The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 5

ACRE, ST. JEAN D' (7), a strong place and seaport in Syria, at the foot of Mount Carmel, taken, at an enormous sacrifice of life, by Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur de Lion in 1191, held out against Bonaparte in 1799; its ancient name Ptolemas.

ACRES, BOB, a coward in the "Rivals" whose "courage always oozed out at his finger ends."

ACROAMATICS, esoteric lectures, i. e. lectures to the initiated.

ACROLEIN, a light volatile limpid liquid obtained by the destructive distillation of fats.

ACROLITHS, statues of which only the extremities are of stone.

ACROP'OLIS, a fortified citadel commanding a city, and generally the nucleus of it, specially the rocky eminence dominating Athens.

ACROTE'RIA, pedestals placed at the middle and the extremities of a pediment to support a statue or other ornament, or the statue or ornament itself.

ACTA DIURNA, a kind of gazette recording in a summary way daily events, established at Rome in 131 B.C., and rendered official by Caesar in 50 B.C.

ACTA SANCTORUM, the lives of the saints in 62 vols. folio, begun in the 17th century by the Jesuits, and carried on by the Bollandists.

ACTaeON, a hunter changed into a stag for surprising Diana when bathing, and afterwards devoured by his own dogs.

ACTINIC RAYS, "non-luminous rays of higher frequency than the luminous rays."

ACTINISM, the chemical action of sunlight.

ACTINOMYCOSIS, a disease of a fungous nature on the mouth and lower jaw of cows.

ACTIUM, a town and promontory at the entrance of the Ambracian Gulf (Arta), in Greece, where Augustus gained his naval victory over Antony and Cleopatra, Sept. 2, 31 B.C.

ACTON, an adventurer of English birth, who became prime minister of Naples, but was driven from the helm of affairs on account of his inveterate antipathy to the French (1737-1808).

ACTON, LORD, a descendant of the former, who became a leader of the Liberal Catholics in England, M.P. for Carlow, and made a peer in 1869; a man of wide learning, and the projector of a universal history by experts in different departments of the field; _b_. 1834.

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, a narrative account in the New Testament of the founding of the Christian Church chiefly through the ministry of Peter and Paul, written by Luke, commencing with the year 33, and concluding with the imprisonment of Paul in Rome in 62.

ACUN'HA, TRISTRAM D', a Portuguese navigator, companion of Albuquerque; NUNA D', his son, viceroy of the Indies from 1528 to 1539; RODRIQUE D', archbishop of Lisbon, who in 1640 freed Portugal from the Spanish domination, and established the house of Braganza on the throne.

ACUPRESSURE, checking hemorrhage in arteries during an operation by compressing their orifices with a needle.

ACUPUNCTURE, the operation of p.r.i.c.king an affected part with a needle, and leaving it for a short time in it, sometimes for as long as an hour.

ADAIR, SIR ROBERT, a distinguished English diplomatist, and frequently employed on the most important diplomatic missions (1763-1855).

ADAL, a flat barren region between Abyssinia and the Red Sea.

ADALBE'RON, the archbishop of Rheims, chancellor of Lothaire and Louis V.; consecrated Hugh Capet; _d_. 998.

ADALBERT, a German ecclesiastic, who did much to extend Christianity over the North (1000-1072).

ADALBERT, ST., bishop of Prague, who, driven from Bohemia, essayed to preach the gospel in heathen Prussia, where the priests fell upon him, and "struck him with a death-stroke on the head," April 27, 997, on the anniversary of which day a festival is held in his honour.

ADA'LIA (30), a seaport on the coast of Asia Minor, on a bay of the same name.

ADAM (i. e. man), the first father, according to the Bible, of the human race.

ADAM, ALEX., a distinguished Latin scholar, rector for 40 years of the Edinburgh High School, Scott having been one of his pupils (1741-1809).

ADAM, LAMBERT, a distinguished French sculptor (1700-1759).

ADAM, ROBERT, a distinguished architect, born at Kirkcaldy, architect of the Register House and the University, Edinburgh (1728-1792).

ADAM BEDE, George Eliot's first novel, published anonymously in 1859, took at once with both critic and public.

ADAM KADMON, primeval man as he at first emanated from the Creator, or man in his primeval rudimentary potentiality.

ADAM OF BROMEN, distinguished as a Christian missionary in the 11th century; author of a celebrated Church history of N. Europe from 788 to 1072, ent.i.tled _Gesta Hammenburgensis Ecclesiae Pontific.u.m_.