AMERSHAM, a market town in the Wycombe parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England, 24 m. W.N.W. of London by the Metropolitan railway. Pop. (1901) 2674. It is pleasantly situated in the narrow valley of the Misbourne stream, which is flanked by the well-wooded slopes of the Chiltern Hills. The church of St Mary is almost entirely Perpendicular, and has a beautiful south porch, brasses of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries and numerous monuments, several of which, in a chantry, commemorate members of the family of Drake, lords of the manor. The town hall was built by Sir William Drake in 1642. At Coleshill, near Amersham, Edmund Waller the poet was born in 1606; he sat in parliament for the former borough of Amersham. The town has flour mills and breweries, and some straw-plaiting and lace-making are carried on in the vicinity. The district is one of the most beautiful near London; the village of Chenies, overlooking the valley of the Chess, is especially picturesque.
Amersham (Elmodesham, Agmondesham, Hagmondesham, Aumundesham, Homersham) at the time of the Domesday Survey was divided into no less than six holdings. The manor, or chief of them, was held by Geoffrey de Mandeville. At the time of Edward the Confessor it was held by Queen Edith. The manor afterwards descended to the families of Fitz Piers, Bohun and Stratford, and was granted by Henry VIII. to Sir John Russell, ancestor of the earls of Bedford. In 1638 Francis, earl of Bedford, conveyed it to William Drake, by whose descendants it is still held. The north chapel in the church of St Michael, Chenies, has been the burial-place of the Russell family since its erection in 1556, and contains a number of fine memorials, notably that of Anne, countess of Bedford (d. 1558), who founded the chapel. Amersham was formerly a parliamentary borough by prescription, and returned two members in 1300, 1306, 1307 and 1309. In 1623 this privilege was restored, and was only annulled by the Reform Bill of 1832. The annual fair, in September, is held under a charter secured by Geoffrey Fitz Peter, earl of Essex, in 1200, that on Whit Monday under a charter of 1614, secured by Edward, earl of Bedford, which transferred the Friday market, also granted under the earlier charter, to Tuesday.
AMES, FISHER (1758-1808), American statesman, orator and political writer, son of Nathaniel Ames, a physician, was born at Dedham, Massachusetts, on the 9th of April 1758. He graduated at Harvard College in 1774, and began the practice of the law at Dedham in 1781, but eventually abandoned that profession for the more congenial pursuit of politics. He was a prominent member of the Massachusetts convention which (February 1788) ratified for that state the Federal Constitution, and in the same year, having entered the lower house in the state legislature, he distinguished himself greatly by his eloquence and readiness in debate. During the eight years of Washington's administration (1789-1797) he was a prominent Federalist member of the national House of Representatives. On the 28th of April 1796, when the Republicans, hostile to the Jay Treaty, were on the point of holding up the appropriation necessary for its execution, Ames, who had just arisen from a sick-bed, made what has been considered the greatest speech of his life; before the delivery of his speech his opponents had claimed a majority of six, but the appropriation was finally passed, in the committee of the whole, by the casting vote of the chairman. When Washington retired from the presidency, Congress voted him an address and chose Ames to deliver it. In 1797 he returned to Dedham to resume the practice of the law, which the state of his health after a few years obliged him to relinquish. He published numerous essays, chiefly in relation to the contest between Great Britain and revolutionary France, as it might affect the liberty and prosperity of America. Ames was one of the group of New England ultra-Federalists known as the "Essex Junto," who opposed the French policy of President John Adams in 1798, and were conspicuous for their British sympathies. Four years before his death he was chosen president of Harvard College, an honour which his broken state of health obliged him to decline. He died on the 4th of July 1808.
His writings and speeches, which abound in sparkling passages, displaying great fertility of imagination, were collected and published, with a memoir of the author, in 1809, by the Rev. Dr J. T. Kirkland, in one large octavo volume. A more complete edition in two volumes was published by his son, Seth Ames, at Boston, Mass., in 1854.
AMES, JOSEPH (1689-1759), English author, was born at Yarmouth on the 23rd of January 1689. He wrote an account of printing in England from 1471 to 1600, Typographical Antiquities (1749). Ames sent out circular letters with a list of two hundred and fifteen English printers with whose works he intended to deal, asking for any available information. He earned the gratitude of subsequent bibliographers by disregarding printed lists and consulting the title- pages of the books themselves. An interleaved copy of the work with many notes in the author's hand is now in the British Museum. Editions of his works were published with added information by William Herbert (3 vols., 1785-1790), and T. F. Dibdin (4 vols., 1810-1819). Ames's occupation is variously given. It is uncertain whether he was a ship-chandler, a patten-maker, a plane-iron maker or an ironmonger; but he led a prosperous life at Wapping, and amassed valuable collections of antiquities. He died on the 7th of October 1759. His other works are catalogues of English printers, of the collection of coins which belonged to the earl of Pembroke, of some two thousand English portraits, and Parentalia (1750), a memoir of the Wrens, undertaken in conjunction with Sir Christopher Wren's grandson, Stephen Wren. Part of his correspondence in bibliography is included in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes and Illustrations.
AMES, OAKES (1804-1873), American manufacturer, capitalist and politician, was born in Easton, Massachusetts, on the 10th of January 1804. As a manufacturer of shovels, in association with his father and his brother Oliver (1807-1877), he amassed a large fortune. In 1860 he became a member of the executive council of Massachusetts, and from 1863 to 1873 was a republican member of the national House of Representatives. As a member of the committee on railroads he became interested in the project, greatly aided by the government, to build a trans-continental railway, connecting the eastern states with California. Others having failed, he was induced in 1865 to assume the direction of the work, and to him more than to any other one man the credit for the construction of the Union Pacific railway was due. The execution was effected largely through a construction company, the Credit Mobilier Company of America. In disposing of some of the stock of this company, Ames in 1867-1871 sold a number of shares to members of Congress at a price much below what these shares eventually proved to be worth. This, on becoming known, gave rise in 1872-1873 to a great congressional scandal. After an investigation by a committee of the House, which recommended the expulsion of Ames, a resolution was passed on the 28th of February 1873, "that the House absolutely condemns the conduct of Oakes Ames…in seeking to secure congressional attention to the affairs of a corporation in which he was interested, and whose interest directly depended upon the legislation of Congress, by inducing members of Congress to invest in the stocks of said corporation." Many have since attributed this resolution to partisanship, and the influence of popular clamour, and in 1883 the legislature of Massachusetts passed a resolution vindicating Ames. He died at North Easton, Mass., on the 8th of May 1873. His son, OLIVER AMES (1831-1895), was lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts from 1883 until 1887, and governor from 1887 to 1890.
See CREDIT MOBILIER OF AMERICA and the references there given. For a defence of Oakes Ames, see Oakes Ames, A Memorial Volume (Cambridge, Mass., 1884).
AMES, WILLIAM (1576-1633), English Puritan divine, better known, especially in Europe, as Amesius, was born of an ancient family at Ipswich, Suffolk, in 1576, and was educated at the local grammar school and at Christ's College, Cambridge, where, as throughout his life, he was an omnivorous student. He was considerably influenced by his tutor, the celebrated William Perkins, and by his successor, a man of kindred intellect and fervour, Paul Bayne. He graduated B.A. and M.A. in due course, and was chosen to a fellowship in Christ's College. He was universally beloved in the university. His own college (Christ's) would have chosen him for the mastership; but a party opposition led to the election of Valentine Cary, who had already quarrelled with Ames for disapproving of the surplice and other outward symbols. One of Ames's sermons became historical in the Puritan controversies. It was delivered on St Thomas's day (1609) before the feast of Christ's nativity, and in it he rebuked sharply "lusory lotts" and the "heathenish debauchery" of the students during the twelve days ensuing. The scathing vehemence of his denunciations led to his being summoned before the vice-chancellor, who suspended him "from the exercise of his ecclesiastical function and from all degrees taken or to be taken." After Cary's election he left the university and would have accepted the great church of Colchester, but the bishop of London refused to grant institution and induction. Like persecution awaited him elsewhere, and at last he passed over to Holland, being aided by certain wealthy English merchants who wished him to controvert the supporters of the English church in Leiden. At Rotterdam, clad in the fisherman's habit donned for the passage, he opposed Grevinchovius (Nicholas Grevinckhoven, d. 1632), minister of the Arminian or Remonstrant church, and overwhelmed him with his logical reasoning from Phil. ii. 13, "It is God that worketh in us both to will and to do." The fisherman-controversialist made a great stir, and from that day became known and honoured in the Low Countries. Subsequently Ames entered into a controversy in print with Grevinchovius on universal redemption and election, and cognate problems. He brought together all he had maintained in his Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem—his most masterful book, which figures largely in Dutch church history. At Leiden, Ames became intimate with the venerable Mr Goodyear, pastor of the English church there. While thus resident in comparative privacy he was sent for to the Hague by Sir Horatio Vere, the English governor of Brill, who appointed him a minister in the army of the states-general, and of the English soldiers in their service, a post held by some of the greatest of England's exiled Puritans. He married a daughter of Dr Burgess, who was Vere's chaplain, and, on his father-in-law's return to England, succeeded to his place.
It was at this time he began his memorable controversy with Episcopius, who, in attacking the Coronis, railed against the author as having been "a disturber of the public peace in his native country, so that the English magistrates had banished him thence; and now, by his late printed Coronis, he was raising new disturbances in the peaceable Netherlands." It was a miserable libel and was at once rebutted by Goodyear. The Coronis had been primarily prepared for the synod of Dort, which sat from November 1618 until May 1619. At this celebrated synod the position of Ames was a peculiar one. The High Church party in England had induced Vere to dismiss him from the chaplaincy; but he was still held, deservedly, in such reverence, that it was arranged he should attend the synod, and accordingly he was retained by the Calvinist party at four florins a day to watch the proceedings on their behalf and advise them when necessary. A proposal to make him principal of a theological college at Leiden was frustrated by Archbishop Abbot; and when later invited by the state of Friesland to a professoriate at Franeker, the opposition was renewed, but this time abortively. He was installed at Franeker on the 7th of May 1622, and delivered a most learned discourse on the occasion on "Urim and Thummin." He soon brought renown to Franeker as professor, preacher, pastor and theological writer. He prepared his Medulla Theologiae, a manual of Calvinistic doctrine, for his students. His De Conscientia, ejus Jure et Casibus (1632), an attempt to bring Christian ethics into clear relation with particular cases of conduct and of conscience, was a new thing in Protestantism. Having continued twelve years at Franeker (where he was rector in 1626), his health gave way, and he contemplated removal to New England. But another door was opened for him. He yearned for more frequent opportunities of preaching to his fellow-countrymen, and an invitation to Rotterdam gave him such opportunity. His friends at Franeker were passionately opposed to the transference, but ultimately acquiesced. At Rotterdam he drew all hearts to him by his eloquence and fervour in the pulpit, and his irrepressible activity as a pastor. Home-controversy engaged him again, and he prepared his Fresh Suit against Ceremonies—the book which made Richard Baxter a Nonconformist. It ably sums up the issues between the Puritan school and that of Hooker. It was posthumously published. He did not long survive his removal to Rotterdam. Having caught a cold from a flood which inundated his house, he died in November 1633, at the age of fifty-seven, apparently in needy circumstances. He left, by a second wife, a son and a daughter. His valuable library found a home in New England.
Few Englishmen have exercised so formative and controlling an influence on European thought and opinion as Ames. He was a master in theological controversy, shunning not to cross swords with the formidable Bellarmine. He was a scholar among scholars, being furnished with extraordinary resources of learning. His works, which even the Biographia Britannica (1778) testifies were famous over Europe, were collected at Amsterdam in 5 vols. 4to. Only a very small proportion was translated into his mother tongue. His Lectiones in omnes Psalmos Davidis (1635) is exceedingly suggestive and terse in its style, reminding of Bengel's Gnomon, as does also his Commentarius utriusque Epist. S. Petri. His "Replies" to Bishop Morton and Dr Burgess on "Ceremonies" tell us that even kinship could not prevent him from "contending earnestly for the faith."
See John Quick's MS. Icones Sacrae Anglicanae, which gives the fisherman anecdote on the personal authority of one who was present; Life by Nethenus prefixed to collected edition of Latin works (5 vols., Amsterdam, 1658); Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. pp. 346- 347; Heal's Puritans, i. 532; Fuller's Cambridge (Christ's College); Hanbury's Hist. Memorials, i. 533; Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. vi., fourth series, 1863, pp. 576-577.
AMES, a city of Story county, Iowa, U.S.A., about 35 m. N. of Des Moines, at the intersection of two lines of the Chicago & North- Western railway. Pop. (1890) 1276; (1900) 2422; (1905, state census) 4223. The city is the seat of the state college of agriculture and mechanic arts; this institution, opened in 1869, has for its use about 1175 acres of land, on which the state has erected, at a cost of $1,200,000, thirty-two college buildings, besides dwelling-houses and buildings for farm purposes. On the college campus are beautiful groves containing several hundred varieties of trees, and in a central position stands a campanile with excellent chimes. The college offers four-year courses in agronomy, animal husbandry, dairying, domestic economy, general science, veterinary medicine, and civil, mechanical, electrical and mining engineering. In 1909-1910 it had an enrollment of 2631 students (including 796 in the winter short course) and a library Of 23,000 volumes. The cost of instruction and experimentation is met by the income from national grants (under the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1882) and by state appropriations. Ames has a Carnegie library, and owns and operates its electric-lighting plant and waterworks. It was laid out as a town in 1864 and was named in honour of Oakes Ames, at the time one of the proprietors of the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River railway (now part of the Chicago & North- Western); five years later it was incorporated.
AMESBURY, a small town in the Wilton parliamentary division of Wiltshire, England, 8 m. N. of Salisbury, on the London & South- Western railway. Pop. (1901) 1143. It stands on a wooded upland, amid the chalk downs of Salisbury Plain. The church of St Mary is cruciform, with a low square tower, and is largely Early English, with some richly decorated windows in the chancel. A curious two-storeyed building which adjoins the north transept consists of a chapel with a piscina below and a priest's chamber above. Amesbury Abbey, a beautiful house built by Inigo Jones for the dukes of Queensberry, stands close to the village, in a park watered by the river Avon, here famous for its trout. Stonehenge (q.v.), the greatest surviving megalithic work in the British Isles, is a mile and a half distant; and on a hill near the village is Vespasian's Camp or the Ramparts, a large earthwork, which is undoubtedly of British, not Roman, origin.
At Amesbury (Ambresberia, Aumbresbery) a witenagemot was held in 932, while about 980 AElfthryth (Ethelfrida), queen-dowager of Edgar, erected here a nunnery in expiation of the murder of her stepson. The house afterwards acquired such ill repute that in 1177 the nuns were dispersed and the house was attached to the abbey of Fontevrault, by whom it was re-established. From this date, by a succession of royal charters and private gifts, the nunnery amassed vast wealth and privileges, and became a fashionable retreat for ladies of high rank, among whose number were Eleanor, widow of Henry III., and Mary, daughter of Edward I. After the dissolution in 1540 the site was granted to Edward, earl of Hertford, afterwards duke of Somerset and protector of the kingdom. It subsequently passed to the duke of Queensberry. According to the Domesday, Amesbury was a royal manor and did not pay geld, but was under the obligation of providing one night's entertainment for the king. In 1317 the prioress obtained a Saturday market and a three days' fair at the feast of St Melor (Meliorus). The market was subsequently changed to Friday, and three additional fairs were granted. Pipeclay abounds in the neighbourhood, and in the 17th century Amesbury was famous for the best pipes in England, many of which are preserved in Salisbury museum.
See Victoria County History—Wiltshire; Sir RichardColt Hoare, History of Modern Wiltshire (1822-1844).
AMESBURY, a township of Essex county, in N.E. Massachusetts, U.S.A., situated on the Merrimac river, about 6 m. above its mouth. Pop. (1890) 9798; (1900) 9473, of whom 2448 were foreign-born; (1905, state census), 8840. Amesbury is served by two divisions of the Boston & Maine railway, and is connected by electric line with Haverhill and Newburyport, Mass., and with Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, and Salisbury Beach, Mass., two summer resorts. The township covers a land area of about 13 sq. m. The surface is hilly. The Powow river, a small stream, passes through the centre of the township. There is a public library. Among Amesbury's manufactures are hats, cotton goods, carriages, automobile bodies, carriage and automobile lamps, thermometers, brass castings and motor boats. In 1905 the factory products were valued at $3,614,692. Amesbury was settled about 1644 as a separate part of Salisbury, and in 1654, by mutual agreement of the old and new "towns," became practically independent, although not legally a township until 1666 (named Amesbury, from the English town in Wilts, in 1667). It suffered repeatedly in the course of the colonial Indian wars. Quakers settled here as early as 1701. Josiah Bartlett (1729-1795), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born here, and is commemorated by a statue (1888) by Karl Gerhardt. Shipbuilding was an important industry in the 18th and especially the first quarter of the 19th century, and the U.S. frigate "Alliance" was built at Salisburypoint in 1778. A nail factory, one of the earliest in the country, was built on the Powow in 1796. The manufacture of iron began about 1710, of hats in 1769, of carriages in 1800 and of cotton goods in 1812. Paul Moody, who with F. C. Lowell constructed in 1814 at Waltham the first successful power-loom in America, was engaged in the manufacture of cotton goods in Amesbury. The township was the home of John G. Whittier from 1836 to 1892; here were written most of the poems of his middle and later life, many of which describe the surrounding country. In 1876 Merrimac township was created out of the territory of Amesbury; in 1886 the west part of the old township of Salisbury was united to Amesbury.
See Joseph Merrill, History of Amesbury (Haverhill, 1880); S. T. Pickard,Whittier-land, A Handbook of North Essex (Boston, New York, 1904).
AMETHYST, a violet or purple variety of quartz used as an ornamental stone. The name is generally said to be derived from the Gr. a, "not," and methbskein, "to intoxicate," expressing the old belief that the stone protected its owner from strong drink. It was held that wine drunk out of a cup of amethyst would not intoxicate. According, however, to the Rev. C. W. King, the word may probably be a corruption of an Eastern name for the stone.
The colour of amethyst is usually attributed to the presence of manganese, but as it is capable of being much altered and even discharged by heat it has been referred by some authorities to an organic source. Ferric thiocyanate has been suggested, and sulphur is said to have been detected in the mineral. On exposure to heat, amethyst generally becomes yellow, and much of the cairngorm or yellow quartz of jewellery is said to be merely "burnt amethyst." Veins of amethystine quartz are apt to lose their colour on the exposed outcrop.
Amethyst is composed of an irregular superposition of alternate lamellae of right-handed and left-handed quartz. (See QUARTZ.) It has been shown by Prof. J. W. Judd that this structure may be due to mechanical stresses. In consequence of this composite formation, amethyst is apt to break with a rippled fracture, or to show "thumb markings," and the intersection of two sets of curved ripples may produce on the fractured surface a pattern something like that of "engine turning." Some mineralogists, following Sir D. Brewster, apply the name of amethyst to all quartz which exhibits this structure, regardless of its colour.
The amethyst was used as a gem-stone by the ancient Egyptians, and was largely employed in antiquity for intaglios. Beads of amethyst are found in Anglo-Saxon graves in England. Amethyst is a very widely distributed mineral, but fine clear specimens fit for cutting as ornamental stones are confined to comparatively few localities. Such crystals occur either in cavities in mineral-veins and in granitic rocks, or as a lining in agate geodes. A huge geode, or "amethyst- grotto," from near Santa Cruz in southern Brazil, was exhibited at the Dusseldorf Exhibition of 1902. Many of the hollow agates of Brazil and Uruguay contain a crop of amethyst-crystals in the interior. Much fine amethyst comes from Russia, especially from near Mursinka in the Ekaterinburg district, where it occurs in drusy cavities in granitic rocks. Many localities in India yield amethyst; and it is found also in Ceylon, chiefly as pebbles.
Purple corundum, or sapphire of amethystine tint, is called (Oriental amethyst, but this expression is often applied by jewellers to fine examples of the ordinary amethystine quartz, even when not derived from Eastern sources.
Amethyst occurs at many localities in the United States, but rarely fine enough for use in jewellery. Among these may be mentioned Amethyst Mountain, Texas; Yellowstone National Park; Delaware Co., Pennsylvania; Haywood Co., North Carolina; Deer Hill, and Stow, Maine. It is found also in the Lake Superior district. See G. F. Kunz, Gems &c. of North America (1890),and Report for 12th Census (vol. "Mines and Quarries"). (F. W. R.*)
AMHARA, the central province of Abyssinia. The chief town, Gondar (q.v.), by which name the province is also known, was the residence of the negus negusti, or emperor, of Abyssinia from the middle ages up to 1854. The speech of the inhabitants, Amharic, which differs in several features from the dialects spoken in Tigre and Shoa, is the official language of Abyssinia.
AMHERST, JEFFREY AMHERST, BARON (1717-1797), British soldier, was the son of Jeffrey Amherst of Riverhead, Kent, and by the interest of the duke of Dorset obtained an ensigncy in the Guards in 1731. He served in Germany and the Low Countries as aide-de-camp to General (Lord) Ligonier, and was present at Dettingen, Fontenoy and Roucoux. He then served on Cumberland's staff, and took part with the duke in the later campaigns of the Austrian Succession war, in the battle of Val, and the North German campaign of 1757, including the battle of Hastenbeck. A year previously he had been promoted to a lieutenant- colonelcy. In 1758 William Pitt caused Amherst to be made a major- general, and gave him command of an expedition to attack the French in North America. For the great plan of conquering Canada, Pitt chose young and ardent officers, with Amherst, distinguished for steadiness and self-control, as their commander-in-chief. The first victory of the expedition, the capture of Louisburg (July 26, 1758), was soon followed by other successes, and Amherst was given the chief command of all the forces in the theatre of war. In the campaign of 1759 Amherst's own share was the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, while Fort Niagara fell to another column, and Quebec was taken by Wolfe. In 1760 a concentric march on Montreal was carried out with complete success, Amherst was immediately appointed governor-general of British North America, and in the following year was made a K.B. His conduct of the operations against the Indians under Pontiac was, however, far from being as successful as his generalship against regular troops; and he returned to England in 1763, being made governor of Virginia and colonel of the 60th regiment in the same year. In 1768 the king, who had had a quarrel with Amherst, made amends by giving him another colonelcy; in 1770 he was made governor of Guernsey; and two years later, though not yet a full general, he was made lieutenant-general of the ordnance and acting commander-in- chief of the forces. In this capacity he was the chief adviser at headquarters during the American War of Independence. He was created a peer in 1776, was promoted general in 1778 and became colonel of the 2nd Horse Grenadiers (2nd Life Guards) two years later. He aided in suppressing the Gordon riots of 1780. The rest of his active life, with a short interval in 1782-1783, he spent at the Horse Guards as commander-in-chief, but he was no longer capable of good service, and in 1795 he was succeeded by the duke of York. In 1796 Lord Amherst was made field-marshal; and he died on the 3rd of August 1797 at "Montreal," his residence in Kent.
AMHERST, WILLIAM PITT AMHERST, EARL (1773-1857), governor- general of India, was the nephew of Jeffrey, Baron Amherst, and succeeded to his title in 1797 by the remainder provided when the patent of nobility was renewed in 1788. In 1816 he was sent as ambassador extraordinary to the court of China, with a view of establishing more satisfactory commercial relations between that country and Great Britain. On arriving in the Peiho he was given to understand that he could only be admitted to the emperor's presence on condition of performing the ko-tou (kow-tow), a ceremony which Western nations consider degrading, and which is, indeed, a homage exacted by a Chinese sovereign from his tributaries. To this Lord Amherst, following the advice of Sir George T. Staunton, who accompanied him as second commissioner, refused to consent, as Lord Macartney had done in 1793, unless the admission was made that his sovereign was entitled to the same show of reverence from a mandarin of his rank. In consequence of this he was not allowed to enter Pekin, and the object of his mission was frustrated. His ship, the "Alceste," after a cruise along the coast of Korea and to the Loo-Choo Islands, on proceeding homewards was totally wrecked on a sunken rock in Gaspar Strait. Lord Amherst and part of his shipwrecked companions escaped in the ship's boats to Batavia, whence relief was sent to the rest. The ship in which he returned to England in 1817 having touched at St Helena, he had several interviews with the emperor Napoleon (see Ellis's Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China, 1817; M'Leod's Narrative of a Voyage in H.M.S. "Alceste," 1817). Lord Amherst held the office of governor-general of India from August 1823 to February 1828. The principal event of his government was the first Burmese war of 1824, resulting in the cession of Arakan and Tenasserim to Great Britain. He was created Earl Amherst of Arakan in 1826. On his return to England he lived in retirement till his death in March 1857.
See A. Thackeray and R. Evans, LordAmherst ("Rulers of India" series), 1894.
AMHERST, a town and district in the Tenasserim division of Lower Burma. The town is situated about 30 m. S. of Moulmein. It was founded by the British in 1826 on the restoration of the town of Martaban to the Burmese, and named in compliment to the governor- general of India of that day; but in 1827 the headquarters were transferred to Moulmein. Amherst has been eclipsed in prosperity by the latter city, and is now merely a bathing-place for Moulmein.
The district forms a narrow strip of land between the Indian Ocean and the mountains which separate it from the independent kingdom of Siam. It has an area of 7062 sq. m. and had a population in 1901 of 300,173; it consists partly of fertile valleys formed by spurs of mountain system which divides it from Siam, and partly of a rich alluvial tract created by the great rivers which issue from them. The most important of these are the Salween and the Gyaing, formed by the junction of the Hlaingbwe and Haungtharaw rivers. The river highways bring down inexhaustible supplies of rice to Moulmein, the chief town of the district, as also of the province of Tenasserim. The district is subject to very heavy rainfall approaching 150 in. in the year, and has a uniform temperature of about 80 deg. F. throughout the twelvemonth.
AMHERST, a village of Amherst township, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, about 7 m. N.E. of Northampton. Pop. of the township (1890) 4512; (1900) 5028; (1905, state census) 5313. It is served by the Boston & Maine and the Central Vermont railways, and by interurban electric railways to Northampton, Holyoke, Sunderland and Pelham. The village is picturesquely situated on a plateau within a rampart of hills on the E. side of the Connecticut river valley. About 3 m. to the S. are the Holyoke Mountains (so called), while on the three remaining sides the land slopes to meadows, beyond which rise on the W. the Hampshire and Berkshire Hills, on the E. the Sugar Loaf Mountains and Mt. Toby, and on the E. the Pelham Hills, including Mt Lincoln (1246 ft.). Two small rivers (Mill and Fort) flow through the township. Amherst is a quiet, pleasing, academic village of attractive homes. It is noteworthy as the seat of Amherst College, one of the best known of the smaller colleges of the United States. Amherst Academy (opened about 1814, chartered 1816), a co-educational school at which Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke College, was educated, preceded the college (not co-educational), which was opened in 1821 and was chartered in 1825. It was originally a collegiate charitable institution, its basis being a fund for the schooling of ministers, and the charity element has remained very large relatively to other colleges. The principal college buildings are College Hall (1828); College Chapel (1828); the Henry T. Morgan Library; Williston Hall, containing the Mather Art Museum, the rooms of the Young Men's Christian Association, and several lecture-rooms; Walker Hall, with college offices and lecture-rooms; Hitchcock Hall; Barrett Hall (1859), the first college gymnasium built in the United States, now used as a lecture hall; the Pratt Gymnasium and Natatorium and the Pratt Health Cottage, whose donors also gave to the college the Pratt Field; an astronomical observatory; and the two dormitories, North College and South College, supplemented by several fraternity houses. The natural history collections (including the very large ichnological collection of President Hitchcock, and Audubon's collection of birds) are of exceptional richness. At Amherst is also the Massachusetts Agricultural College (co-educational; 1867) and experiment station (1887). Among the presidents of Amherst College have been in 1845- 1854 and in 1876-1890 respectively—Edward Hitchcock, the famous geologist, and the Rev. Julius H. Seelye (1824-1895), a well-known educationalist. The township seems to have been first settled in 1731; it was incorporated in 1759 as a "district" (i.e. having all the rights of a township save corporate representation in the legislature) and in 1776 as a "town" (township). It was originally part of Hadley. Its name was given to it in honour of General Jeffrey Amherst (1717-1797). During the Shays' Rebellion Amherst was a centre of disaffection and a rallying-point of the insurgents. Noah Webster lived in the village from 1812 to 1822, when working on his Dictionary; and Emily Dickinson and Helen M. Fiske (later Helen Hunt- Jackson, "H. H.") were born here.
See William Seymour Tyler, A History of AmherstCollege (New York, 1896), and Carpenter and Morehouse,The History of the Town of Amherst (New York, 1896).
AMHERST, the county town of Cumberland county, and port of entry in Novia Scotia, Canada, at the head of Chignecto Bay and on the Intercolonial railway, 138 m. from Halifax. Pop. (1901) 4964. It is situated in a rich agricultural and mining district, and contains county and railway buildings and numerous mills and factories. It is the distributing centre for the surrounding district, and exports railway carriages, engines, boilers, stoves, &c.
AMHURST, NICHOLAS (1697-1742), English poet and political writer, was born at Marden, Kent, on the 16th of October 1697. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and received an exhibition (1716) to St John's College, Oxford. In 1719 he was expelled from the university, ostensibly for his irregularities of conduct, but in reality, according to his own account, because of his whig principles, which were sufficiently evident in a congratulatory epistle to Addison, in Protestant Popery; or the Convocation (1718), an attack on the opponents of Bishop Hoadly, and in The Protestant Session … by a member of the Constitution Club at Oxford (1719), addressed to James, first Earl Stanhope, and printed anonymously, but doubtless by Amhurst. He had satirized Oxford morals in Strephon's Revenge; a Satire on the Oxford Toasts (1718), and he attacked from time to time the administration of the university and its principal members. An old Oxford custom on public occasions permitted some person to deliver from the rostrum a humorous, satirical speech, full of university scandal. This orator was known as Terrae filius. In 1721 Amhurst produced a series of bi-weekly satirical papers under this name, which ran for seven months and incidentally provides much curious information. These publications were reprinted in 1726 in two volumes as Terrae Filius; or the secret history of the University of Oxford; in several essays…. He collected his poems in 1720, and wrote another university satire, Oculus Britanniae, in 1724. On leaving Oxford for London he became a prominent pamphleteer on the opposition side. On the 5th of December 1726 he issued the first number of the Craftsman, a weekly periodical, which he conducted under the pseudonym of Caleb D'Anvers. The paper contributed largely to the final overthrow of Sir Robert Walpole's government, and reached a circulation of 10,000 copies. For this success Amhurst's editorship was not perhaps chiefly responsible. It was the organ of Lord Bolingbroke and William Pulteney, the latter of whom was a frequent and caustic contributor. In 1737 an imaginary letter from Colley Cibber was inserted, in which he was made to suggest that many plays by Shakespeare and the older dramatists contained passages which might be regarded as seditious. He therefore desired to be appointed censor of all plays brought on the stage. This was regarded as a "suspected" libel, and a warrant was issued for the arrest of the printer. Amhurst surrendered himself instead, and suffered a short imprisonment. On the overthrow of the government in 1742 the opposition leaders did nothing for the useful editor of the Craftsman, and this neglect is said to have hastened Amhurst's death, which took place at Twickenham on the 27th of April 1742.
AMIANTHUS, a corruption of amiantus (Gr. amiautos, undefiled), a name applied to the finer kinds of asbestos (q.v.), in consequence, it is said, of the mineral being unaffected by fire. Some of the finest amianthus, with long silky flexible fibres, occurs in the district of the Tarentaise in Savoy. According to Dr J. W. Evans, the ancient amianthus, derived mostly from Karystos in Euboea and from Cyprus, was probably a fibrous serpentine, or chrysotile (now called locally pampakopetrai or cotton-stone).
See Mineralogical Mag. (London) vol. xiv. no. 65 (1906), art. by J. W. Evans.
AMICABLE NUMBERS, two numbers so related that the sum of the factors of the one is equal to the other, unity being considered as a factor. Such a pair are 220 and 284; for the factors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55 and 110, of which the sum is 284; and the factors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71, and 142, of which the sum is 220. Amicable numbers were known to the Pythagoreans, who accredited them with many mystical properties. A general formula by which these numbers could be derived was invented by the Arabian astronomer Tobit ben Korra (836-901): if p=3.2m-1, q=3.2m-1-1 and r=9.22m-1-1, where m is an integer and p,q,r prime numbers, then 2m pq and 2m r are a pair of amicable numbers. This formula gives the pairs 220 and 284, 17,296 and 18,416, 9,463,584 and 9,437,056. The pair 6232 and 6368 are amicable, but they cannot be derived from this formula. Amicable numbers have been studied by Al Madshritti (d. 1007), Rene Descartes, to whom the formula of Tobit ben Korra is sometimes ascribed, C. Rudolphus and others.
AMICE (earlier forms: amyt, amys, O. Fr. amit, Lat. amictus, from amicire, to throw or wrap round, the change of t to s being probably due to an early confusion with the aumuce: see ALMUCE), a liturgical vestment of the Western Church. It is a rectangular piece of cloth which is wrapped round the neck, shoulders and breast. Sometimes, more particularly in Germany, it is called the humerale (from humerus, shoulder). According to modern Roman use, laid down by the decree of the Congregation of Rites in 1819, the amice must be of linen or of a hempen material, not wool; and, as directed by the new Roman Missal (1570), a small cross must be sewn or embroidered in the middle of it. In putting it on it is first laid on the head, then allowed to fall on the shoulders, and finally folded round the chest and tied with the strings attached for that purpose (see fig. 1). The amice is now worn under the alb, except at Milan and Lyons, where it is put on over it. The vestment was at first a perfectly plain white cloth, but in the 12th century the custom arose of decorating the upper border with a band of embroidery, the parure (parura) or "apparel." This was abandoned at Rome about the end of the 15th century and is not prescribed in the Missal; it survived, however, in many parts of Europe till much later. This apparel, when the vestment has been adjusted, forms a sort of stiff collar which appears above the chasuble or dalmatic (see fig. 2). In some exceptional cases, as at Milan, it has become detached from the amice and is fixed like a collar to the chasuble.
The Latin word amictus was applied to any wrap-like garment, and, according to Father Braun, the liturgical amice originated in the ordinary neck-cloth worn by all classes of Romans. It had at the outset no liturgical significance whatever, and was simply adopted by the clergy for the same reason that the clergy of the 18th century wore wigs—because it was part of the full dress of ordinary life. The first record of its ecclesiastical use is at Rome in the 8th century, when it was worn only with the dalmatic and was known as the anabolagium (anagolaium, anagolagium, from Gr. anabolaion), a name it continued to bear at Rome till the 13th century. In the 9th century it spread to the other countries that adopted the Roman use: it is mentioned in an inventory of vestments given by Abbot Angilbert (d. 814) to the monastery at Centula (St Riguier) and in the de clericorum institutione of Hrabanus Maurus (c. 820). The amice was worn first simply as a shoulder-cloth, but at the end of the 9th century the custom grew up of putting it on over the head and of wearing it as a hood, either while the other vestments were being put on or, according to the various uses of local churches, during part of the Mass, though never during the canon. This ceased at Rome at the same time as the apparel disappeared; but two relics of it survive—(1) in the directions of the Missal for putting on the amice, (2) in the ordination of subdeacons, when the bishop lays the vestment on the ordinand's head with the words, "Take the amice, which symbolizes discipline over the tongue, &c." The priest too in putting it on prays, "Place on my head the helmet of salvation, &c."
The amice, whatever its origin or symbolism, became specifically a vestment associated with the sacrifice of the Mass, and as such it was rejected with the other "Mass vestments" in England at the Reformation. Its use has, however, been revived in many Anglican churches, the favourite form being the medieval apparelled amice. (See VESTMENTS.) A vestment akin to the amice is also worn in the Armenian and some other oriental churches, but it is unknown to the Orthodox Eastern Church.
Akin to the amice is a vestment peculiar to the popes, the fanone (Med. Lat. fano, "cloth," Goth. fana, "cloth," Mod. Ger. Fahne, "a flag"), also called the orale (from ora, an edge, border). This is at present a circular broad collar of two thicknesses of silk, ornamented with gold stripes and a gold- embroidered cross (see fig. 3). It is put on after the alb, &c., and under the tunicle, dalmatic and chasuble, but then drawn up so as to fall over the latter like a collar. The fanone was originally a cloth like the amice and was wrapped round neck and shoulders; until the 15th century, moreover, it was not worn with the amice. Since then, however, both vestments have been worn, one under, the other over, the alb. It is worn by the popes only on certain special days or occasions, and forms part of the vestments in which they are buried.
See Joseph Braun, S. J., Die liturgische Gewandung, pp. 21-56 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1907), and bibliography to the article VESTMENTS.
AMICI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1786-1863), Italian astronomer and microscopist, was born on the 25th of March 1786 at Modena. After studying at Bologna, he became professor of mathematics at Modena, and in 1831 was appointed inspector-general of studies in the duchy. A few years later he was chosen director of the observatory at Florence, where he also lectured at the museum of natural history. He died at Florence on the 10th of April 1863. His name is best known for the improvements he effected in the mirrors of reflecting telescopes and especially in the construction of the microscope. He was also a diligent and skilful observer, and busied himself not only with astronomical subjects, such as the double stars, the satellites of Jupiter and the measurement of the polar and equatorial diameters of the sun, but also with biological studies of the circulation of the sap in plants, the fructification of plants, infusoria, &c.
AMICIS, EDMONDO DE (1846-1908), Italian writer, was born at Oneglia, in Liguria, on the 21st of October 1846. After some schooling at Cuneo and Turin, he was sent to the Military School at Modena, from which he was appointed to a lieutenancy in the 3rd regiment of the line in 1865. He fought at the battle of Custozza in 1866. In 1867 he became director of the Italia Militare, Florence. In the following year he published his first book, La Vita Militare, which consisted of sketches of military life, and attained wide popularity. After the overthrow of the pope's temporal power in 1870, De Amicis retired from the army and devoted himself to literature, making his headquarters at Turin. Always a traveller by inclination, he found opportunity for this in his new leisure, and some of his most popular books have been the product of his wanderings. Several of these have been translated into English and the other principal languages of Europe. The most important of these are his descriptions of Spain (1873), Holland (1874), Constantinople (1877) and Morocco (1879). These gained him a well- deserved reputation as a brilliant depicter of scenery and the external aspects of life; solid information is not within their sphere; and much of their success is owing to the opportunities they afford for spirited illustration. Subsequently De Amicis greatly extended his fame as a writer of fiction, especially by Il Romanzo d' un Maestro, and the widely read Il Cuore (translated into English as An Italian Schoolboy's Journal); later volumes from his pen being La Carozza di tutti (centring round an electric tram), Memorie, Speranze e glorie, Ricordi d' infanzia e di scuola, L' Idioma gentile, and a volume of short stories, Nel Regno dell' Amore. He died suddenly of heart disease at Bordighera on the 12th of March 1908.
AMICUS CURIAE (Lat. for "a friend of the court"), a term used primarily in law, signifying a person (usually a member of the bar) who, having special knowledge but not being engaged in the suit, intervenes during its hearing to give information for the assistance of the court, either upon some fact relevant to the issue or upon a point of law, such as the hearing of a local custom, the precedent of some decided case, &c.
AMIDINES, in organic chemistry, the name given to compounds of general formula R.C:(NH).NH2, which may be considered as derived from the acid-amides by replacement of oxygen by the divalent imino (=NH) group. They may be prepared by the action of ammonia or amines on imide chorides, or on thiamides (O. Wallach, A. Bernthsen); by the action of ammonium chloride or hydrochlorides of amines on nitriles; by condensing amines and amides in presence of phosphorus trichloride; by the action of hydrochloric acid on acid-amides (O. Wallach, Ber., 1882, 15, p. 208); and by the action of ammonia or amines on imino-ethers (A. Pinner, Ber., 1883, 16, p. 1647; 1884, 17, p. 179). They are monacid bases, which are not very stable; they readily take up the elements of water (when boiled with acids or alkalies), yielding amides and ammonia. On dry distillation they yield nitriles and ammonia. When warmed with sulphuretted hydrogen they yield thiamides, R.C:(NH).NHR+H2S = R.C(NH2)(SH)NHR = R.CSNH2 + NH2.R or RCS.NHR + NH3. With b-ketonic esters, HO(CH3)C:CH.CO2R, they yield oxypyrimidines (A. Pinner, Ber., 1890, 23, p. 3820).
Formamidine, HC:(NH)NH2, is only known in the form of its salts, the hydrochloride being obtained by the action of ammonia on the hydrochloride of formimido-ethyl ether (A. Pinner, Ber., 1883, 16, p. 357). Acetamidine, CH3C:(NH).NH2, is alkaline in reaction, and readily splits up into acetic acid and ammonia when warmed with acids. Its hydrochloride melts at 163 deg. C., and crystallizes from alcohol in colourless deliquescent prisms. Acetic anhydride converts the base into an acetamino-dimethyl pyrimidine, acetic acid and acetamide being also formed.
Benzamidine, C6H5.C:(NH)NH2, forms colourless crystals which melt at 75-80 deg. C. When warmed it breaks down into ammonia and cyanphenine (s-triphenyl triazine). It condenses with acetic anhydride to form a methyldiphenyl triazine, acetamide being also formed; with acetyl-acetone to form dimethylphenyl pyrimidine (A. Pinner, Ber., 1893, 26, p. 2125); and with trimethylene bromide to form a phenyl tetrahydropyrimidine (Pinner). H. v. Pechmann (Ber., 1895, 28, p. 2362) has shown that amidines of the type R.C: (NY).NHZ sometimes react as if they possessed the constitution R.C: (NZ).NHY; but this only appears to occur when Y and Z are groups which function in the same way. If Y and Z are groups which behave very differently, then there is apparently no tautomerism and a definite formula can be given to the compound.
The formulae of the ringed compounds mentioned above are here shown:
N—C—(CH3)// \\R.C CH\ /N==C—(OH)Oxypyrimidine.
N—C—(CH3)// \\CH3.C CH\ /N==C—(NHCOCH3)Acetaminodimethyl pyrimidine.
C6H5/N—C// \\C6H5.C N\ /N==C\CH3Methyl diphenyl triazine.
N—CH2// \C6H5.C CH2\ /NH—CH2Phenyl tetrahydropyrimidine.
AMIEL, HENRI FREDERIC (1821-1881), Swiss philosopher and critic, was born at Geneva on the 27th of September 1821. He was descended from a Huguenot family driven to Switzerland by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Losing his parents at an early age, he travelled widely, became intimate with the intellectual leaders of Europe and made a special study of German philosophy in Berlin. In 1849 he was appointed professor of aesthetics at the academy of Geneva, and in 1854 became professor of moral philosophy. These appointments, conferred by the democratic party, deprived him of the support of the aristocratic party; which comprised nearly all the culture of the city. This isolation inspired the one book by which Amiel lives, the Journal Intime, which, published after his death, obtained a European reputation. It was translated into English by Mrs Humphry Ward. Although second-rate as regards productive power, Amiel's mind was of no inferior quality, and his journal gained a sympathy which the author had failed to obtain in his life. In addition to the Journal, he produced several volumes of poetry and wrote studies on Erasmus, Madame de Stael and other writers. He died in Geneva on the 11th of March 1881. His chief poetical works are Grains de mil, Il penseroso, Part du reve, Les Etrangeres, Charles le Temeraire, Romancero historique, Jour a jour.
See Life of Amiel by Mdlle Berthe Vadier (Paris, 1885); Paul Bourget, Nouveaux essais (Paris, 1885); E. Scherer, introd. to the Journal and in Etudes sur la litt. contemp. (vol. viii.).
AMIENS, a city of northern France, capital of the department of Somme, on the left bank of the Somme, 81 m. N. of Paris on the Northern railway to Calais. Pop. (1906) 78,407. Amiens was once a place of great strength, and still possesses a citadel of the end of the 16th century, but the ramparts which surrounded it have been replaced by boulevards, bordered by handsome residences. Suburbs, themselves bounded by another line of boulevards, have arisen beyond these limits, and the city also extends to the right bank of the Somme. The busy quarter of Amiens lies between the river and the railway, which for some distance follows the inner line of boulevards. The older and more picturesque quarter is situated directly on the Somme; its narrow and irregular streets are intersected by the eleven arms of the river and it is skirted on the north by the canal derived therefrom. Besides its boulevards Amiens has the ample park or Promenade de la Hotoie to the west and several fine squares, notably the Place Longueville and the Place St Denis, in which stands the statue of the famous 17th-century scholar Charles Ducange. The cathedral (see ARCHITECTURE: Romanesque and Gothic Architecture in France; and CATHEDRAL), which is perhaps the finest church of Gothic architecture in France, far exceeds the other buildings of the town in importance. Erected on the plans of Robert de Luzarches, chiefly between 1220 and 1288, it consists of a nave, nearly 140 ft. in height, with aisles and lateral chapels, a transept with aisles, and a choir (with deambulatory) ending in an apse surrounded by chapels. The total length is 469 ft., the breadth 216 ft. The facade, which is flanked by two square towers without spires, has three portals decorated with a profusion of statuary, the central portal having a remarkable statue of Christ of the 13th century; they are surmounted by two galleries, the upper one containing twenty-two statues of the kings of Judah in its arcades, and by a fine rose-window. A slender spire rises above the crossing. The southern portal is remarkable for a figure of the Virgin and other statuary. In the interior, which contains beautifully carved stalls, a choir-screen in the flamboyant style and many other works of art, the most striking features are the height of the nave and the boldness of the columns supporting the vaulting. The chief of the other churches of Amiens is St Germain (15th century), which has some good stained glass. The hotel de ville, begun in 1550, a belfry of the 14th and 18th centuries and several old mansions are of interest. Amiens has a rich library and admirable collections of paintings, sculptures and antiquities in the museum of Picardy. Its learned associations include the Societe des Antiquaires de Picardie, by whom the museum was built in 1854-1864. The city is the seat of a bishop, a prefect, a court of appeal and a court of assizes, and headquarters of the II. Army Corps. There are also tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. The educational institutions include lycees for boys and girls, training-colleges for teachers, a preparatory school of medicine, a school of music and a school of iron-working and wood-working. The textile industries for which Amiens has been celebrated since the middle ages include manufactures of velvet, cotton-, wool-, silk-, hemp- and flax-spinning, and the weaving of hosiery and a variety of mixed fabrics. Manufactures of machinery, chemicals, blacking, polish and sugar, and printing, dyeing and iron-founding are also carried on. Market gardens, known as hortillonnages, intersected by small canals derived from the Somme and Avre, cover a considerable area to the north-east of Amiens; and the city has trade in vegetables, as well as in grain, sugar, wool, oil-seeds and the duck-pasties and macaroons for which it is renowned.
Amiens occupies the site of the ancient Samarobriva, capital of the Ambiani, from whom it probably derives its name. At the beginning of the 4th century Christianity was preached there by St Firmin, its first bishop. During the middle ages its territory formed the countship of Amienois. The authority of the counts was, however, balanced by that of the bishops, and early in the 12th century the citizens, profiting by this rivalry, gained a charter of enfranchisement. The fief became for the first time a dependency of the French crown in 1185, when Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, ceded it to Philip Augustus. It more than once passed out of the power of the French kings, notably in 1435, when, by the treaty of Arras, it came into the possession of the dukes of Burgundy, to whom it belonged till 1477. Surprised by the Spaniards in 1597, the city was recaptured from them after a long siege by Henry IV. Till 1790 it was the capital of the gouvernement of Picardy (q.v.). The famous treaty between Great Britain, France, Spain and Holland which took its name from Amiens was signed in the hotel de ville on the 25th of March 1802. During the war between France and Germany, Amiens, after an important action, fell into the hands of the Prussians on the 28th of November 1870. (See FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.)
See A. de Calonne, Histoire de la ville d'Amiens (1900); John Ruskin, The Bible of Amiens (1881); La Picardie historique et monumentale, tome i., published by the Societe des Antiquaires de Picardie (1893).
AMINES, in chemistry, derivatives of ammonia in which one or more of the hydrogen atoms are replaced by alkyl or aryl groups. The replacement of one hydrogen atom by one alkyl or aryl group gives rise to primary amines; of two hydrogen atoms by two groups, to secondary amines; of three hydrogen atoms by three groups, to tertiary amines. The tertiary amines possess the power of combining with one molecular proportion of an alkyl iodide to form quaternary ammonium salts. The structural relations of these compounds may be shown thus:
NH3; NH2R; NHR2; NR3; Ammonia; primary amine; secondary amine; tertiary amine; NR4I. quaternary ammonium iodide. Aliphatic amines.—These compounds possess properties very similar to those of ammonia, the lowest members of the series being combustible gases readily soluble in water. The next higher members of the series are liquids of low boiling point also readily soluble in water, the solubility and volatility, however, decreasing with the increasing carbon content of the molecule, until the highest members of the series are odourless solids of high boiling point and are insoluble in water. They are all strong bases, readily forming salts with the mineral acids and double salts with the chlorides of gold, platinum and mercury. They are ionized in aqueous solution to a much greater extent than ammonia, the quaternary ammonium bases being the most ionized, and the secondary bases being more strongly ionized than the primary or tertiary bases. For data concerning the conductivity of the organic bases see G. Bredig (Zeit. fur phys. Chem., 1894, 13, p. 289).
Many methods have been devised for the preparation of the amines, the first amine having been isolated in 1849 by A. Wurtz on boiling methyl isocyanate with caustic potash, CON.CH3 + 2KHO = CH3NH2 + K2CO3. The primary amines may also be prepared by heating the alkyl iodides with ammonia (A. W. Hofmann); by the reduction of nitriles with alcohol and sodium (A. Ladenburg, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 783); by heating the esters of nitric acid with alcoholic ammonia at 100 deg. C. (O. Wallach, Ber., 1881, 14, p. 421); by the action of reducing agents on nitroparaffins; by the action of zinc and hydrochloric acid on aldehyde ammonias (German Patent 73,812); by the reduction of the phenylhydrazones and oximes of aldehydes and ketones with sodium amalgam in the presence of alcohol and sodium acetate (J. Tafel, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 1925; 1889, 22, p. 1854; H. Goldschmidt, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 3232); by the action of dilute hydrochloric acid on the isonitriles, R.NC + 2H2O = R.NH2 + H2CO2; by heating the mustard oils with a mineral acid, by the hydrolysis of the alkyl phthalimides (S. Gabriel, Ber., 1887, 20, p. 2224; 1891, 24, p. 3104),
CO CO/ \ RI / \ 2H2OC6H4 NK —-> C6H4 NR ————>\ / \ /CO CO
COOH/C6H4 + NH2R;\COOH
by distilling the amino-acids with baryta; by the action of bromine and caustic potash on the acid-amides (A. W. Hofmann, Ber., 1885, 18, p. 2734; 1886, 19, p. 1822);
CH3CONH2 —> CH3CONHBr —> CH3CONKBr —>
CH3NCO —> CH3NH2;
and by the hydrolysis of substituted urethanes (Th. Curtius, Ber., 1894, 27, p. 779; 1896, 29, p. 1166),
N2H4.H20 HONOR.COOH —> R.COOR1 —————————> R.CONH.NH2 ——->acid ester hydrazide
C2H5OH HCIR.CON3 ——————-> R.NH.CO2C2H5 ——> R.NH2azide urethane
The secondary amines are prepared, together with the primary and tertiary, by the action of ammonia on the alkyl iodides (see below), or by the hydrolysis of para-nitroso derivatives of tertiary aromatic amines, such as para-nitrosodimethylaniline, thus: NO.C6H4.N(CH3)2 + H2O = NO.C6H4.OH + NH(CH3)2. By the action of ammonia on the alkyl iodides a complex mixture of primary, secondary and tertiary amines, along with a quaternary ammonium salt, is obtained, the separation of which is difficult. The method worked out by A. W. Hofmann is as follows:—the mixture is distilled with caustic potash, when the primary, secondary and tertiary amines distil over, and the quaternary ammonium salt remains behind unaffected. The aqueous solution of the amines is now shaken up with diethyl oxalate, when the primary amine forms a crystalline dialkyl oxamide and the secondary amine an insoluble liquid, which is an ethyl dialkyl oxamate, the tertiary amine not reacting: (CO2C2H5)2 + 2NH2R = (CO.NHR)2 + 2C2H5OH; (CO2C2H5)2 + NHR2 = C2H5O2C.CONR2 + C2H5OH. The tertiary amine is then distilled off, the residual products separated by filtration and finally hydrolysed by a caustic alkali.
The primary, secondary and tertiary amines may be readily distinguished by their behaviour with various reagents. Primary amines when heated with alcoholic potash and chloroform yield isonitriles, which are readily detected by their offensive smell. The secondary and tertiary amines do not give this reaction. With nitrous acid, the primary amines yield alcohols, the secondary amines yield nitrosamines and the tertiary amines do not react: R.NH2 + ONOH = R.OH + N2 + H2O; R2NH + ONOH = R2N.NO + H2O. With benzene sulphochloride in the presence of alkali, the primary amines yield compounds of the type C6H5SO2NHR, soluble in alkalies, whilst the secondary amines yield compounds of the type C6H5SO2NR2, insoluble in alkalies (O. Hinsberg, Ber., 1890, 23, p. 2963). Primary amines heated with carbon bisulphide in alcoholic solution are converted into mustard oils, when the dithiocarbamate first produced is heated with a solution of mercuric chloride.
Methylamine, CH3NH2, occurs in Mercurialis perennis, in bone-oil, and herring brine. It is also a decomposition product of many alkaloids. At ordinary temperatures it is a gas, but may be condensed to a liquid which boils at -6 deg. C. It has a strong ammoniacal smell, burns readily and is exceedingly soluble in water. Its critical temperature is 155 deg. C. and critical pressure 72 atmos. (C. Vincent, J. Chappuis, Jahresb., 1886, p. 202). Dimethylamine, (CH3)2NH, is found in Peruvian guano. It is a heavy vapour which condenses at 7 deg. C. to a liquid, having a pronounced fish-like smell. Trimethylamine, (CH3)3N, is very similar to dimethylamine, and condenses to a liquid which boils at 3.2-3.8 deg. C. It is usually obtained from "vinasses," the residue obtained from the distillation of beet sugar alcohol, and is used in the manufacture of potassium bicarbonate by the Solvay process, since its hydrochloride is much more soluble than potassium carbonate. Tetramethylammonium iodide, N(CH3)4I, is the chief product obtained by the action of methyl iodide on ammonia (Hofmann). It crystallizes in quadratic prisms and has a bitter taste. By warming its aqueous solution with an excess of silver oxide it is converted into tetramethylammonium hydroxide, N(CH3)4OH, which crystallizes in hygroscopic needles, and has a very alkaline reaction. It forms many crystalline salts and absorbs carbon dioxide. It precipitates many metallic hydroxides. On dry distillation it is resolved into trimethylamine and methyl alcohol. If the nitrogen atom in the quaternary ammonium salts be in combination with four different groups, then the molecule is asymmetrical, and the salt can be resolved into optically active enantiamorphous isomerides. W. J. Pope (Jour. Chem. Soc., 1901, 79, p. 828) has resolved benzyl-allyl-phenyl-methylamine iodide by boiling with silver d-camphorsulphonate in a nearly anhydrous mixture of acetone and ethyl acetate. The silver iodide is separated and the solvent distilled off. The residue crystallizes slowly, and the crystalline product is almost wholly d-benzyl-ally-phenyl- ammonium-d-sulphonate, the corresponding l-compound remaining as a syrupy residue. The corresponding iodides are obtained by the addition of potassium iodide to solutions of the sulphonates, and are optically active antipodes.
Diamines.—The diamines contain two amino groups and bear the same relation to the glycols that the primary monamines bear to the primary alcohols. They are of importance, since the higher homologues are identical in many cases with the ptomaines produced by the putrefactive action of some bacteria on albumen and other related substances. Ethylene diamine, C2H4(NH2)2, may be prepared by heating ethylene dibromide with alcoholic ammonia to 100 deg. C. (F. S. Cloez, Jahresb., 1853, p. 468); or by the action of tin and hydrochloric acid on cyanogen (T. Fairley, Ann. Suppl., 3, 1864, p. 372). It is an alkaline liquid, which when anhydrous boils at 116.5 deg. C. Nitrous acid converts it into ethylene oxide. It combines directly with many metallic salts. (See S. F. Jorgensen, Jour. pr. Chem., 1889 (2), 39, p. 8.) Trimethylene diamine, NH2.(CH2)3.NH2, is prepared by the action of ammonia on trimethylene bromide (E. Fischer, Ber., 1884, 17, p. 1799). It is a liquid which boils at 135-136 deg. C., and is readily soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform and benzene. Tetramethylene diamine (putrescine), NH2.(CH2)4.NH2, is prepared by reducing ethylene dicyanide (succinonitrile) with sodium in absolute alcoholic solution (A. Ladenburg, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 780). It melts at 27 deg. C., and is easily soluble in water. Pentamethylene diamine (cadaverine), NH2.(CH2)5.NH2,is prepared by reducing trimethylene cyanide in ether solution by zinc and hydrochloric acid (A. Ladenburg, Ber., 1883, 16, p. 1151). J. v. Braun (Ber., 1904, 37, p. 3583) has prepared pentamethylene derivatives from piperidine by the action of phosphorus pentachloride. On heating piperidine with phosphorus pentachloride to 200 deg. C. in a sealed tube pentamethylene dichloride is obtained, and this on treatment with potassium phthalimide gives a condensation product of composition, C6H4[CO]2N(CH2)5N[CO]2C6H4, which is finally hydrolysed by hydrochloric acid. Cadaverine is a syrup at ordinary temperatures, and boils at 178-179 deg. C. It is readily soluble in water and alcohol, but only slightly soluble in ether.
Aromatic Amines.—The aromatic amines in some respects resemble the aliphatic amines, since they form salts with acids, and double salts with platinum chloride, and they also distil without decomposition. On the other hand, they are much weaker bases than the aliphatic amines, their salts undergoing hydrolytic dissociation in aqueous solution. The primary aromatic amines may be prepared by the reduction of the nitro-hydrocarbons, the reducing agents used being either alcoholic-ammonium sulphide (N. Zinin), zinc and hydrochloric acid (A. W. Hofmann), an alcoholic solution of stannous chloride (containing hydrochloric acid) (R. Anschutz, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 2161), tin and hydrochloric acid, or, on the manufacturing scale, iron and hydrochloric acid. They may also be obtained by the reduction of nitroso compounds and of hydrazo compounds and of hydrazones (J. Tafel, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 1924), by distilling the amido-acids with lime, by heating phenols with zinc chloride ammonia (V. Merz, Ber., 1880, 13, p. 1298), and by heating the secondary and tertiary bases with concentrated hydrochloric acid to about 180 deg. C.
At a temperature of about 300-400 deg. C. the alkyl chloride formed in this reaction attacks the benzene nucleus and replaces hydrogen by an alkyl group or groups, forming primary amines homologous with the original amine; thus methylaniline hydrochloride is converted into para- and ortho-toluidine hydrochloride, and trimethyl phenyl ammonium iodide is converted into mesidine hydriodide. It is to be noted that only traces of the aromatic amines are produced by heating the halogen substituted benzenes with ammonia, unless the amino group be situated in the side chain, as in the case of benzylamine.
The primary amines are colourless liquids or crystalline solids, which are insoluble in water, but readily soluble in the common organic solvents. When heated with alkyl or aryl iodides, they are converted into secondary and tertiary amines. Concentrated nitric acid attacks them violently, producing various oxidation products, but if the amino group be "protected" by being previously acetylated, then nitro derivatives are obtained. When heated with concentrated sulphuric acid for some time, they are sulphonated. They form condensation products with aldehydes, benzaldehyde and aniline forming benzylidene aniline, C6H5N: CHC6H5, and when heated with acids they form anilides. They give the isonitrile reaction (see above) when warmed with chloroform and a caustic alkali, and form alkyl thioureas when heated with an alcoholic solution of carbon bisulphide. When warmed with a solution of nitrous acid, they are converted into phenols; if, however, nitrous acid be added to an ice-cold solution of a primary amine in excess of mineral acid, a diazonium salt is formed (see AZO COMPOUNDS and DIAZO COMPOUNDS), or in absence of excess of acid, a diazoamine is produced.
The secondary amines may be of two types—namely, the purely aromatic amines, and the mixed secondary amines, which contain an aromatic residue and an alkyl group. The purely aromatic amines result upon heating the primary amines with their hydrochlorides, and, in some cases, by heating a phenol with a primary amine and anhydrous zinc chloride. The mixed secondary amines are prepared by the action of alkyl iodides on the primary amines, or by heating salts of the primary amine with alcohols under pressure. The mixed secondary amines have basic properties, but the purely aromatic secondary amines are only very feeble bases. Both classes readily exchange the imide hydrogen for acid radicals, and give nitrosamines with nitrous acid. The secondary amines do not give the isonitrile reaction.
The tertiary amines may also be of two types, the purely aromatic and the mixed type. The mixed tertiary amines are produced by the action of alkyl halides on the primary amines. The simplest aromatic tertiary amine, triphenylamine, is prepared by the action of brombenzene on sodium diphenylamine (C. Heydrich, Ber., 1885, 18, p. 2156). The simplest aromatic monamine is aniline (q.v.), and the simplest mixed amines are mono- and di-methyl aniline. These substances are treated in the article ANILINE.
The aromatic amine resembling the aliphatic amines is benzylamine, C6H5.CH2.NH2, which may be prepared by reducing benzonitrile in alcoholic solution by means of zinc and acetic acid (O. Mendius, Ann. 1862, 121, p. 144), or by metallic sodium (E. Bamberger, Ber., 1887, 20, p. 1709). It can also be obtained by the action of ammonia on benzyl chloride (S. Cannizzaro, Ann., 1865, 134, p. 128), but di- and tri-benzylamines are simultaneously formed. It is a liquid, which boils at 183 deg. C., and is miscible in all proportions with water, alcohol and ether. It is basic in character, and has a strongly alkaline reaction. Diphenylamine, (C6H5)2NH, is the simplest representative of the true aromatic secondary amines. It is prepared by heating aniline and aniline hydrochloride for some hours to 210-240 deg. C, (Ch. Girard and G. de Laire, Zeit. fur Chem., 1866, p. 438). It crystallizes in white plates, which melt at 45 deg. C. and boil at 302 deg. C. It is almost insoluble in water, but readily volatilizes in steam. When heated with monobasic saturated acids and zinc chloride it yields acridines.
Aromatic Diamines.—The diamines are prepared by reducing the nitranilines or the dinitrohydrocarbons. They crystallize in plates, and for the most part distil without decomposition. Orthophenylene diamine, C6H4(NH2)2, crystallizes from water in plates, which melt at 102-103 deg. C. and boil at 256-258 deg. C. When heated with 10% hydrochloric acid to 180 deg. C. it yields pyrocatechin (Jacob Meyer, Ber., 1897, 30, p. 2569). The orthodiamines are characterized by the large number of condensation products they form. (See IMIDAZOLES, QUINOXALINES, &c.). Metaphenylene diamine crystallizes in rhombic plates which melt at 63 deg. C. and boil at 287 deg. C. It is easily soluble in water and alcohol. When heated with 10% hydrochloric acid to 180 deg. C. it yields resorcin (J. Meyer). Paraphenylene diamine may be prepared as above, and also by the reduction of amidoazobenzene. It crystallizes in tables which melt at 140 deg. C. and boil at 267 deg. C. When heated with 10% hydrochloric acid to 180 deg. C. it yields hydroquinone (J. Meyer). Manganese dioxide and dilute sulphuric acid oxidize it to quinone. The three classes of diamines may be distinguished by their behaviour towards nitrous acid. The ortho-compounds condense to azimido benzenes, the metacompounds yield azo-dyestuffs, and the para- compounds yield bis-diazo compounds of the type XN2.C6H4.N2X.
AMIOT, JEAN JOSEPH MARIE (1718-1793), French Jesuit missionary, was born at Toulon in February 1718. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1737 and was sent in 1750 as a missionary to China. He soon won the confidence of the emperor Kien-lung and spent the remainder of his life at Pekin, where he died on the 9th of October 1793. Amiot was eminently fitted to make good use of the advantages which his situation afforded, and his works did more than had ever been done before to make known to the Western world the thought and life of the Far East. His Dictionnaire tatare-mantchou-francais (Paris, 1789) was a work of great value, the language having been previously quite unknown in Europe. His other writings are to be found chiefly in the Memoires concernant l'histoire, les sciences et les arts de Chinois (15 vols., Paris, 1776-1791). The Vie de Confucius, the twelfth volume of that collection, is complete and accurate.
For full bibliography see De Backer and C. Sommervogel,Bibliotheque de la Cie. de Jesus, i. 294-303;for his works on Chinese music see F. J. Fetis,Biog. univers. des musiciens (Brussels, 1837-1844).
AMIR, or AMEER (an Arabic word meaning "commander," from the root amr, "commanding"), a title common in the Mahommedan East. The form emir is also commonly employed in English. The word originally signified a military commander, but very early came to be extended to anyone bearing rule, Mahomet himself being styled by the pagan Arabs amir of Mecca. Thus the term gradually came to be applied to any high office-bearer, or to any lord or chief. The caliph has the style of Amir ul Omara, "lord of lords." The title Amir ul Muminim, or "commander of the faithful," now borne by the sultan of Turkey, was first assumed by Abu Bekr, and was taken by most of the various dynasties which claimed the caliphate, including the Fatimites, the Spanish Omayyads and the Almohades. The Almoravides and the Merinides assumed the style of Amir ul Muslimin, "commander of the Mussulmans."