Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/215

ATH. important manufactures of linen, calico, lace, gloves, cutlery, large hammers, soap, etc., and carries on a brisk general trade. Population, 1890, 9900; 1900, 11,100.

ATHABASCA, atli'd-baslva (N. Amer. Indian, place of hay and reeds). A district in Canada, founded in 1882 out of the Northwest Territories, and enlarged in 1895, so as to contain 251,300 square miles, including 11,800 square miles of water area (Map: Canada, H 5). The district lies between latitude 55° and 60° N. and longitude 100° and 120° W. It is bounded on the north by the district of Mackenzie, on the east by the district of Keewatin, on the south by the districts of Saskatchewan and Alberta, and on the west by the Province of British Columbia. It is a part of the great American Plain, and only in the southwest corner, where it approaches the mountains of British Columbia, does it attain any considerable elevation. Much of its surface, however, is decidedly broken and hilly. The greater portion of the district drains northward into the Mackenzie River system. The western half of the district is crossed by the Athabasca and Peace rivers. There are numerous lakes within the district, of which Reindeer Lake, in the east, and Athabasca, in the north, are very large. An arm of the southern prairie extends from Alberta for a distance up the valley of the Peace River; other portions of the district are wooded. Aspen trees of noble proportions compose the forests of the west, while to the east the trees are more sparse and belong mostly to the three varieties of spruce, banksian pine, and poplar. The climate is subject to great extremes of heat and cold, but is clear and bracing. There is little rain or snow, but the rainfall is greatest when most needed, during the growing summer months. In the west the soil is highly fertile, and wheat, potatoes, and other of the hardier varieties of cereals and vegetables can be successfully raised. In the east the soil is rocky and sandy, and less fertile. Salt and gypsum are found in the Slave River region. The inhabitants are mostly Indians and half-breeds, who live by hunting, the product of the chase constituting almost the only revenue-producing resource of the district. Dunvegan, in the southwest, is the principal settlement. See.

ATHABASCA, or A river in the northwest of Canada, included in the great basin of the Mackenzie (Map: Canada, H 5). It rises in Burnt Lake, in the Rocky Mountains, near Mount Brown. Its general course is northeast till, after passing through Athabasca Lake, or rather crossing its west end, it turns toward the northwest, and after a course of 30 or 40 miles, unites with the Peace River, from beyond the Rocky Mountains, to form the Great Slave River, which, again, after passing through Great Slave Lake, takes the name of the Mackenzie (q.v.). Length of Athabasca River to its confluence with the Peace River, 687 miles.

ATHABASCA LAKE. A Canadian lake in the northwest division of the same name (Map: Canada, J 5). It is traversed by the parallel of 59° N. and by the meridian of 110° W.; length, 230 miles; average width, 20 miles. Its principal feeder is the Athabasca River, which enters at the southwestern extremity and forms its only outlet on the northwestern.

ATHABASCA PASS. A defile of the Canadian Rocky Mountains between Mounts Brown and Hooker, which crosses the boundary between Alberta and British Columbia (Map: Northwest Territories, F 4).

ATHAL'ARIC (517-534). King of the Ostrogoths. He was selected by his grandfather. Theodoric the Great, as his successor, and upon the death of Theodoric was recognized as such by the Goths and Romans. In consequence of dissipation, however, he died at the age of 16.

ATH'ALI'AH (Heb., Yahweh is powerful). The daughter of Ahab (II. Kings, viii. 18), King of Israel, and Jezebel, who married Jehoram, King of Judah (ib. viii. 26). After the murder of her son, Ahaziah (II. Kings, ix. 27), who succeeded Jehoram, but reigned for only one year, she paved her own way to the throne by a general slaughter of her grandchildren, Joash alone escaping through the intervention of Jehosheba, the daughter of Jehoram. This occurred c. 842 B.C. The young prince thus rescued was privately educated in the temple, and, after Athaliah had reigned six years, the high-priest, Jehoiada, succeeded in the execution of a carefully contrived plan in placing Joash on the throne (c. 836 B.C.). Athaliah, hearing the noise attending the coronation, hastened to the temple, where the people were shouting, 'God save the King!' As she looked around in astonishment on the young king, whom she had supposed to be dead, surrounded by priests, Levites, rulers, captains, and a rejoicing multitude, she "rent her clothes, and cried, 'Treason! treason!'" By the command of the high priest, she was led out of the temple and slain in the gateway of the palace. The house of Baal, with its altars and images, was broken down. This narrative (II. Kings, xi.; II. Chron., xxii. and xxiii.) is the subject of Racine's drama Athalie.

ATHALIE, a'ta'le' (Fr., Athaliah). The title of a tragedy by Racine, and his last play (1691). Founded upon II. Kings and II. Chronicles, it was written at the suggestion of Madame de Maintenon, who desired for her protégées, the girls of her school at Saint Cyr, a play in which there should be no word of sexual love. The dramatic quality of the play is no less striking than its religious fervor, and the tragedy may well have given a fit opportunity, to Rachel's emotional gifts. If not the poet's masterpiece, it is perhaps inferior only to his dramas Andromaque and Phèdre.

ATH'AMAS. The son of Æolus, and ruler of Orchomenus. At first married to the cloud goddess Nephele, who bore him Phrixos and Helle, he was abandoned by her on account of his love for the mortal Ino, daughter of Cadmus. By Ino, he was the father of Melicertes and Learchus, the latter of whom he slew in a fit of madness. Thereupon Ino cast herself into the sea with Melicertes, and was changed into the sea goddes Leucothea, while Melicertes became Palsemon, a divinity of sailors. Athamas fled to Thessaly, where he married Themisto.

ATHAN'AGILD (?-567). King of the Visigoths of Spain. In 554 he led the uprising against King Agila (549-554), and called the Byzantines of North Africa to his aid. The Emperor Justinian also lent his aid to Athanagild by sending to Spain an army under Patricius Liberius, which conquered the principal sea-