ALTAR.

The altars of the ancients, in their temples, were placed towards the east; and, probably, hence arose the Christian custom of placing the sacramental table on the eastern side of the early churches.

Among the Romans, the word "altare" properly signifies " a high elevated altar," in contradistinction to "ara," which means a "lower altar." Or ara may be regarded as the generic word for altar, and altare the specific one; for altaria is included in "ara," according to the following lines of Virgil:

En quatuor aras:
Ecce duas tibi, Daphni, duoque altaria Phobo.

Ecl. v. 66.

Among the Greeks, the word Bwpoc had a much more extensive signification than the altare of the Latins, for it included both the high and low altar. With the Greeks, too, the altars differed considerably, according to the character of the deity to whom they were consecrated; the Oɛoi Owpario had altars elevated to a great height from the ground; and Pausanias tells us, that that of the Olympian Jove was nearly twenty-two feet high. Porphyry, however, makes no difference between these altars and those that were consecrated to the use of the Oεoi Xoovio. But the Greeks also sacrificed to their heroes or demi-gods on altars close to the ground, and only one step in height, which they called εσχάραι. The OEOL YOXOovio had ditches or trenches dug for the purpose of sacrifice, which the Greeks called Golpo and λakkoι; and the Latins, "scrobes." The high altars also were temples, as were the tombs of the ancients, the pyramids of Egypt, and other stupendous edifices, which, while they served as sepulchres, were dedicated to religious purposes, and consecrated by sacrifice. We have already pointed out this circumstance, under the article EGYPT, History, chap. V.

Sacrifices performed upon a turf of green earth (the aspes vivus of Horace) were, according to Hesychius, termed Ovolai aroẞwo. The altars of the Greeks were originally made of heaps of earth, and sometimes of ashes, as that of the Olympian Jupiter, mentioned by Pausanias; there was also another altar of ashes, at Thebes, consecrated to Apollo, who derived from it the cognomen of Erodios. In process of time they were formed of horn, brick, and stone (the material of the famous altar at Delos). They were first erected in groves, in the highways and streets, as well as upon the tops of mountains; but after the introduction of temples, they were, of course, transferred to those edifices.

The square form was that most commonly adopted among the Greeks. But we find from some ancient medals, that there also existed altars of a circular figure. Many were certainly triangular; some possibly pyramidal. The ancient altars of the heathen world, as well as those of the Jews, were undoubtedly adorned with horns. In the Dionysica of Nonnus, Agave is introduced offering up a sacrifice upon εvkɛpa Tapa Bwμy, and those which remain in the ruins of Rome are ornamented in the same manner.

ALTAR, is a term used among many Christians, to signify a square table placed on the eastern side of the church, and sometimes the whole of the platform on which it stands, a little elevated above the floor, and set apart for the celebration of the holy communion, marriage, &c. These altar-tables, generally made of

VOL. XVII.

ALTENA.

wood, formerly possessed the power of screening from ALTAR. justice the individuals who fled to them for succour. The council of Paris, in the year 1509, decreed that no altar should be built but of stone. The Romanists seem to have denominated them altars with much greater consistency than the term is retained by Protestants, inasmuch as they regard the celebration of the Eucharist as a proper sacrifice. It was the ancient practice, both of the Greek and Latin churches, to pray with their faces towards the east, and, as we have seen, to place their altars on tables towards that quarter; hence also possibly arose the practice of the members of the church of England turning and bowing towards the east on the recital of the apostles' creed, &c. Moresin expressly tells us, that the altars of Papal Rome, were placed towards the east, in imitation of the practice of antiquity.

At first, each church contained but one altar; but in process of time they were so multiplied, that we read of no less than twelve or thirteen altars in some churches; in St. Paul's cathedral, when the chantries were granted to Henry VIII. there were fourteen; and in the cathedral of Magdeburg there were forty-nine. The altars of the Roman Catholic church bear a strong resemblance to tombs; and as the primitive Christians were in the habit of holding their meetings and celebrating the mysteries of their religion over the graves of their martyrs, it was formerly a rule in the Romish church never to erect an altar without enclosing in it the relics of some saint.

ALTAR is also used in Church History for the oblations, or incidental incomes of the church. In former times they made a distinction between the church and the altar: the tithes were called ecclesia, the church, and the other contingent revenues the altar.

ALTAR OF PROTHESIS, is a name given by the modern Greeks to a small preparatory kind of altar, upon which they bless the bread before it is carried to the larger one.

ALTARAGE, in English Ecclesiastical Law, includes the offerings made upon the altar, and the tithes derived to the priest by reason of his administering at the altar, obventio altaris. There has been much dispute, since the Reformation, with regard to the extent of the vicar's claim upon tithes, as altarage: by Mich. 21 Eliz. it was determined, that the words, altaragium cum manso competenti should entitle him to the small tithes of the parish; but in the case of Franklyn, T. 1721, it was decreed, and it is now generally understood, that the extent of the altarage depends entirely upon the usage and manner of endowment.

ALTAR-THANE, or CHURCH THANE; in ancient law books, the parson of the parish is so called.

ALTAVILLA, a town of Naples, with the title of county, 18 miles S. E. of Salerno. It is also the name of another town seven miles S. of Benevento.

ALTEA, a town of Spain, in Valencia, on the Mediterranean, 24 miles N. E. of Alicant. W. lon. 0°, 12'. N. lat. 38°, 36′.

ALTENA, a town of Prussia, in the grand duchy of the Lower Rhine, on the banks of the rivers Lenne and Nette. Here are a Lutheran and Calvinist church, a court of justice, and about 3,300 inhabitants, many of whom are employed in several branches of manufacture. There is also a small district in South Holland of this name.

27

ALTENAU, a river of Germany, in the principality of Wolfenbuttel, which falls in the Ocker.

ALTENAU, a town of the kingdom of Hanover, in the principality of Grubenhagen, nine miles from Goslar; with 1,200 inhabitants. There are some valuable mines of silver, lead, and tin, in the neighbourhood.

ALTENBERG, a small mining town in a bailiwic of the same name, in the mining country of Saxony, with about 200 houses, 18 miles S. of Dresden.

ALTENBRUCK, a large town of Hanover, in the land of Hadeln, with 380 houses, and 2,600 inhabitants. It is 27 miles N. W. of Stade. ALTENBURG, an ancient town and principality of Upper Saxony. The principality is divided by the county of Gera, into two parts, which are now respectively possessed by the houses of Gotha and Saalfeld; the domains of the former containing 96,000 inhabitants, and those of the latter 25,000. The soil of both portions is generally good and fruitful, particularly that of the house of Gotha, the duke of which formerly derived from it a seat and a vote at the diets of the empire of Germany. The capital town, which bears the name of the principality, has several manufactures of cotton and wool, and has long carried on an extensive trade in corn and cattle. It is 20 miles S. of Leipsic, and has a population of 9,500 inhabitants.

ALTENBURG, sometimes called HUNGARIAN ALTENBURG, a town of Hungary, on the Leitha, near its junction with the Danube, in the county of Wieselburg; carrying on a considerable trade in cattle and corn. It is 17 miles from Presburg, and 40 S. E. of Vienna. There is a ruined castle now used for granaries. E. lon. 23°, 15'. N. lat. 47°, 56'. Also a market town of Lower Austria, on the confines of Moravia, with a Benedictine abbey in the neighbourhood; a village, with a medicinal bath, on the Danube, in Lower Austria; a market town in Transylvania, county of Hunyad, with gold mines in the neighbourhood; a village below Botzen, in the Tyrol; and the name of several villages of Saxony, in the circle of Thuringia.

ALTENMARKT, a market town in Upper Bavaria, circle of the Iser, on the borders of Saltsburg, 26 miles N. W. of Saltsburg. Also the name of two market towns in the Austrian dominions; one near the Ens, in Styria; the other in Lower Austria, on the borders of the forest of Vienna.

ALTENSTADT, a market town and bailiwic in the duchy of Hesse; also a town of France, in Lower Alsace, on the Lauter, which contains 1,000 inhabitants, and is nine leagues N. E. of Strasburg.

ALTE

So long I am content to liue, but if you farther craue,
By subtill treaty sure redresse of all this war to haue.
Or that the fates may altred be, your hope is spent in vaine. ALTE
Phaer. Book x. CATI

I call God to recorde against the daye we shall appeare before our Lorde Jesus to geue a reckoning of our doings that I neuer altered one sillable of Gods worde, against my cosciece, nor wold doe this day if all that is in earth, whether it be honour, pleasure, or riches, might be geuen me. Tyndall in Frith's Workes, fo. 118.

Now if ye be in verai dede turned fro euil trees into good trees,
bryng ye foorthe good fruictes, such as maie testifie your hertes to
bee truely altered into a better frame.
Udall. St. Luke, cap. iii.

Under smiling she was dissimulate
Prouocatiue with blinkes amorous
And sodainly chaunged and alterate
Angry, as any serpent venomous
Right pungitiue with words odious
Thus variaunt she was who list take kepe
With one eye laugh, and with the other wepe.

Chaucer. Teste of Creseide, fol. 193. col 4.
Nature that gaue the bee so feate a grace,
To finde hony of so wondrous fashion,
Hath taught the spider out of the same place
To fetch poyson by straunge alteracion.
If prayers

Could alter high decrees, I to that place
Would speed before thee, and be louder heard,
That on my head all might be visited.

Wyatt.

Milton's Paradise Lost, book x.

Be sure, our Saviour had never bidden his disciples to rejoice that their names are written in heaven; if there had not been a particular enrolment of them; or if that record had been alterable. Bp. Hall's Balm of Gilead. Whether the body be alterant, or altered, perception constantly precedes operation; otherwise all bodies would be alike. Bacon's Nat. and Exper. Hist.

of favours and judgments, wherein God hath been pleased to vary It is not uneasy to name divers conditionate engagements, both from his former intimations: and such alteration doth full well con sist with the infinite wisdom, mercy, and justice of the Almighty. Bp. Hall's Temptations Repelled.

Simples are alterative purgative. Alteratives are such as correct, strengthen nature, alter, any way hinder or resist the disease. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.

Chaucer. The Marchantes Tale, v. i. P. 381.

example or two; where the parallelism arises from the alternation of ALTERthe members of the sentences. Lowth. Isaiah. Preliminary Dis. NATE.

ALTERNATE, in Heraldry, a term designating the relative situation of certain quarters in the shield, or escutcheon. The first and fourth, and the second and third quarters (on opposite sides to each other) are called alternate quarters.

ALTERNATION, or PERMUTATION, in Arithmetic,

have been done by clamour and altercation, we have suffered on both parts more than enough. Bp. Hall's Peace Maker.

When Jacob abruptly left the house of his father-in-law, Laban, and was pursued, and overtaken by him, a warm altercation took place. Gilpin's Tour to the Lakes of Cumberland, &c.

Maria look'd wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat, and then at me,-and then at her goat again, and so on alternately. Sterne's Tristram Shandy.

There was also a necessity of dividing the sections inta verses, that they might be a direction both to the reader and the interpreter where to make their stop at every alternative reading and interpreting, till they had, verse by verse, gone through the whole section. Prideaux's Connections.

The bashful look, the rising breast,
Alternate spread alarms:
The lovely stranger stands confest
A maid in all her charms.

Goldsmith's Hermit.

In viewing this monstrous tragi-comic scene, the most opposite passions necessarily succeed, and sometimes mix with each other in the mind; alternate contempt and indignation; alternate laughter and tears; alternate scorn and horror.

Burke, on the French Revolution.

Taken alternately, desolation by famine, and destruction by the sword. Of which alternate construction I shall add a remarkable

different numbers or things, which may be thus illustrated: two things, or quantities, a and b, may either of them be placed first, as a b or b a, making 1 × 2 = 2 alternations; a third quantity, or thing c may be placed in three different positions relative to a b or b a, for it may stand either before, between, or after each of these combinations, thus making 1 × 2 × 3 = 6 alternations. By multiplying the series of natural numbers into each other continually, down to the last number given, the ultimate product will give the required number of all alternations. If, therefore, it be asked how many alternations (or changes as they are commonly called) may be rung on 6 bells, we must work thus 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6720, which number will give the required answer.

ALTHEA, in Botany, marsh-mallow, a genus of plants of the class Monadelphia, and order Polyandria. În medicine it is used as an emollient, or demulcent, applied in cases of coughs and catarrhs. The root of the althea was formerly made into many compositions in the materia medica, but it is now seldom used, except as a syrup.

ALTHEIM, a market town of Wirtemberg, in the district of the Danube, with 800 inhabitants; also a market town of Austria, in the bailiwic of Branau; and a village of Bavaria, 17 miles from Passau.

ALTHOUGH', conj. All-though. Tho', though, thah, is the imperative Dar or Darig of the A. S. verb Darian or Darigan; to allow, permit, grant, yield, assent. (Tooke, v. i. p. 184.)

All be it, or be it all, allowed, permitted, &c.

For many a man so hard is of his herte,

He may not wepe although him sore smerte.

Chaucer. The Prologue, v. i. p. 10.

For good connseill is good to here, All though a man be wise hym selue, Yet is the wisdome more of twelue.

Gower. Con. A. The Prologue.

In perils strange, in labours long and wide;
In which although good fortune me befall,
Yet shall it not by none be testifyde.
"What is that guest," quoth then Sir Artegall,
"That you into such perils presently doth call?"

Spenser's Faerie Queene, book vi. can, i,

CHо. Although we wish the glory still might last
Of such a night, and for the causes past:
Yet now, great lord of waters, and of isles,
Give Proteus leave to turn unto his wiles.

Ben Jonson's Masques. Neptune's Triumph. Although indeed man was by his fault a great loser, and became deprived of high advantages; yet the mercy of God did leave him in no very deplorable estate. Barrow's Sermons,

Cowper's Task, book i.

ALTHOUGH.

Ev'n the favour'd isles So lately found, although the constant sun Cheer all their seasons with a grateful smile, Can boast but little virtue. Moderate joy, in Latin gaudium, we may term gladness, The stoics allowed it, to be not unworthy of a wise inan, although, in general, they affected to be very unfriendly to the passions. Beattie's Elements of Moral Science,

ALTIMETRY (of altus, high, and μErpew, to measure), in Trigonometry, a term denoting the admeasurement of heights, accessible and inaccessible.

ALTIN, a lake of Asiatic Russia, in the Altain chain of mountains, 84 miles in length, and 50 in breadth. It is the source of the river Beiya, which afterwards uniting with some smaller streams, forms the Oby, running into the gulf of Oby.

ALTINCAR, in Mineralogy, and more particularly amongst working mineralists; a factitious salt much used in the process of fusion, and refining of metals. ALTINUM, in Ancient Geography, a flourishing city of Italy, near Aguileia, and famous for its wool. PLINY, iii. 18. MART. Epig. xxv.

ALTIS, in Ancient Geography, a sacred grove round Jupiter's temple at Olympia, where the statues of the victors at the Olympic games were generally placed.

PAUSAN. V. 20.

ALTIS'ONANT, adj. (altus, high, and sonus, sound). High sounding.

For it stood greatly with reason, seeing his lord and master changed his estate and vocation, that he should alter likewise his denomination, and get a new one, that were famous and altisonant, as becomed the new order and exercise which he now professed. Shelton's Trans. Don Quix. Ed. 1652.

ALTITUDE, n. Altitudo, heighth, from altus, high. Heighth, exaltation, elevation. This word is commonly used by Chaucer in the conclusion of the Astrolabie.

The altitude and circumference of the Wrekin, I have no doubt, are accurately known in Shropshire.

Gilpin's Tour to the Lakes of Cumberland, &c.

ALTITUDE, in Geometry, denotes the perpendicular height of the vertex of any plane or solid body above the line or plane of its base; thus the altitude of a triangle is measured by a perpendicular let fall from any one of its angles upon the base, or upon the base produced; and therefore the same triangle may have different altitudes, accordingly as we assume one side or another for its base. Again, the altitude of a cone or pyramid, whether right or oblique, is measured by a perpendicular let fall from the vertex to the plane of its base; and similar remarks apply to other solids.

In astronomy, altitudes are measured or estimated by the angles subtended between the object and the plane of the horizon; and this altitude may be either true or apparent. The apparent altitude is that which is obtained immediately from observation; and the true altitude is that which results by correcting the apparent altitude for parallax, refraction, &c. See our Treatise on ASTRONOMY, Div. ii.

The altitude of a terrestrial object is the height of its vertex above some horizontal plane assumed as a base: but in what may be called physical geography, the altitudes of mountains are measured from the general level of the ocean; that is, the altitude of a mountain is the difference between the mean terrestrial

radius and the distance of the vertex of the mountain ALT! from the centre of the earth.

There are various ways of ascertaining the altitude of terrestrial objects, viz.

1. By means of lines and angles, or trigonometrically; for which see MATHEMATICS, Div. i. 2. By barometrical observations; for which see PNEUMATICS, Div. ii.

3. By actually measuring the level between the base and vertex of an object; for which see LEVELLING, in our alphabetical arrangement.

and scientific methods of measuring altitudes, there
4. Besides the above, which are the most general
are also various practical methods that may be applied
in cases where the utmost accuracy is not required;
viz. by optical reflection, by the lengths of shadows, by
moveable staves, the geometrical square, &c. &c.;
and, generally, by any method in which the calcula-
tion depends upon the similarity of plane rectilinear
triangles.

Of these methods we propose to give a few examples.
PROBLEM I.

To measure altitudes by means of stares. Let AB (fig. 1), MISCELLANEOUS, Plate III. represent an object of which the altitude is required. Being provided with two rods or staves, of different lengths, plant the longest of them as CF, at a certain measured distance from the base of the object; then, at a further distance, plant the second or shortest staff ED, in such a manner that the tops of the two, E and F, may be in a line with the top of the tower B.

This being done, measure the distance ID, as also the length ED, and we shall have, by similar triangles, as ID: ED :: IA : AB;

that is, by multiplying the second and third terms together, and dividing by the first, we shall have the altitude of the tower AB, or

TUDE

For example, suppose IA = 100 feet, ID 8 feet, and ED = 4 feet, then

AB =

4 x 100 8

the altitude of the tower.

50 feet,

When the base of the object is inaccessible, as in (fig 2), two such operations as that above become requisite, thus:

Let ID a, ED = d, also the unknown distance IA = x, and the required altitude of the object = y; then in the second operation, in which both the staves must be replanted, make the second distance ID=d', and the second unknown distance l'A=x+c,c being the distance between the two stations of the shorter staff ED, E'D'; the lengths of the staves still remaining the same. Now, from the preceding proportion we shall have (by substituting for ID, ED, IA, and AB, the above letters),

x ± c: y;

1st operation, a : d :: x : y; 2d operation, a': d whence, by subtraction, (a' is a) : d

consequently,

y= AB

dc

a is a