PREFACE. Some eighteen months ago I took this brilliant bunch of brain burrs to my esteemed Publisher and with much enthusiasm invited him to spend a lot of money thereon. The Main Stem in the Works informed me that he had his fingers on the public pulse and just as soon as that pulse began to jump and yell for something from my fiery pen he would throw the Silly Syclopedia at it. Then he placed my MS.... more...

APOLLODORUS, an Athenian painter, who flourished at the end of the 5th century B.C. He is said to have introduced great improvements in perspective and chiaroscuro. What these were it is impossible to say: perspective cannot have been in his day at an advanced stage. Among his works were an Odysseus, a priest in prayer, and an Ajax struck by lightning. APOLLODORUS, an Athenian grammarian, pupil of... more...

CARNEGIE, ANDREW (1837-  ), American “captain of industry” and benefactor, was born in humble circumstances in Dunfermline, Scotland, on the 25th of November 1837. In 1848 his father, who had been a Chartist, emigrated to America, settling in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. The raw Scots lad started work at an early age as a bobbin-boy in a cotton factory, and a few years later was engaged as a... more...

CERARGYRITE, a mineral species consisting of silver chloride; an important ore of silver. The name cerargyrite is a Greek form (from κέρας, horn, and ἄργυρος, silver) of the older name hornsilver, which was used by K. Gesner as far back as 1565. The chloro-bromide and bromide of silver were also included under this term until they were distinguished chemically in 1841 and... more...

CINCINNATUS,LUCIUS QUINCTIUS, (b. c. 519B.C.), one of the heroes of early Rome, a model of old Roman virtue and simplicity. A persistent opponent of the plebeians, he resisted the proposal of Terentilius Arsa (or Harsa) to draw up a code of written laws applicable equally to patricians and plebeians. He was in humble circumstances, and lived and worked on his own small farm. The story that he became... more...

ARUNDEL, THOMAS (1353-1414), archbishop of Canterbury, was the third son of Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel and Warenne, by his second wife, Eleanor, daughter of Henry Plantagenet, earl of Lancaster. His family was an old and influential one, and when Thomas entered the church his preferment was rapid. In 1373 he became archdeacon of Taunton, and in April 1374 was consecrated bishop of Ely. During... more...

CONSTANTINE PAVLOVICH (1779-1831), grand-duke and cesarevich of Russia, was born at Tsarskoye Selo on the 27th of April 1779. Of the sons born to the unfortunate tsar Paul Petrovich and his wife Maria Feodorovna, née princess of Württemberg, none more closely resembled his father in bodily and mental characteristics than did the second, Constantine Pavlovich. The direction of the boy’s upbringing... more...

CONDUCTION, ELECTRIC. The electric conductivity of a substance is that property in virtue of which all its parts come spontaneously to the same electric potential if the substance is kept free from the operation of electric force. Accordingly, the reciprocal quality, electric resistivity, may be defined as a quality of a substance in virtue of which a difference of potential can exist between different... more...

Geographical usage confines to the southern part of the island of Great Britain the name commonly given to the great insular power of western Europe. In this restricted sense the present article deals with England, the predominant partner in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, both as containing the seat of government and in respect of extent, population and wealth. 1. Topography. England... more...

AUSTRIA, LOWER (Ger. Niederösterreich or Österreich unter der Enns, "Austria below the river Enns"), an archduchy and crownland of Austria, bounded E. by Hungary, N. by Bohemia and Moravia, W. by Bohemia and Upper Austria, and S. by Styria. It has an area of 7654 sq. m. and is divided into two parts by the Danube, which enters at its most westerly point, and leaves it at its eastern... more...