeons. In France the old corporation of apothecary druggists has been dissolved, and a new chartered corpora- tion of pJiarmaciens has been substituted in its place. These keep shops, prepare medicines, and make up prescriptions, but have no legal right to practise as physicians. In the United States there is neither law nor custom to pre- vent an apothecary from practising as a physi- cian. It is only lately that any legal restric- tions have been placed upon the dispensing of the most powerful drugs by any boy whom the proprietor of an apothecary's shop might choose to employ. In apothecaries' weight, used in dispensing medicines, the pound (Ib) is divided into 12 ounces ( ^ ), the ounce into 8 drams (3), the dram into 3 scruples (3), and the scruple into 20 grains (grs.). In the whole- sale drug trade avoirdupois weight is used. APPALACHEE BAY, a large open bay on the S. W. coast of Florida in the gulf of Mexico, having a breadth of about 45 m., and an extent inland of 18 m. There is a wide passage from the bay, 10 feet deep, leading to the town of St. Mark's, which furnishes excellent anchor- age ground. APPALACHEES, an Indian tribe of Florida, living on a bay which still bears their name. They were of the same family as the Choctaws, and were very numerous. They were at first not friendly to the Spaniards, and made war on them at intervals down to 1638. A Spanish post was established there, and missionaries soon won them over, care being taken to in- struct the chiefs, many of whom learned to read and write. The oppression of the Span- ish commanders led to a revolt about 1687; and the Spaniards after reducing them com- pelled many to work on the fortifications. Their appeal to the king in 1688, signed by the chiefs, is still extant. While this discontent prevailed, the English and their Indian allies invaded the country of the Appalachees, de- stroying many towns and killing or carrying off great numbers of the people. In 1704 St. Mark's was taken and the missionaries were put to death. The tribe was now reduced from 7,000 to about 400. On the settlement of Louisiana a portion removed to St. Louis in the vicinity of Mobile, while the Spaniards gathered the remainder at Soledad. After 1722 they disappear as a tribe, being probably absorbed in the Choctaw nation. APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS, the great range of mountains, called also the Alleghanies, which extends from that part of Canada lying between the New England states and the St. Lawrence river, through the whole length of Vermont, across the western part of Massachusetts and the middle Atlantic states, to the northern part of Alabama. The name Appalachian was given to the mountains hy the Spaniards under De Soto, who derived it from the neighboring Indians. The name Alleghany, given by the English settlers of the north, was received from the Indians, and supposed to mean end- less. The White mountains of New Hampshire and the Adirondack mountains of New York are really outliers of this range, though sepa- rated from it by wide tracts of low elevation. In their Alpine forms and more metamorphic structure, they present also features somewhat different from those which are especially pe- culiar to the Appalachian range. The Cats- kills form a link of the main range. These groups will all be found described under their own names. Not including the lateral ranges, the greatest width of the Appalachian chain is about 100 m. This is in Pennsylvania and Maryland, about midway of its course. Its extreme length is about 1,300 m. At either end its termination is not well defined, the mountains sinking away and being lost in the hilly country that succeeds to them, and at the south its gneissoid and other ancient rocks gradually disappearing beneath the cretaceous formations of this region. In all their extent the Appalachian mountains are remarkable, not for their great elevation, nor for their striking peaks, nor for any feature that dis- tinguishes one portion of them from the rest, but for a singular uniformity of outline, par- ticularly of that which defines the summit of the ridges, as well as that which marks their direction. While varying little in height, the ridges pursue a remarkably straight course, sometimes hardly diverging from a straight line for a distance of 50 or 60 m., and one ridge succeeding beyond another, all continu' ing the same general course in parallel lines, like successive waves of the sea. As one curvei round into a new direction, all curve with it. Thus the valleys between the ridges preserve a uniform width, and are as remarkable fot their parallelism as are the hills which bound them. An able paper upon "The Physical Structure of the Appalachian Chain " was read before the American association of geologists