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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Atherstone, William Guybon

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​ATHERSTONE, WILLIAM GUYBON (1813–1898), British geologist, one of the pioneers in South African geology, was born in 1813, in the district of Uitenhage, Cape Colony. Having qualified as M.D. he settled in early life as a medical practitioner at Grahamstown, subsequently becoming F.R.C.S. In 1839 his interest was aroused in geology, and from that date he “devoted the leisure of a long and successful medical practice” to the pursuit of geological science. In 1857 he published an account of the rocks and fossils of Uitenhage (the latter described more fully by R. Tate, Quart. Journal Geol. Soc., 1867). He also obtained many fossil reptilia from the Karroo beds, and presented specimens to the British Museum. These were described by Sir Richard Owen. Atherstone’s identification in 1867 as a diamond of a crystal found at De Kalk near the junction of the Riet and Vaal rivers, led indirectly to the establishment of the great diamond industry of South Africa. He encouraged the workings at Jagersfontein, and he also called attention to the diamantiferous neck at Kimberley. He was one of the founders of the Geological Society of South Africa at Johannesburg in 1895; and for some years previously he was a member of the Cape parliament. He died at Grahamstown, on the 26th of June 1898.
See the obituary by T. Rupert Jones, Natural Science, vol. xiv. (January 1899).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Athias, Joseph

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​ATHIAS, JOSEPH (d. 1700), Jewish rabbi and printer, was born in Spain and settled in Amsterdam. His editions of the Hebrew Bible (1661, 1667) are noted for beauty of execution and the general correctness of the text. He also printed a Judaeo-German edition of the Bible in 1679, a year after the appearance of the edition by Uri Phoebus.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Athens (Ohio)

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​ATHENS, a village and the county-seat of Athens county, Ohio, U.S.A., in the township of Athens, on the Hocking river, about 76 m. E.S.E. of Columbus. Pop. (1890) 2620; (1900) 3066; (1910) 5463; of the township (1910) 10,156. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern, the Toledo & Ohio Central (Ohio Central Lines), and the Hocking Valley railways. The village is built on rolling ground rising about 70 ft. above the river (which nearly encircles it), and commands views of some of the most beautiful scenery in the state. There are several ancient mounds in the vicinity. Athens is the seat of Ohio University (co-educational), a state institution established in 1804, and having in 1908 a college of liberal arts, a state normal college (1902), a commercial college, a college of music and a state preparatory school. In 1908 the University had 53 instructors and 1386 students. South of the village, and occupying a fine situation, is a state hospital for the insane. In the vicinity there are many coal mines, and among the manufactures are bricks, furniture, veneered doors, and shirts. The municipality operates the water-works. When the Ohio Company, through Manasseh Cutler, obtained from congress their land in what is now Ohio, it was arranged that the income from two townships was to be set aside “for the support of a literary institution.” In 1795 the townships (Athens and Alexander) were located and surveyed, and in 1800 Rufus Putnam and two other commissioners, appointed by the Territorial legislature, laid out a town, which was also called Athens. Settlers slowly came; the town became the county-seat in 1805, was incorporated as a village in 1811, and was re-incorporated in 1828.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Athlone

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​ATHLONE, a market-town of Co. Westmeath, Ireland, on both banks of the Shannon. Pop. of urban district (1901) 6617. The urban district, under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1900, is wholly in county Westmeath, but the same area is divided by the Shannon between the parliamentary divisions of South Westmeath and South Roscommon. Athlone is 78 m. W. from Dublin by the Midland Great Western railway, and is also served by a branch from Portarlington of the Great Southern & Western line, providing an alternative and somewhat longer route from the capital. The main line of the former company continues W. to Galway, and a branch N.W. serves counties Roscommon and Mayo. The Shannon divides the town into two portions, known as the Leinster side (east), and the Connaught side (west), which are connected by a handsome bridge opened in 1844. There is a swivel railway bridge. The rapids of the Shannon at this point are obviated by means of a lock communication with a basin, which renders the navigation of the river practicable above the town. The steamers of the Shannon Development Company ply on the river, and some trade by water is carried on with Limerick, and with Dublin by the river and the Grand and Royal canals. Athlone is an important agricultural centre, and there are woollen factories. The salmon fishing both provides sport and is a source of commercial wealth. There are two parish churches, St Mary and St Peter, both erected early in the 19th century, of which the first has near it an isolated church tower of earlier date. There are three Roman Catholic chapels, a court-house and other public offices. Early remains include portions of the castle, of the town walls (1576), of the abbey of St Peter and of a Franciscan foundation. On several islands of the picturesque Lough Ree, to the north, are ecclesiastical and other remains.
The military importance of Athlone dates from the erection of the castle and of a bridge over the river by John de Grey, bishop of Norwich and justiciar of Ireland, in 1210. It became the seat of the presidency of Connaught under Elizabeth, and withstood a siege by the insurgents in 1641. In the war of 1688 the possession of Athlone was considered of the greatest importance, and it consequently sustained two sieges, the first by William III. in person, which failed, and the second by General Godart van Ginkel (q.v.), who, on the 30th of June 1691, in the face of the Irish, forded the river and took possession of the town, with the loss of only fifty men. Ginkel was subsequently created earl of Athlone, and his descendants held the title till it became extinct in 1844. In 1797 the town was strongly fortified on the Roscommon side, the works covering 15 acres and containing two magazines, an ordnance store, an armoury with 15,000 stands of arms and barracks for 1500 men. The works are now dismantled. Athlone was incorporated by James I., and returned two members to the Irish parliament, and one member to the imperial parliament till 1885.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Atherstone

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​ATHERSTONE, a market-town in the Nuneaton parliamentary division of Warwickshire, England, 102½ m. N.W. from London by the London & North-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 5248. It lies in the upper valley of the Anker, under well-wooded hills to the west, and is on the Roman Watling Street, and the Coventry canal. The once monastic church of St Mary is rebuilt, excepting the central tower and part of the chancel. The chief industry is hat-making. On the high ground to the west lie ruins of the Cistercian abbey of Merevale, founded in 1149; they include the gatehouse chapel, part of the refectory and other remains exhibiting beautiful details of the 14th century. Coal is worked at Baxterley, 3 m. west of Atherstone.
Atherstone (Aderestone, Edridestone, Edrichestone), though not mentioned in any pre-Conquest record, is of unquestionably ancient origin. A Saxon barrow was opened near the town in 1824. It is traversed by Watling Street, and portions of the ancient Roman road have been discovered in modern times. Atherstone is mentioned in Domesday among the possessions of Countess Godiva, the widow of Leofric. In the reign of Henry III. it passed to the monks of Bec in Normandy, who in 1246 obtained the grant of an annual fair at the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, and the next year of a market every Tuesday. This market became so much frequented ​that in 1319 a toll was levied upon all goods coming into the town, in order to defray the cost of the repair to the roads necessitated by the constant traffic, and in 1332 a similar toll was levied on all goods passing over the bridge called Feldenbrigge near Atherstone. The September fair and Tuesday markets are still continued. In the reign of Edward III. a house of Austin Friars was founded at Atherstone by Ralph Lord Basset of Drayton, which, however, never rose to much importance, and at its dissolution in 1536 was valued at 30 shillings and 3 pence only.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Atherton

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​ATHERTON, or Chowbent, an urban district in the Leigh parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 13 m. W.N.W. of Manchester on the London & North-Western and Lancashire & Yorkshire railways. Pop. (1901) 16,211. The cotton factories are the principal source of industry; there are also ironworks and collieries. The manor was held by the local family of Atherton from John’s reign to 1738, when it passed by marriage to Robert Gwillym, who assumed that name. In 1797 his eldest daughter and co-heiress married Thomas Powys, afterwards the second Lord Lilford. Up to 1891 the lord of the manor held a court-leet and court-baron annually in November, but in that year Lord Lilford sold to the local board the market tolls, stallages and pickages, and since this sale the courts have lapsed. The earliest manufactures were iron and cotton. Silk-weaving, formerly an extensive industry, has now almost entirely decayed. The first chapel or church was built in 1645. James Wood, who became Nonconformist minister in the chapel at Atherton in 1691, earned fame and the familiar title of “General” by raising a force from his congregation, uncouthly armed, to fight against the troops of the Pretender (1715).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Athetosis

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​ATHETOSIS (Gr. ἄθετος, “without place”), the medical term applied to certain slow, purposeless, deliberate movements of the hands and feet. The fingers are separately flexed and extended, abducted and adducted in an entirely irregular way. The hands as a whole are also moved, and the arms, toes and feet may be affected. The condition is usually due to some lesion of the brain which has caused hemiplegia, and is especially common in childhood. It is occasionally congenital (so called), and is then due to some injury of the brain during birth. It is more usually associated with hemiplegia, in which condition there is first of all complete voluntary immobility of the parts affected: but later, as there is a return of a certain amount of power over the limbs affected, the slow rhythmic movements of athetosis are first noticed. This never develops, however, where there is no recovery of voluntary power. Its distribution is thus nearly always hemiplegic, and it is often associated with more or less mental impairment. The movements may or may not continue during sleep. They cannot be arrested for more than a moment by will power, and are aggravated by voluntary movements. The prognosis is unsatisfactory, as the condition usually continues unchanged for years, though improvement occasionally occurs in slight cases, or even complete recovery.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dardanus

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​DARDANUS, in Greek legend, son of Zeus and Electra, the mythical founder of Dardanus on the Hellespont and ancestor of the Dardans of the Troad and, through Aeneas, of the Romans. His original home was supposed to have been Arcadia, where he married Chryse, who brought him as dowry the Palladium or image of Pallas, presented to her by the goddess herself. Having slain his brother Iasius or Iasion (according to others, Iasius was struck by lightning), Dardanus fled across the sea. He first stopped at Samothrace, and when the island was visited by a flood, crossed over to the Troad. Being hospitably received by Teucer, he married his daughter Batea and became the founder of the royal house of Troy.
See Apollodorus iii. 12; Diod. Sic. v. 48-75; Virgil, Aeneid, iii. 163 ff.; articles in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie and Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dareste de la Chavanne, Rodolphe Madeleine Cléophas

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​DARESTE DE LA CHAVANNE, RODOLPHE MADELEINE CLEOPHAS (1824– ), French jurist, was born in Paris on the 25th of December 1824. He studied at the École des Chartes and the École de Droit, and starting early on a legal career he rose to be counsellor to the court of cassation (1877 to 1900). His first publication was an Essai sur François Hotman (1850), completed later by his publication of Hotman’s correspondence in the Revue historique (1876), and he devoted the whole of his leisure to legal history. Of his writings may be mentioned Les Anciennes Lois de l’Islande (1881); Mémoire sur les anciens monuments du droit de la Hongrie (1885), and Études d’histoire du droit (1889). On Greek law he wrote some notable works: Du prêt à la grosse chez les Athéniens (1867); Les Inscriptions hypothécaires en Grèce (1885), La Science du droit en Grèce: Platon, Aristote, Thêophraste (1893), and Étude sur la loi de Gortyne (1885). He collaborated with Théodore Reinach and B. Haussoullier in their Recueil des inscriptions juridiques grecques (1905), and his name is worthily associated with the edition of Philippe de Beaumanoir’s Coutumes de Beauvaisis, published by Salmon (2 vols., 1899, 1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dardanelles (town)

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​DARDANELLES (Turk. Sultanieh Kalehsi, or Chanak Kalehsi), the chief town and seat of government of the lesser Turkish province of Bigha, Asia Minor. It is situated at the mouth of the Rhodius, and at the narrowest part of the strait of the Dardanelles, where its span is but a mile across. Its recent growth has been rapid, and it possesses a lyceum, a military hospital, a public garden, a theatre, quays and water-works. Exclusive of the garrison, the population is estimated at 13,000, of whom one-half are Turkish, and the remainder Greek, Jewish, Armenian and European. The town contains many mosques, Greek, Armenian and Catholic churches, and a synagogue. There is a resident Greek bishop. The civil governor, and the military commandants of the numerous fortresses on each side of the strait, are stationed here. Many important works have been added to the defences. The Ottoman fleet is stationed at Nagara (anc. Abydos). The average annual number of merchant vessels passing the strait is 12,000 and the regular commercial vessels calling at the port of Dardanelles are represented by numerous foreign agencies. Besides the Turkish telegraph service, the Eastern Telegraph Company has a station at Dardanelles, and there are Turkish, Austrian, French and Russian post offices. The import trade consists of manufactures, sugar, flour, coffee, rice, leather and iron. The export trade consists of valonia (largely produced in the province), wheat, barley, beans, chickpeas, canary seed, liquorice root, pine and oak timber, wine and pottery. Excepting in the items of wine and pottery, the export trade shows steady increase. Every year sees a larger area of land brought under cultivation by immigrants, and adds to the number of mature (i.e. fruit-bearing) valonia trees. Vine-growers are discouraged by heavy fiscal charges, and by the low price of wine; many have uprooted their vineyards. The pottery trade is affected by change of fashion, and the factories are losing their importance. The lower quarters of the town were heavily damaged in the winter of 1900–1901 by repeated inundations caused by the overflow of the Rhodius.
See V. Cuinet, Turquie d’Asie (Paris, 1890–1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dardistan

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​DARDISTAN, a purely conventional name given by scientists to a tract of country on the north-west frontier of India. There is no modern race called Dards, and no country so named by its inhabitants, but the inhabitants of the right bank of the Indus, from the Kandia river to Batera, apply it to the dwellers on the left bank. In the scientific use of the appellation, Dardistan comprises the whole of Chitral, Yasin, Panyal, the Gilgit valley, Hunza and Nagar, the Astor valley, the Indus valley from Bunji to Batera, the Kohistan-Malazai, i.e. the upper reaches of the Panjkora river, and the Kohistan of Swat. The so-called Dard races are referred to by Pliny and Ptolemy, and are supposed to be a people of Aryan origin who ascended the Indus valley from the plains of the Punjab, reaching as far north as Chitral, where they dispossessed the Khos. They have left their traces in the different dialects, Khoswar, Burishki and Shina, spoken in the Gilgit agency.
The question of Dardistan is debated at length in Leitner’s Dardistan (1877); Drew’s Jummoo and Kashmir Territories (1875); Biddulph’s Tribes of the Hindu-Kush (1880) and Durand’s The Making of a Frontier (1899). For further details see Gilgit.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Darcy, Thomas Darcy, Baron

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​DARCY, THOMAS DARCY, Baron (1467–1537), English soldier, was a son of Sir William Darcy (d. 1488), and belonged to a family which was seated at Templehurst in Yorkshire. In early life he served, both as a soldier and a diplomatist, in Scotland and on the Scottish borders, where he was captain of Berwick; and in 1505, having been created Baron Darcy, he was made warden of the east marches towards Scotland. In 1511 Darcy led some troops to Spain to help Ferdinand and Isabella against the Moors, but he returned almost at once to England, and was with Henry VIII. on his French campaign two years later. One of the most influential noblemen in the north of England, where he held several important offices, Darcy was also a member of the royal council, dividing his time between state duties in London and a more active life in the north. He showed great zeal in preparing accusations against his former friend, Cardinal Wolsey; however, after the cardinal’s fall his words and actions caused him to be suspected by Henry VIII. Disliking the separation from Rome, Darcy asserted that matrimonial cases were matters for the decision of the spiritual power, and he was soon communicating with Eustace Chapuys, the ambassador of the emperor Charles V., about an invasion of England in the interests of the Roman Catholics. Detained in London against his will by the king, he was not allowed to return to Yorkshire until late in 1535, and about a year after his arrival in the north the rising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace broke out. For a short time Darcy defended Pontefract Castle against the rebels, but soon ​he surrendered to them this stronghold, which he could certainly have held a little longer, and was with them at Doncaster, being regarded as one of their leaders. Upon the dispersal of the insurgents Darcy was pardoned, but he pleaded illness when Henry requested him to proceed to London. He may have assisted to suppress the rising which was renewed under Sir Francis Bigod early in 1537, but the king believed, probably with good reason, that he was guilty of fresh treasons, and he was seized and hurried to London. During his imprisonment he uttered his famous remark about Thomas Cromwell:—“Cromwell, it is thou that art the very original and chief causer of all this rebellion and mischief, ... and I trust that or thou die, though thou wouldst procure all the noblemen’s heads within the realm to be stricken off, yet shall there one head remain that shall strike off thy head.” Tried by his peers, Darcy was found guilty of treason, and was beheaded on the 20th of June 1537. In 1548 his barony was revived in favour of his son George (d. 1557), but it became extinct on the death of George’s descendant John in 1635.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dardanelles

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​DARDANELLES (Turk. Bahr-Sefed Boghazi), the strait, in ancient times called the Hellespont (q.v.), uniting the Sea of Marmora with the Aegean, so called from the two castles which protect the narrowest part and preserve the name of the city of Dardanus in the Troad, famous for the treaty between Sulla and Mithradates in 84 B.C. The shores of the strait are formed by the peninsula of Gallipoli on the N.W. and by the mainland of Asia Minor on the S.E.; it extends for a distance of about 47 m. with an average breadth of 3 or 4 m. At the Aegean extremity stand the castles of Sedil Bahr and Kum Kaleh respectively in Europe and Asia; and near the Marmora extremity are situated the important town of Gallipoli (Callipolis) on the northern side, and the less important though equally famous Lamsaki or Lapsaki (Lampsacus) on the southern. The two castles of the Dardanelles par excellence are Chanak-Kalehsi, Sultanieh-Kalehsi, or the Old Castle of Anatolia, and Kilid-Bahr, or the Old Castle of Rumelia, which were long but erroneously identified with Sestos and Abydos now located farther to the north. The strait of the Dardanelles is famous in history for the passage of Xerxes by means of a bridge of boats, and for the similar exploit on the part of Alexander. It is famous also from the story of Hero and Leander, and from Lord Byron’s successful attempt (repeated by others) to rival the ancient swimmer. Strategically the Dardanelles is a point of great importance, since it commands the approach to Constantinople from the Mediterranean. The passage of the strait is easily defended, but in 1807 the English admiral (Sir) J. T. Duckworth made his way past all the fortresses into the Sea of Marmora. The treaty of July 1841, confirmed by the Paris peace of 1856, prescribed that no foreign ship of war might enter the strait except by Turkish permission, and even merchant vessels are only allowed to pass the castle of Chanak-Kalehsi during the day.
See Choiseul-Gouffier, Voyage pittoresque (Paris, 1842); Murray’s Handbook for Constantinople (London, 1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dares Phrygius

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​DARES PHRYGIUS, according to Homer (Iliad, v. 9) a Trojan priest of Hephaestus. He was supposed to have been the author of an account of the destruction of Troy, and to have lived before Homer (Aelian, Var. Hist. xi. 2). A work in Latin, purporting to be a translation of this, and entitled Daretis Phrygii de excidio Trojae historia, was much read in the middle ages, and was then ascribed to Cornelius Nepos, who is made to dedicate it to Sallust; but the language is extremely corrupt, and the work belongs to a period much later than the time of Nepos (probably the 5th century A.D.). It is doubtful whether the work as we have it is an abridgment of a larger Latin work or an adaptation of a Greek original. Together with the similar work of Dictys Cretensis (with which it is generally printed) the De excidio forms the chief source for the numerous middle age accounts of the Trojan legend. (See Dictys; and O. S. von Fleschenberg, Daresstudien, 1908.)