OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Acupuncture

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​ACUPUNCTURE (from Lat. acus, a needle, and pungere, to prick), a form of surgical operation, performed by pricking the part affected with a needle. It has long been used by the Chinese in cases of headaches, lethargies, convulsions, colics, &c. (See Surgery.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Acton, Sir John Francis Edward, Bart.

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​ACTON, SIR JOHN FRANCIS EDWARD, Bart. (1736–1811), prime minister of Naples under Ferdinand IV., was the son of Edward Acton, a physician at Besançon, and was born there in 1736, succeeding to the title and estates in 1791, on the death of his cousin in the third degree, Sir Richard Acton of Aldenham Hall, Shropshire. He served in the navy of Tuscany, and in 1775 commanded a frigate in the joint expedition of Spain and Tuscany against Algiers, in which he displayed such courage and resource that he was promoted to high command. In 1779 Queen Maria Carolina of Naples persuaded her brother the Grand-Duke Leopold of Tuscany to allow Acton, who had been recommended to her by Prince Caramenico, to undertake the reorganization of the Neapolitan navy. The ability displayed by him in this led to his rapid advancement. He became commander-in-chief of both services, minister of finance, and finally prime minister. His policy was devised in concert with the English ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, and aimed at substituting the influence of Austria and Great Britain for that of Spain, at Naples, and consequently involved open opposition to France and the French party in Italy. The financial and administrative measures which were the outcome of a policy ​which necessitated a great increase of armament made him intensely unpopular, and in December 1798 he shared the flight of the king and queen. For the reign of terror which followed the downfall of the Parthenopean Republic, five months later, Acton has been held responsible. In 1804 he was for a short time deprived of the reins of government at the demand of France; but he was speedily restored to his former position, which he held till, in February 1806, on the entry of the French into Naples, he had to flee with the royal family into Sicily. He died at Palermo on the 12th of August 1811.
He had married, by papal dispensation, the eldest daughter of his brother, General Joseph Edward Acton (b. 1737), who was in the Neapolitan service, and left three children, the elder son, Sir Richard, being the father of the first Lord Acton. The second son, Charles Januarius Edward (1803–1847), after being educated in England and taking his degree at Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1823, entered the Academia Ecclesiastica at Rome. He left this with the rank of prelate, in 1828 was secretary to the nuncio at Paris and was made vice-legate of Bologna shortly afterwards. He became secretary of the congregation of the Disciplina Regolare, and auditor of the Apostolic Chamber under Gregory XVI., by whom he was made a cardinal in 1842. Cardinal Acton was protector of the English College at Rome, and had been mainly instrumental in the increase, in 1840, of the English vicariates-general to eight, which paved the way for the restoration of the hierarchy by Pius IX. in 1850. He died on the 23rd of June 1847.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Acupressure

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​ACUPRESSURE (from Lat. acus, a needle, and premere, to press), the name given to a method of restraining haemorrhage, introduced by Sir J. Y. Simpson, the direct pressure of a metallic needle, either alone or assisted by a loop of wire, being used to close the vessel near the bleeding point.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anweiler

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​ANWEILER, or Annweiler, a town of Germany, in the Bavarian Palatinate, on the Queich, 8 m. west of Landau, and on the railway from that place to Zweibrücken. Pop. 3700. It is romantically situated in the part of the Haardt called the Pfälzer Schweiz (Palatinate Switzerland), and is surrounded by high hills which yield a famous red sandstone. On the Sonnenberg (1600 ft.) lie the ruins of the castle of Trifels, in which Richard Cœur de Lion was imprisoned in 1193. The industries include cloth-weaving, tanning, dyeing and saw mills. There is also a considerable trade in wine.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anvil

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​ANVIL (from Anglo-Saxon anfilt or onfilti, either that on which something is “welded” or “folded,” cf. German falzen, to fold, or connected with other Teutonic forms of the word, cf. German amboss, in which case the final syllable is from “beat,” and the meaning is “that on which something is beaten”), a mass of iron on which material is supported while being shaped under the hammer (see Forging). The common blacksmith’s anvil is made of wrought iron, often in America of cast iron, with a smooth working face of hardened steel. It has at one end a projecting conical beak or bick for use in hammering curved pieces of metal; occasionally the other end is also provided with a bick, which is then partly rectangular in section. There is also a square hole in the face, into which tools, such as the anvil-cutter or chisel, can be dropped, cutting edge uppermost. For power hammers the anvil proper is supported on an anvil block which is of great massiveness, sometimes weighing over 200 tons for a 12-ton hammer, and this again rests on a strong foundation of timber and masonry or concrete. In anatomy the term anvil is applied to one of the bones of the middle ear, the incus, which is articulated with the malleus.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anwari

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​ANWARI [Auhad-uddin Ali Anwari], Persian poet, was born in Khorasan early in the 12th century. He enjoyed the especial favour of the sultan Sinjar, whom he attended in all his warlike expeditions. On one occasion, when the sultan was besieging the fortress of Hazarasp, a fierce poetical conflict was maintained between Anwari and his rival Rashidi, who was within the beleaguered castle, by means of verses fastened to arrows. Anwari died at Balkh towards the end of the 12th century. The Diwan, or collection of his poems, consists of a series of long poems, and a number of simpler lyrics. His longest piece, The Tears of Khorassan, was translated into English verse by Captain Kirkpatrick (see also Persia. Literature).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anzengruber, Ludwig

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​ANZENGRUBER, LUDWIG (1839–1889), Austrian dramatist and novelist, was born at Vienna on the 29th of November 1839. He was educated at the Realschule of his native town, and then entered a bookseller’s shop; from 1860 to 1867 he was an actor, without, however, displaying any marked talent, although his stage experience later stood him in good stead. In 1869 he became a clerk in the Viennese police department, but having in the following year made a success with his anti-clerical drama, Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld, he gave up his appointment and devoted himself entirely to literature. He died at Vienna on the 10th of December 1889. Anzengruber was exceedingly fertile in ideas, and wrote a great many plays. They are mostly of Austrian peasant life, and although somewhat melancholy in tone are interspersed with bright and witty scenes. Among the best known are Der Meineidbauer (1871), Die Kreuzelschreiber (1872), Der G’wissenswurm (1874), Hand und Herz (1875), Doppelselbstmord (1875), Das vierte Gebot (1877), and Der Fleck auf der Ehr’ (1889). Anzengruber also published a novel of considerable merit, Der Schandfleck (1876; remodelled 1884); and various short stories and tales of village life collected under the title Wolken und Sunn’schein (1888).
Anzengruber’s collected works, with a biography, were published in 10 vols. in 1890 (3rd ed. 1897); his correspondence has been edited by A. Bettelheim (1902). See A. Bettelheim, L. Anzengruber (1890); L. Rosner, Erinnerungen an L. Anzengruber (1890): H. Sittenberger, Studien zur Dramaturgie der Gegenwart (1899); S. Friedmann, L. Anzengruber (1902).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anáhuac

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​ANÁHUAC, a geographical district of Mexico, limited by the traditional and vaguely defined boundaries of an ancient Indian empire or confederation of that name previous to the Spanish conquest. The word is said to signify “country by the waters” in the old Aztec language; hence the theory that Anáhuac was located on the sea coast. One of the theories relating to the location of Anáhuac describes it as all the plateau region of Mexico, with an area equal to three-fourths of the republic, and extending between the eastern and western coast ranges from Rio Grande to the isthmus of Tehuantepec. A more exact description, however, limits it to the great plateau valley in which the city of Mexico is located, between 18° 40′ and 20° 30′ N. lat., about 200 m. long by 75 m. wide, with an average elevation of 7500 ft., and a mean temperature of 62°. The accepted meaning of the name fits this region as well as any on the sea coast, as the lakes of this valley formerly covered one-tenth of its area. The existence of the name in southern Utah, United States, and on the gulf coast of Mexico, has given rise to theories of other locations and wider bounds for the old Indian empire.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anuradhapura

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​ANURADHAPURA, a ruined city of Ceylon, famous for its ancient monuments. It is situated in the North-central province. Anuradhapura became the capital of Ceylon in the 5th century B.C., and attained its highest magnificence about the commencement of the Christian era. In its prime it ranked beside Nineveh and Babylon in its colossal proportions—its four walls, each 16 m. long, enclosing an area of 256 sq. m.,—in the number of its inhabitants, and the splendour of its shrines and public edifices. It suffered much during the earlier Tamil invasions, and was finally deserted as a royal residence in A.D. 769. It fell completely into decay, and it is only of recent years that the jungle has been cleared away, the ruins laid bare, and some measure of prosperity brought back to the surrounding country by the restoration of hundreds of village tanks. The ruins consist of three classes of buildings, dagobas, monastic buildings, and pokunas. The dagobas are bell-shaped masses of masonry, varying from a few feet to over 1100 in circumference. Some of them contain enough masonry to build a town for twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Remains of the monastic buildings are to be found in every direction in the shape of raised stone platforms, foundations and stone pillars. The most famous is the Brazen Palace erected by King Datagamana about 164 B.C. The pokunas are bathing-tanks or tanks for the supply of drinking-water, which are scattered everywhere through the jungle. The city also contains a sacred Bo-tree, which is said to date back to the year 245 B.C. The railway was extended from Matale to Anuradhapura in 1905. Population: town, 3672; province, 79,110.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anzin

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​ANZIN, a town of northern France, in the department of Nord, on the Scheldt, 1½ m. N.W. of Valenciennes, of which it is a suburb. Pop. (1906) 14,077. Anzin is the centre of important coal-mines of the Valenciennes basin belonging to the Anzin Company, the formation of which dates to 1717. The metallurgical industries of the place are extensive, and include iron and copper founding and the manufacture of steam-engines, machinery, chain-cables and a great variety of heavy iron goods. There are also glass-works and breweries.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anubis

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​ANUBIS (in Egyptian Anūp, written Īnpw in hieroglyphs), the name of one of the most important of the Egyptian gods. There were two types of canine divinities in Egypt, their leading representatives being respectively Anubis and Ophois (Wp-w⹄-wt, “opener of the ways”): the former type is symbolized by the recumbent animal , the other by a similar animal (in a stiff standing attitude), carried as an emblem on a standard in war or in religious processions. The former comprised two beneficent gods of the necropolis; the latter also were beneficent, but warlike, divinities. They thus corresponded, at any rate in some measure, respectively to the fiercer and milder aspects of the dog-tribe. In late days the Greeks report that κύνες (dogs) were the sacred animals of Anubis while those of Ophois were λύκοι (wolves). The above figure is coloured black as befits a funerary and nocturnal animal: it is more attenuated than even a greyhound, but it has the bushy tail of the fox or the jackal. Probably these were the original genii of the necropolis, and in fact the same lean animal figured passant is s;b “jackal” or “fox.” The domestic dog would be brought into the sacred circle through the increased veneration for animals, and the more pronounced view in later times of Anubis as servant, messenger and custodian of the gods.
Anubis was the principal god in the capitals of the XVIIth and XVIIIth nomes of Upper Egypt, and secondary god in the XIIIth and probably in the XIIth nome; but his cult was universal. To begin with, he was the god of the dead, of the cemetery, of all supplies for the dead, and therefore of embalming when that became customary. In very early inscriptions the funerary prayers in the tombs are addressed to him almost exclusively, and he always took a leading place in them. In the scene of the weighing of the soul before Osiris, dating from the New-kingdom onwards, Anubis attends to the balance while Thoth registers the result. Anubis was believed to have been the embalmer of Osiris: the mummy of Osiris, or of the deceased, on a bier, tended by this god, is a very common subject on funerary tablets of the late periods. Anubis came to be considered especially the attendant of the gods and conductor of the dead, and hence was commonly identified with Hermes (cf. the name Hermanubis); but the rôle of Hermes as the god of eloquence, inventor of arts and recorder of the gods was taken by Thoth. In those days Anubis was considered to be son of Osiris by Nephthys; earlier perhaps he was son of Rē, the sun-god. In the 2nd century A.D. his aid was “compelled” by the magicians and necromancers to fetch the gods and entertain them with food (especially in the ceremony of gazing into the bowl of oil), and he is invoked by them sometimes as the “Good Ox-herd.” The cult of Anubis must at all times have been very popular in Egypt, and, belonging to the Isis and Serapis cycle, was introduced into Greece and Rome.
See Erman, Egyptian Religion; Budge, Gods of the Egyptians; Meyer, in Zeits. f. Aeg. Spr. 41-97. (F. Ll. G.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Albion (New York)

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​ALBION, a village and the county-seat of Orleans county, New York, U.S.A., about 30 m. W.N.W. of Rochester. Pop. (1890) 4586; (1900) 4477, (984 being foreign-born and 43 negroes); (1905, state census) 5174; (1910) 5016. The village is served by the New York Central & Hudson River railway, by the Buffalo, Lockport & Rochester electric railway, and by the Erie Canal. In Albion are the Western House of Refuge for Women (a state institution established in 1890), a public park, the Swan Library, and the county buildings, including the court house, the jail and the surrogate’s office; and about 2 m. to the S.E. is the beautiful Mount Albion Cemetery. Albion is the centre of the Medina sandstone industry, and lies in the midst of a good farming region, of which it is the principal shipping point, especially for apples, cabbages and beans. The village manufactures agricultural implements, vinegar, evaporated fruit, and canned fruit and vegetables, and has two large cold-storage houses. Albion was settled in 1812, was incorporated in 1823 and became the county-seat in 1825.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Albion

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​ALBION (in Ptolemy Άλουίων; Lat. Albion, Pliny 4.16 [30], 102), the most ancient name of the British Islands, though generally restricted to England. The name is perhaps of Celtic origin, but the Romans took it as connected with albus, white, in reference to the chalk-cliffs of Dover, and A. Holder (Alt-Keltischer Sprachschatz, 1896) unhesitatingly translates it Weissland, “whiteland.” The early writer (6th cent. B.C.) whose periplus is translated by Avienus (end of 4th cent. A.D.) does not use the name Britannia; he speaks of νῆσος Ἰέρνων καὶ Άλβιόνων (“island of the Ierni and the Albiones”). So Pytheas of Massilia (4th cent. B.C.) speaks of Ἄλβιον and Ἰέρνη. From the fact that there was a tribe called the Albiones on the north coast of Spain in Asturia, some scholars have placed Albion in that neighbourhood (see G. F. Unger, Rhein. Mus. xxxviii., 1883, pp. 156-196). The name Albion was taken by medieval writers from Pliny and Ptolemy.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Albo, Joseph

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​’ALBO, JOSEPH, a Spanish Jewish theologian of the 15th century. He was author of a very popular book on the philosophy of Judaism, entitled ʽIqqarim or Fundamentals. Maimonides in the 12th century had formulated the principles of Judaism in thirteen articles; Albo reduced them to three: (i) The Existence of God, (ii) Revelation and (iii) Divine Retribution. Albo set the example of minimizing Messianism in the formulation of Jewish beliefs. Though he fully maintained the Mosaic authorship of the Law and the binding force of tradition, he discriminated between the essential and the non-essential in the practices and beliefs of Judaism. An English translation of the ʽIqqarim appeared in the Hebrew Review, vols. i.-iii.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alboin

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​ALBOIN (d. 572 or 573), king of the Lombards, and conqueror of Italy, succeeded his father Audoin about 565. The Lombards were at that time dwelling in Noricum and Pannonia (archduchy of Austria, Styria and Hungary, west of the Danube). In alliance with the Avars, and Asiatic people who had invaded central Europe, Alboin defeated the Gepidae, a powerful nation on his eastern frontier, slew their king Cunimund, whose skull he fashioned into a drinking-cup, and whose daughter Rosamund he carried off and made his wife. Three years later (in 568), on the alleged invitation of Narses (q.v.), who was irritated by the treatment he had received from the emperor Justin II., Alboin invaded Italy, probably marching over the pass of the Predil. He overran Venetia and the wide district which we now call Lombardy, meeting with but feeble resistance till he came to the city of Ticinum (Pavia), which for three years (569–572) kept the Lombards at bay. While this siege was in progress Alboin was also engaged in other parts of Italy, and at its close he was probably master of Lombardy, Piedmont and Tuscany, as well as of the regions which afterwards went by the name of the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento. In 572 or 573, however, he was assassinated by his chamberlain Peredeo at the instigation of Queen Rosamund, whom Alboin had grievously insulted by forcing her to drink wine out of her father’s skull. After his death and the short reign of his successor Cleph the Lombards remained for more than ten years in a state of anarchy.
The authorities for the history of Alboin are Procopius, Paulus Diaconus and Agnellus (in his history of the church of Ravenna).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Albite

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​ALBITE, a mineral of the felspar group, belonging to the division of the plagioclases (q.v.) It is a sodium and aluminium silicate, NaAlSi$_3$O$_8$, and crystallizes in the anorthic system. Like all the felspars it possesses two cleavages, one perfect and the other less so, which are here inclined at an angle of 86° 24′. On the more perfect cleavage, which is parallel to the basal plane (P), is a system of fine striations, parallel to the second cleavage (M), due to twinning according to the “albite law” (figs. 1 and 2).
Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Twinned crystals of Albite.
The hardness is 6, and the specific gravity 2.63. The colour is usually pure white, hence the name (from the Lat. albus) for the species.
Albite forms an essential constituent of many acidic igneous and crystalline rocks; in granites, diorites, andesites, &c., it occurs as a primary mineral, whilst in crystalline schists, phyllites and crystalline limestones it is of secondary (metamorphic) origin. The beautifully developed crystals so abundant in crystal-lined crevices of Alpine granites and gneisses have been deposited, with other minerals, from solution; the crystals lining veins in the slates of Tintagel in Cornwall have the same origin.
Several varieties of albite are distinguished, of which the following may be here specially mentioned. Pericline (from the Gr. περιλινἠς, “sloping”) is the name given to large opaque white crystals from the chlorite-schists of the Alps; they are tabular parallel to the direction of perfect cleavage and are twinned according to the “pericline law.” Peristerite ​(from the Gr. περιστερά, a dove) is characterized by a beautiful bluish sheen, somewhat resembling that seen on the neck of a pigeon; it is found mainly in Ontario. Aventurine and moonstone varieties occur, though these special appearances are more usually displayed by the oligoclase and orthoclase felspars respectively.  (L. J. S.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Albion (Michigan)

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​ALBION, a city of Calhoun county, Michigan, U.S.A., on the Kalamazoo river, 21 m. W. of Jackson. Pop. (1890) 3763; (1900) 4519, of whom 622 were foreign-born; (1904) 4943; (1910) 5833. Albion is served by the Michigan Central and the Jackson division of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern railways, and by an inter-urban electric line. The city has a public park and a public library. The W. part of the city has most of the factories; the principal manufactures are flour, agricultural implements, windmills, gasolene engines, harness and proprietary medicines. On a commanding site in the E. part of the city is Albion College (Methodist Episcopal; co-educational), embracing a College of Liberal Arts, a preparatory department, a conservatory of music, a school of art, a school of oratory, a normal course, and a commercial department. The college was incorporated in 1835 as Spring Arbor Seminary, and in 1839 by an amended charter was located at Albion, where it was first opened in 1843 under the name of the Wesleyan Seminary of Albion; in 1849 it became the Wesleyan Seminary and Female Collegiate Institute, with power to grant degrees to women only; but in 1861 the present name was adopted and the college was permitted to grant degrees to men and women. In 1906 it had a library of 16,500 volumes, a faculty of 19, and an enrolment of 483 (211 being women). The municipality owns and operates the water-works, the water-supply being obtained from artesian wells. Albion was settled in 1831, was incorporated as a village in 1866 and was chartered as a city in 1885.