Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/347

ALBERT NYANZA. poutlioily (lirpotion to near the iiioutli of flip Ziiiiil>ezi Kiver. Tanr;:inyika and Nyassa occupy otlicr portions of the same rift valley. The .Albert Nj'anza is of an oblong shape, and is 100 miles long from northeast to southwest, and 2.') miles broad, having an area of about 2000 square miles. It is intersected by lat. 2° N. and long. 31° E. The Nile issues fioni the northern end of the Albert Nyanza, where the outlet of the Victoria N.yanza. the Victoria Nile, discharges into the lake. At its south end the lake receives the Scndiki, the outlet of the Albert Edward Nvanza. On the east it is fringed by precipitous cliffs, liaving a mean altitude of 1.500 feet, with isolated peaks rising from .5000 to 10,000 feet. The surface of the lake is about 2100 feet above the sea ; its water is fresh and sweet, and of great depth toward the centre. The novthern and west- ern shores of the lake are bordered by a massive range of hills, called the Blue Mountains, which have an elevation of about 7000 feet. The exist- ence of tills vast lake first became known to Europeans through Speke and Grant, who, in lSfi2, heard of it under the name of the Luta- Nzige. It was described by the natives as only a narrow reservoir forming a shallow back-water of the Nile. When iSiieke and Grant, after the discovery of the V'ictoria Nyanza. were, in 180.3, descending the Nile on their return to Europe, they met, at Gondokoro, Sir Samuel White Baker (q.v.K who was ascending the river. After a toilsome march and nuiny adventures, his party came, early in 1SC4, in sight of the lake, which Baker named in honor of Prince Albert, who was Imt recently dead. The extent and general out- lines of the lake were not accurately determined until 1871). when it was circumnavigated by Signor Rouiolo Gessi, an Italian explorer at- tached to General Gordon's Egyptian expedition. A year later, in 1877, Colonel Mason, an American officer in the service of the Egyptian government, made a more careful survey of the lake, fully confirming Gessi's report. See Great Rift Valley.

ALBER'TUS MAG'NUS. See.

ALBI, al'bs, or ALBY. The capital of the department of Tarn in France, built on a height overlooking the river Tarn, which is crossed by a beautiful stone bridge (Jlap: France, .J 8). -lbi sufi'ered greatly (luring the religious wars which devastated the land in the time of the Albigenses. who took their name from this town. The chief buildings are the cathedral, built of brick in a unique style, and, inside, deco- rated on wall and ceiling with frescoes executed by the first Italian painters of the day. The south portal is a remarkable example of deco- rated Gothic. It is dedicated to St. Cecilia, and adorned with an exquisite recumbent statue of the martyr in marble. The town maintains a library of over 30.000 volumes ( including many incunabula) and a museum. There are large brickyards at Albi, and it has a considerable trade in corn, wine, fruit, etc., and linen, cotton, woolen, and leather manufactures. Pop., ISilO, 14,i183.

AL'BIA. A city and cotmty seat of Monroe Co.. la., 07 miles southeast of Des Moines, on the Chicago. Burlington and Quincy, the Iowa Cen- tral, the Wabash, and other railroads (Map: Iowa, E .3). With its excellent transportation facilities, the city controls an extensive t-rade in coal, which is mined in the snrrounding coun- try, and in agricultural products, live stock, arid grain. Pop., 1890, 2359; 1900, 2889.

AL'BIGEN'SES. A name applied to the heretical (athari in the south of France, about the beginning of the thirteenth century. The name arose from the circumstance that the district of Albigeois, about Albi, in Languedoc, was the first point in southern France where the Cathari appeared. The so-called Albigensian Crusade was undertaken by Pope Innocent III. in 1209. The inunediate occasion of it was the murder of the papal legate and inquisitor, Pierre de Castelnau, who had been commissioned to extirpate heresy in the dominions of Count Raymond VI. of Toulouse; but its real purpose was to deprive the Count of his lands, as he had be: ome an object of dislike from his toleration of the heretics. It was in vain that he had submitted to the most humiliating penance and tiagellation from the hands of the legate Milo, and had solicited Papal absolution by great sacrifices. The legates Arnold, Abbot of Citeaux, and Milo, who directed the expedition, took by storm Beziers, the capital of Raymond's nephew. Roger, and massacred 20,000 of the inhabitants. Catholics as well as heretics. Arnold's reputed saying: "Kill them all; God will know His own," is not authentic. Simon de Montfort, who conducted the war under the legates, proceeded in the same relentless way with other places in the territories of Raymond and his allies. Of these, Roger of Bt^ziers died in prison, and Peter I. of Aragon fell in battle. The conquered lands were given as a reward to Simon de Jlontfort. who never came into quiet possession of the gift. At the siege of Toulouse, 1218, he was killed by a stone, and Counts Raymond VI. and VII. dis- puted the possession of their territories with his son. But the papal 'indulgences drew fresh crusaders from every province of France to continue the war. Raymond VII. continued to struggle bravely against the legates and Louis VIII. of France, to whom Montfort had ceded his pretensions. After many thousands had per- ished on both sides, a peace was concluded, in 1229, at which Raymond secured relief from the ban of the Churcli, surrendered large sums of money, gave up Narbonne and several lordships to Louis IX., and had to make his son-in-law, the brother of Louis, heir to his other posses- sions. The Albigenses were left without a pi"o- tector. The heretics were handed over to the proselytizing zeal of the order of Donlinicans and the severe tribunals of the iTiquisition ; and both used their utmost power to bring the recusant Albigenses to the stake, and also, by inflicting severe punishment on the penitent converts, to inspire dread of incurring the Church's displeas- ure. From the middle of the thirteenth century the name of the Albigenses gradually disappears. The reuuiants of them took refuge in the east, some settling in Bosnia.

ALBI'NO (Portug. and Sp., from Lat. nibus, white). A term first applied by the Portuguese to the white negroes of west Africa: now applied to any individual in whom there is congenital deficiency of pigment in skin, hair, iris, and choroid of the eye. The skin is abnormally pale, the hair is white or pale flaxen, and the iris is pink. An albino is termcil Inicttriliinp by the Latins, kakcrhil- by the Germans, hcdo in Ceylon, and doiido in Africa. The absence of pig-