pound, its formula being CH-NH. Benzylamine, CH¿CH2NH2, is a true aromatic amine. The aromatic amido-compounds undergo an interesting transformation when treated with nitrous acid in the cold, the resulting substances being known as diazo-compounds (q.v.).

AMIN'TA. A celebrated pastoral play by Torquato Tasso, produced at Ferrara in 1573. It is an allegory, presenting the characters of the court where Tasso lived.

AMINTE, ä'mănt'. (1) In Molière's Les précieuses ridicules (q.v.), the sentimental name taken by the girl Cathos. (2) A character in Molière's L'Amour médecin.

AMIN'TOR. The hero of Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy (q.v.), a young nobleman who, though betrothed to Aspatia, yet by the king's command marries Evadne, the heroine. AMIOT, à'myo'. See AMYOT.

AMIRANTE, ǎm'i-rănt', or ADMIRAL, IS'LANDS. A group of islets in the Indian Ocean in lat. 5° S. and long. 53° E. They belong to Great Britain and are dependencies of Mauritius. There is a small population, chiefly engaged in fisheries.

AMIS ET AMILES, å'mê' zâ å'mêl', also called AMIS ET AMILOUN. A chanson de geste, dating from the twelfth or thirteenth century. It consists of about 3500 verses, chiefly decasyllabic. Amis and Amiles are two noble knights whose close resemblance and whose friendship and mutual sacrifices are the theme of the poem. They first escape the machinations of the treacherous Hardré while in the service of Charlemagne, whose niece is given in marriage to Amis. Bellicent, the Emperor's daughter, loves Amiles, who is thereby brought into great peril, but he is rescued by Amis and obtains the princess. Amis, however, in fighting in place of his friend, has had to perjure himself. For this he is punished with leprosy, of which at last he is cured by the blood of Amiles's two sons, voluntarily sacrificed by their father. These then are miraculously restored to life.

AM'ISH CHURCH, THE. See MENNONITES. AMISH CHURCH, THE OLD. See MENNONITES. AMISTAD (ä'me'stäp') CASE, THE. A case before the United States Supreme Court involving the legal status of kidnapped negroes. In 1839 some slaves recently kidnapped from Africa, who were being carried from Havana to Puerto Príncipe, Cuba, in the Spanish schooner Amistad, killed two of the crew, the others escaping, and ordered two whites, their owners, whose lives they spared, to steer the vessel to Africa. The latter steered north instead, and in August the vessel was captured off Long Island by a United States warship. President Van Buren wished to surrender the negroes to the Spanish Government, in accordance with the treaty of 1795, as "property rescued from pirates"; but the Supreme Court finally decided (in March, 1841) that the blacks, having been originally kidnapped, were by international law, which then prohibited the slave trade, free men. The case was argued before the Supreme Court with great ability by John Quincy Adams, and aroused much excitement throughout the country, especially among the radical abolitionists, who advocated violent measures to secure the release of the negroes. Consult: Peters, Reports of United States

Supreme Court XV. (Washington, 1828-43); Barber, History of the Amistad Captives, and an interesting article in Volume XXII (N.S.) of The New England Magazine (Boston, 1900).

AMITE, à-mēt'. A town and parish seat of Tangipahoa Parish, La., about 70 miles north by west of New Orleans, on the Illinois Central Railroad, and on the Tangipahoa River (Map: Louisiana, E 3). It is the centre of a prosperous agricultural community. Pop., 1890, 1510; 1900, 1547.

AM'ITO'SIS (Gk. a, a, priv. + uiros, mitos, a thread of the warp). A division (rare) of the animal or plant cell by simple constriction without the formation of nuclear figures. See CELL; MITOSIS.

AM'ITYVILLE.

A village in Suffolk Co., N. Y., 32 miles east of New York City, on the Long Island Railroad (Map: New York, G 5). It is near the southern shore of Long Island, and the excellent bathing, boating, and fishing facilities make it a popular summer resort and place of residence. Pop., 1890, 2293; 1900, 2038; 1905, 2429.

AM'LET, DICK, or RICHARD. In Vanbrugh's play, The Confederacy (q.v.), the dissipated son of a vulgar old woman, who is proud of him and gives him money with which to play the fine gentleman. His breeding betrays itself, however, and he marries the daughter of Grife the Scrivener.

AM'LETH, or HAMLETH. Prince of Jutland, supposed to have lived in the second century B.C. According to Saxo Grammaticus, he was the son of Horvendill and Gerutha; and after the murder of his father by his uncle Fengo, who married Gerutha, he feigned himself a fool to save his own life. Saxo relates a number of little things regarding Amleth, which are a curious medley of sharp and lively observation, and apparent madness. We are told that, on one occasion, when he visited his mother, suspecting that he was watched, he commenced to crow like a cock and dance idiotically about the apartment, until he discovered, hidden in a heap of straw, a spy in the person of one of Fengo's courtiers, whom he immediately stabbed; he then so terrified his mother by his reproaches, that she promised to aid him in his intended revenge on his father's murderer, and, according to the old chronicler, really did so. Scandinavian traditions confirm the existence of a prince of this name. In the vicinity of Elsinore is shown a suspiciously modern-looking pile of stones, which bears the name of Hamlet's grave. Saxo himself does not mention the manner or circumstances of Amleth's death; but the French translator says that he was murdered at a banquet. Most of the recent historians of Denmark consider the history of Amleth fabulous. As the ultimate source of Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet, it possesses a perennial interest for all the civilized world. There are two Hamlet sagas in Icelandic, one of which, the romantic Ambales Saga, has been edited and translated, with an introductory essay, by I. Gollancz (1898).

AM'LWCH, ǎm/luk. A seaport town of Anglesey, North Wales, on the northern coast of the island, 14 miles northwest of Beaumaris (Map: Wales, B 3). It is a busy but rather dirty town, deriving its importance and wealth almost entirely from the rich Parys and Mona copper mines in its vicinity. Copper-smelting is carried on in Amlwch, and a harbor has been

AMLWCH.

formed by excavation out of the solid slate rock, at the expense of the mining companies, capable of receiving vessels of 600 tons. Pop., 1891, 5400; 1901, 5300.

AM/MAN. See RABBAH.

AM/MAN, JOHANN KONRAD (1669-1724). A Swiss physician, and one of the earliest writers on the instruction of the deaf and dumb. In his work, Surdus Loquens (1692), he describes the process employed by him in teaching, which was principally by fixing the attention of the pupils on the motions of his lips and larynx while he spoke, and inducing them to imitate him until they could utter distinct words. He practiced in Holland.

AMMANATI, äm'mȧ-nä'tê, BARTOLOMMEO (1511-92). An Italian architect and sculptor, born at Settignano; one of the foremost artists of the Late Renaissance or Barocco, at first a pupil of Baccio Bandinelli, and afterward of Sansovino, at Venice, whom he assisted in connection with the Library of St. Mark. On his return to Florence he came under the influence of Michelangelo's Medici Chapel sculptures. He went to Rome and collaborated with Vignola at the Villa of Pope Julius, under Pope Paul III. He returned to Florence in 1557, became architect of Cosmo de' Medici, and devoted himself thenceforth to the beautifying of his native city. His Santa Trinità Bridge, several fountains and small private palaces (Pucci, Giugni), are successful; but his great courts of the Pitti Palace and Santo Spirito are in bad taste. He afterward redeemed himself in the simpler court of the Collegio Romano at Rome (1582), and in the Ruspoli Palace (1586).

AM'MEN, DANIEL (1820-98). An American naval officer. He was born in Brown Co., Ohio, entered the naval service as midshipman in 1836, and by successive promotions rose to the rank of rear-admiral in 1877. In 1861-62, and again in 1863-64, he served in Admiral Dupont's blockading squadron, and as commander of the gunboat Seneca participated in the reduction of Port Royal (November 7, 1861), and took command of the forts after their surrender. He commanded the monitor Patapsco before Fort Macallister (March 3, 1863), and before Fort Sumter (April 7, 1863); and in the two attacks on Fort Fisher (December, 1864, and January, 1865), was in command of the Mohican. He served as chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks from 1869 to 1871, and of the Bureau of Navigation from 1871 to 1878, when he retired to private life. He designed the "Ammen life raft" and the ram Katahdin, and wrote The American Inter-Oceanic Ship Canal Question (1880); The Atlantic Coast (1883), a discriminating account, from the standpoint of a naval specialist, of the operations of the Federal navy along the Atlantic coast during the Civil War; Country Homes and Their Improvement; and The Old Navy and the New (1891).

VOL. I.-32.

a

AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS. AMMENHAUSEN, äm'men-hou'zen, KONRAD VON. A German poet of the fourteenth century. He traveled extensively, became monk at Stein, and wrote a long, rhymed poem on the game of chess. For much of his material he drew upon the Latin work of Jacobus de Cessolis. The poem is valuable for the anecdotes of the Middle Ages which it preserves, and still more for extended references to con

temporaneous history.

AMMERGAU (m'mer-gou) MYSTERY. See PASSION PLAY.

AM'METER, or AMPERE METER (ampère + Gk. μerpov, metron, measure). An instrument which is used to measure the intensity of an electric current, and which indicates this quantity directly in amperes (q.v.). Ammeters are constructed in numerous forms, which are based for the most part on the galvanometer (q.v.), on the intensity of attraction for soft iron exerted by a hollow coil of wire carrying a current, or on the electro-dynamometer. As the galvanometer is used to detect and measure minute currents, so the ammeter is employed in testing and engineering to indicate large currents, and to enable an observer to read directly in amperes the current flowing at any instant in a circuit. The best form of ammeter is the Weston instrument, made in the United States, and used all over the world. It consists of a voltmeter (q.v.) or portable galvanometer, whose movable coil is connected in parallel with a low resistance formed by one or more copper wires. As the current in a circuit depends upon the fall in potential across a constant resistance (in this case the copper wire), the operation of the instrument will readily be seen. Numerous other forms of ammeters are structed, the simplest of which consist of a coil of wire through which the current passes, inclosing a soft iron core suspended by a spring. The amount that this core is attracted is indicated by a pointer on a scale, which can be made regular by constructing the core of suitable shape. In other ammeters a magnetic needle is placed between the poles of a strong permanent magnet, and is surrounded by coils through which the current passes. This current in passing deflects the needle by an amount depending upon its intensity. The dynamometer or some modification of it, is often used to measure alternating currents, and consists of two coils, one of which is free to revolve against the action of a spring. When the current passes through the two coils, which are normally at right angles, there is a tendency for the movable coil to take a position parallel to the other, and the amount of motion depends upon the intensity of the current.

con

The

AM'MIA'NUS MAR CELLI’NUS. last Latin historian of the Roman Empire. He flourished in the closing years of the fourth century, and wrote a history of Rome from the accession of Nerva (96) to the death of Valens (378), designed as a continuation of the histories of Tacitus. The work when complete was in thirty-one books, of which only eighteen (14-31) are extant, covering the last twenty-five years of contemporaneous history (353-378). Ammianus Marcellinus was himself a Greek, born at Antioch; but he had served for years in the army, and had risen to rank in the Eastern and Gothic campaigns before he settled down