OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cookworthy, William

See also William Cookworthy on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​COOKWORTHY, WILLIAM (1705–1780), English potter, famous for his discovery of the existence of china-clay and china-stone in Cornwall, and as the first manufacturer of a porcelain similar in nature to the Chinese, from English materials, was born at Kingsbridge, Devon, of Quaker parents who were in humble circumstances. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a London apothecary named Bevans, and he afterwards returned to the neighbourhood of his birthplace, and carried on business at Plymouth with the co-operation of his master, under the title of Bevans & Cookworthy. The manufacture of porcelain was at the time attracting great attention in England, and while the factories at Bow, Chelsea, Worcester and Derby were introducing the artificial glassy porcelain, Cookworthy, following the accounts of Père d’Entrecolles, spent many years in searching for English materials similar to those used by the Chinese. From 1745 onwards he seems to have travelled over the greater portion of Cornwall and Devon in search of these minerals, and he finally located them in the parish of St Stephen’s near to St Austell. With a certain amount of financial assistance from Mr Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc (afterwards Lord Camelford) he established the Plymouth China Factory at least as early as 1768. The factory was removed to Bristol about 1770, and the business was afterwards sold to Richard Champion and others and became the well-known Bristol Porcelain Manufactory. Apart from its historic interest there is little to be said for the Plymouth porcelain. Technically it was often imperfect, and its artistic treatment was never of a high order. But Cookworthy deserves to be remembered for his discovery of those abundant supplies of English clay and rocks which form the foundation of English porcelain and fine earthenware (see Ceramics).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cooma

See also Cooma on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​COOMA, a town of Beresford county, New South Wales, Australia, 264 m. by rail S.S.W. of Sydney. Pop. (1901) 1938. The town is the centre of a pastoral district and has a large trade in furs, while at Bushy Hill, a mile from the town, is a small gold-field. Cooma, which is pleasantly situated at an elevation of 2657 ft., is the tourist centre for visitors to the Yarrangobilly Caves and Mount Kosciusko and its observatory. The caves are distant 65 m. from the town, situated in the side of a hill, overlooking the Yarrangobilly river; they are seven in number and of remarkable beauty and extent.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cooper, Alexander

See also Alexander Cooper on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​COOPER, ALEXANDER (d. 1660), English miniature painter. His works are of great rarity, and the chief are a series representing the king and queen of Bohemia and their children, in the possession of the German emperor; some very remarkable portraits belonging to the queen of Holland, and others in the possession of the king of Sweden and in various Swedish galleries. He was the brother of Samuel Cooper, but whether senior or junior to him is not known, although, according to certain Swedish authorities, he is stated, upon very slight evidence, to have been born in 1605, four years before his more famous brother. He came to Sweden in 1646, and the Swedish documents declare that he was a Jew, and that his full name was Abraham Alexander Cooper. He had previously been residing in Holland, but on reaching Sweden entered the service of Queen Christina, and continued to be her miniature painter until 1654, when she resigned the crown. Two years later, Cooper was in Denmark, carrying out some commissions for Christian IV., but ​in 1657 was back again in Stockholm, where he died in the early part of 1660. The date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been born in London.
For full information regarding his career, and for various documents bearing his signature, see The History of Portrait Miniatures, by G. C. Williamson, chap. vi. page 78, and an article in the Nineteenth Century for October 1905. (G. C. W.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ampulla

See also Ampulla on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AMPULLA (either a diminutive of amphora, or from Lat. ambo, both, and olla, a pot), a small, narrow-necked, round-bodied vase for holding liquids, especially oil and perfumes. It is the Latin term equivalent to the Greek λήκυθος. It was used in ancient times for toilet purposes and anointing the bodies of the dead, being then buried with them. Gildas mentions the use of ampullae as established among the Britons in his time, and St Columba is said to have employed one in the coronation of King Aidan. Both the name and the function of the ampulla have survived in the Western Church, where it still signifies the vessel containing the oil consecrated by the bishop for ritual uses, especially in the sacraments of Confirmation, Orders and Extreme Unction. The word occurs repeatedly in the service of coronation of the English sovereign in connexion with the ancient ceremony of anointing by the archbishop of Canterbury, which is still observed. The ampulla of the regalia of England takes the form of a golden eagle with outspread wings. The most celebrated ampulla in history was that known as la sainte ampoule, in the abbey of St Remi at Reims, from which the kings of France were anointed. According to the legend it had been brought from heaven by a dove for the coronation of Clovis, and at one period the kings of France claimed precedence over all other sovereigns on account of it. It was destroyed at the Revolution. The word “ampulla” is used in biology, by analogy from the shape, for a certain portion of the anatomy of a plant or animal.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amraoti

See also Amravati on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AMRAOTI, or Umrawattee, a town and district of India, in Berar, Central Provinces. The district was reconstituted in 1905, when that of Ellichpur was incorporated with it. The town has a station 6 m. from Badnera junction on the Great Indian Peninsula line. Pop. (1901) 34,216, showing an increase of 22% in the decade. It is the richest town of Berar, with the most numerous and substantial commercial population. It possesses a branch of the Bank of Bombay, and has the largest ​cotton mart, where an average of 80,593 bojas of cotton are bought and sold annually. It has also a large grain market, cotton presses, ginning factories and oil mills. Amraoti raw cotton is quoted on the Liverpool Exchange.
The district of Amraoti has an area of 4754 sq. m. In 1901 the population was 630,245, showing a decrease of 4% in the decade; on the area as now constituted it was 809,499 The district is an extensive plain, about 800 ft. above sea-level, the general flatness being only broken by a small chain of hills, running in a north-westerly direction between Amraoti and Chandor, with an average height from 400 to 500 ft. above the lowlands. The principal towns, besides Amraoti, are Karinja, Kolapur, and Badnera, which lies on the Great Indian Peninsula railway, the main line of which crosses the district. Severe drought visited Amraoti in 1899–1900.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amroha

See also Amroha on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AMROHA, a town of British India, in the Moradabad district of the United Provinces. It contains the tomb of a Mahommedan saint, Shaikh Saddu, and has been for many centuries a Mahommedan centre. Pop. (1901) 40,077.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amravati

See also Amaravati on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AMRAVATI, or Amaravati, a ruined city of India in the Guntur district of the Madras presidency, on the south bank of the Kistna river, 62 m. from its mouth. The town is of great interest for the antiquary as one of the chief centres of the Buddhist kingdom of Vengi, and for its stupa (sepulchral monument). Amravati has been identified with Hsiian Tsang’s To-na-kie-tse-kia and with the Rahmi of Arab geographers. Subsequent to the disappearance of Buddhism from this region the town became a centre of the Sivaite faith. When Hsüan Tsang visited Amravati in A.D. 639 it had already been deserted for a century, but he speaks in glowing terms of its magnificence and beauty. Very careful and artistic representations of the stupa with its daghoba and interesting rail, pillars and sculptures will be found in Fergusson’s Tree and Serpent Worship, and in his History of Indian Architecture (1876). Its elaborate carvings illustrate the life of Buddha. Some are preserved in the British Museum; others in the museum at Madras.
An account by Dr James Burgess was published in 1877 as one of the volumes of the Archaeological Survey of Southern India.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amram

See also Amram Gaon on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AMRAM (d. 875), a famous gaon or head of the Jewish Academy of Sura (Persia) in the 9th century. He was author of many “Responsa,” but his chief work was liturgical. He was the first to arrange a complete liturgy for the synagogue, and his Prayer-Book (Siddur Rab ʽAmram) was the foundation of most of the extant rites in use among the Jews. The Siddur was published in Warsaw in two parts (1865).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amru'-ul-Qais

See also Imru' al-Qais on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AMRU’-UL-QAIS, or Imru’-ul Qais, IBN HUJR, Arabian poet of the 6th century, the author of one of the Moʽallaķăt (q.v.), was regarded by Mahomet and others as the most distinguished poet of pre-Islamic times. He was of the kingly family of Kinda, and his mother was of the tribe of Taghlib. While he was still young, his father was killed by the Bani Asad. After this his life was devoted to the attempt to avenge his father's death. He wandered from tribe to tribe to gain assistance, but his attempts were always foiled by the persistent following of the messengers of Mundhir of Hira (Ḥīra). At last he went to the Jewish Arabian prince, Samu‛āl, left his daughter and treasure with him, and by means of Hārith of Ghassan procured an introduction to the Byzantine emperor Justinian. After a long stay in Constantinople he was named phylarch of Palestine, and received a body of troops from Justin II. With these he started on his way to Arabia. It is said that a man of Asad, who had followed him to Constantinople, charged him before the emperor with the seduction of a princess, and that Justin sent him a poisoned cloak, which caused his death at Ancyra.
His poems are contained in W. Ahlwardt’s The Divans of the six ancient Arabic Poets (London, 1870). and have been published separately in M‘G. de Slane’s Le Diwan d’Amro’lkais (Paris, 1837); a German version with life and notes in F. Rückert’s Amrilkais der Dichter und König (Stuttgart, 1843). Many stories of his life are told in the Kitāb ul-Aghāni, vol. viii. pp. 62-77. (G. W. T.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ampère, Jean Jacques

See also Jean-Jacques Ampère on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AMPÈRE, JEAN JACQUES (1800–1864), French philologist and man of letters, only son of André Marie Ampère, was born at Lyons on the 12th of August 1800. He studied the folk-songs and popular poetry of the Scandinavian countries in an extended tour in northern Europe. Returning to France, he delivered in 1830 a series of lectures on Scandinavian and early German poetry at the Athenaeum in Marseilles. The first of these was printed as De l’Histoire de la poésie (1830), and was practically the first introduction of the French public to the Scandinavian and German epics. In Paris he taught at the Sorbonne, and became professor of the history of French literature at the Collège de France. A journey in northern Africa (1841) was followed by a tour in Greece and Italy, in company with Prosper Mérimée and others. This bore fruit in his Voyage dantesque (printed in his Grèce, Rome et Dante, 1848), which did much to popularize the study of Dante in France. In 1848 he became a member of the French Academy, and in 1851 he visited America. From this time he was occupied with his chief work, L’Histoire romaine à Rome (4 vols., 1861–1864), until his death at Pau on the 27th of March 1864.
The Correspondance et souvenirs (2 vols.) of A. M. and J. J. Ampère (1805–1854) was published in 1875. Notices of J. J. Ampère are to be found in Sainte-Beuve’s Portraits littéraires, vol. iv., and Nouveaux Lundis, vol. xiii.; and in P. Mérimée’s Portraits historiques et littéraires (2nd ed., 1875).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Debreczen

See also Debrecen on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​DEBRECZEN, a town of Hungary, capital of the county of Hajdu, 138 m. E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900) 72,351. It is the principal Protestant centre in Hungary, and bears the name of “Calvinistic Rome.” Debreczen is one of the largest towns of Hungary, and is situated in the midst of a sandy but fertile plain. It consists of the inner old town, and several suburbs, which stretch out irregularly into the plain. The walls of the old town have given place to a broad boulevard and several open commons, beautifully laid out. The most prominent of its public buildings is the principal Protestant church, built at the beginning of the 19th century, which ranks as the largest in the country, but has no great architectural pretensions. In its immediate neighbourhood is the Protestant Collegium, for theology and law, which is one of the most frequented institutions of its kind in Hungary, being attended by over two thousand students. This college was founded in 1531, and possesses a rich library and other scientific collections. The town hall, the Franciscan church, the Piarist monastery and college, and the theatre are also worthy of mention. Amongst its educational establishments it includes an agricultural academy. The industries of the town are various, but none is of importance enough to give it the character of a manufacturing centre. Its tobacco-pipes, sausages and soap are widely known. It carries on an active trade in cattle, horses, corn and honey, while four well-attended fairs are held annually. The municipality of Debreczen owns between three hundred and four hundred square miles of the adjoining country, which possesses all the characteristics of the Hungarian puszta, and on which roam large herds of cattle.
The town is of considerable antiquity, but owes its development to the refugees who flocked from the villages plundered by the Turks in the 15th century. In 1552 it adopted the Protestant faith, and it had to suffer in consequence, especially when it was captured in 1686 by the imperial forces. In 1693 it was made a royal free city. In 1848–1849 it formed a refuge for the national government and legislature when Budapest fell into the hands of the Austrians; and it was in the great Calvinist church that, on Kossuth’s motion (April 14th, 1849) the resolution was passed declaring the house of Habsburg to have forfeited the crown of St Stephen. On the 3rd of July the town was captured by the Russians.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Decaen, Charles Mathieu Isidore, Count

See also Charles Mathieu Isidore Decaen on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​DECAEN, CHARLES MATHIEU ISIDORE, Count (1769–1832), French soldier, was born at Caen on the 13th of April 1769. He was educated for the bar, but soon showed a strong preference for the military career, in which he quickly made his way during the wars of the French Revolution under Kléber, Marceau and Jourdan, in the Rhenish campaigns. In 1799 he became general of division, and contributed to the success of the famous attack by General Richepanse on the Austrian flank and rear at Hohenlinden (December 1800). Becoming known for his Anglophobe tendencies, he was selected by Napoleon early in the year 1802 for the command of the French possessions in the East Indies. The secret instructions issued to him bade him prepare the way, so that in due course (September 1804 was hinted at as the suitable time) everything might be ready for an attack on the British power in India. Napoleon held out to him the hope of acquiring lasting glory in that enterprise. Decaen set sail with Admiral Linois early in March 1803 with a small expeditionary force, touched at the Cape of Good Hope (then in Dutch hands), and noted the condition of the fortifications there. On arriving at Pondicherry he found matters in a very critical condition. Though the outbreak of war in Europe had not yet been heard of, the hostile preparations adopted by the Marquis Wellesley caused Decaen to withdraw promptly to the Isle of France (Mauritius), where, during eight years, he sought to harass British trade and prepare for plans of alliance with the Mahratta princes of India. They all came to naught. Linois was captured by a British squadron, and ultimately, in 1811, Mauritius itself fell to the Union Jack. Returning to France on honourable terms, Decaen received the command of the French troops in Catalonia. The rest of his career calls for no special mention. He died of the cholera in 1832.
See M. L. E. Gautier, Biographie du général Decaen (Caen, 1850). (J. Hl. R.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Death-watch

See also Deathwatch beetle on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​DEATH-WATCH, a popular name applied to insects of two distinct families, which burrow and live in old furniture and produce the mysterious “ticking” vulgarly supposed to foretell the death of some inmate of the house. The best known, because the largest, is a small beetle, Anobium striattum, belonging to the family Ptinidae. The “ticking,” in reality a sexual call, like the chirp of a grasshopper, is produced by the beetle rapidly striking its head against the hard and dry woodwork. In the case of the smaller death-watches, some of the so-called book-lice of the family Psocidae, the exact way in which the sound is caused has not been satisfactorily explained. Indeed the ability of such small and soft insects to give rise to audible sounds has been seriously doubted; but it is impossible to ignore the positive evidence on the point. The names Atropos divinatoria and Clothilla pulsatoria, given to two of the commoner forms, bear witness both to a belief in a causal connexion between these insects and the ticking, and to the superstition regarding the fateful significance of the sound.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Decade

See also Decade and Decade (disambiguation) on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​DECADE (from Gr. δέκα, ten), a group or series containing ten members, particularly a period of ten years. In the new calendar made at the time of the French Revolution in 1793, a decade of ten days took the place of the week. The word is also used of the divisions containing ten books or parts into which the history of Livy was divided.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Death-warning

See also Parapsychology on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​DEATH-WARNING, a term used in psychical research for an intimation of the death of another person received by other than the ordinary sensory channels, i.e. by (1) a sensory hallucination or (2) a massive sensation, both being of telepathic origin. (See Telepathy.) Both among civilized and uncivilized peoples there is a widespread belief that the apparition of a living person is an omen of death; but until the Society of Psychical Research undertook the statistical examination of the question, there were no data for estimating the value of the belief. In 1885 a collection of spontaneous cases and a discussion of the evidence was published under the title Phantasms of the Living, and though the standard of evidence was lower than at the present time, a substantial body of testimony, including many striking cases, was there put forward. In 1889 a further inquiry was undertaken, known as the “Census of Hallucinations,” which provided information as to the percentage of individuals in the general population who, at some period of their lives, while they were in a normal state of health, had had “a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice; which impression, so far as they could discover, was not due to any external cause.” To the census question about 17,000 answers were received, and after making all deductions it appeared that death coincidences numbered about 30 in 1300 cases of recognized apparitions; or about 1 in 43, whereas if chance alone operated the coincidences would have been in the proportion of 1 to 19,000. As a result of the inquiry the committee held it to be proved that “between deaths and apparitions of the dying person a connexion exists which is not due to chance alone.” From an evidential point of view the apparition is the most valuable class of death-warning, inasmuch as recognition is more difficult in the case of an auditory hallucination, even where it takes the form of spoken words; moreover, auditory hallucinations coinciding with deaths may be mere knocks, ringing of bells, &c.; tactile hallucinations are still more difficult of recognition; and the hallucinations of smell which are sometimes found as death-warnings rarely have anything to associate them specially with the dead person. Occasionally the death-warning is in the form of an apparition of some other person; it may also take the form of a temporary feeling of intense depression or other massive sensation.
Bibliography.—Podmore, Gurney and Myers, Phantasms of the Living (1885); for the Census Report see Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, part xxvi.; see also F. Podmore, Apparitions and Thought Transference. For a criticism of the results of the Census see E. Parish, Hallucinations and Illusions and Zur Kritik des telepathischen Beweismaterials, and Mrs Sidgwick’s refutation in Proc. S.P.R. part xxxiii. 589-601. The Journal of the S.P.R. contains the most striking spontaneous cases received from time to time by the society.  (N. W. T.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bratlandsdal

See also Suldal on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BRATLANDSDAL (i.e. Bratland valley), a gorge of southern Norway in Stavanger amt (county), formed by the Bratland river, a powerful torrent issuing into Lake Suldal. A remarkable road traverses the gorge by means of cuttings and a tunnel, and the scenery is among the most magnificent in Norway. It is usually approached from Stavanger by way of Sand and Lake Suldal, and the road divides above the gorge, branches running north to Odde and south-east through Telemarken. The ​junction of the roads is near Breifond, 13 m. above Naes at the mouth of the river, on the west shore of Lake Roldal, which is fed by the snowfield to the west, north and east, and is drained by the Bratland river.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brattishing

See also Brattishing on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BRATTISHING, or Brandishing (from the Fr. bretèche), in architecture, a sort of crest or ridge on a parapet, or species of embattlement. The term, however, is generally employed to describe the ranges of flowers which form the crests of so many parapets in the Tudor period.