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new constellation." How or by whom the idea of the star was first suggested is uncertain, although there are some who ascribe it to John Adams, while others claim the entire flag was borrowed from the coat of arms of the Washington family. In this flag the stars were arranged in a circle, although no form was officially prescribed. It is supposed that the first display of the National Hag at a military post was at Fort Schuyler, on the site of the village of Rome, Oneida County, N. Y. The fort was besieged early in the month of August, 1777, and the garrison were without a flag. So they made one according to the prescription of Congress by cutting up sheets to form the white stripes, bits of scarlet cloth for the red stripes, and the blue ground for the stars was composed of portions of a cloth cloak belonging to Captain Abraham Swarthout, of Dutchess County, N. Y., and the flag was unfurled August 3, 1777. Paul Jones, as commander of the Ranger, to which he was appointed June 14, 1777, claimed that he was the first to display the Stars and Stripes on a naval vessel. It is probable that the flag was first unfurled in battle on the banks of the Brandywine, September 11, 1777, the first battle after its adoption. It first appeared over a foreign stronghold June 28, 1778, when Captain Rathbone, of the American sloop of war Providence, captured Fort Nassau, New Providence, Bahama Islands. John Singleton Copley, the American painter, claimed to be the first to display the flag in Great Britain. On the day when George III acknowledged the independence of the United States (December 5, 1782), he painted the flag in the background of a portrait of Elkanah Watson. To Captain Mooers, of the whaling ship Bedford, of Nantucket, is doubtless due the honor of first displaying the Stars and Stripes in a port of Great Britain. He arrived in the Downs with it flying at the fore, February 3, 1783. When Vermont and Kentucky were added to the Union of States the flag was altered, the number of stripes and stars being increased from thirteen to fifteen. In 1818 a new flag, having thirteen stripes and a star for every State, twenty at that time, was devised by Captain Samuel C. Reed, and this has remained the form of the United States flag.

Americanisms.-The great body of Americanisms, or words and phrases which have a meaning peculiar to America, consists in giving an unusual sense to existing words, as clever in the sense of amiable, and smart for clever; wagon for a very light kind of carriage; bookstore for book-seller's shop; wilted for withered; creek for a small river. The number of absolutely new words introduced into the English language in America is remarkably small. As an instance may be mentioned caucus, for a secret political assembly. This is a corruption of calk-house, a calker's shed in Boston, where the patriots before the Revolution had usually held their meetings. The several divisions of the United States have their characteristic Americanisms. In the New England States ugly is used for ill-natured, and guess for a great variety of

things to think, presume, suppose, etc. This use of guess is confined to New England; the inhabitants of New York and the Middle States employ expect in the same way, while those of the Southern States reckon, and those of the Western States calculate. Several words current in the Middle States are of Dutch origin, as loafer for a vagabond, from the Dutch loopen, to run; and boss for a head workman or employer. The verb to fix is made to do duty all over the country for expressing every conceivable kind of action. The well-known phrase go-ahead is a coinage of the West; and posted up in a subject, for well informed, is one of a class of metaphors indicative of the prominence of mercantile pursuits. As the Americans of Anglo-Saxon origin do not exceed one-third of the whole population of the United States, it seems wonderful that the English language should have held its ground so well, that it should not have been completely corrupted, or even in some places extruded by other tongues.

American Mine, Oldest.—The first recorded account of the discovery of coal in the United States is contained in Hennepin's narrative of his explorations in the West between 1673 and 1680, when he saw the coal outcrop in the bluffs of the Illinois River not far from Ottawa and La Salle. In New Mexico and Arizona there are silver mines which were operated by the Toltecs and Aztecs years before the Spanish invasion. So there are copper mines in the Lake Superior region in which the tools and mining marks of ancient miners of prehistoric times were found by the pioneers of the present American mining companies. Where the first colonists of Virginia got the ship-load of "fool's gold" which they sent back to England, to the great disgust of the London Company, is not certainly known; but it is known that at the same time, in 1608, they shipped a quantity of iron from Jamestown which yielded seventeen tons of metal-the first pig-iron ever made from American ore. In North and South Carolina and Georgia there are diggings, now overgrown with forests, which are supposed to have been excavated by the followers of De Soto and his immediate successors between 1539 and 1600. The oldest mining enterprise of the United States, still active, is generally conceded to be the mine La Motte, in the lead district of Eastern Missouri, which was opened about 1720 under Renault, of Law's notorious Mississippi Company. It was named after La Motte, the mineralogist of the expedition, and has been worked at intervals ever since it was opened.

America's Cup, The, was originally called the Queen's Cup, and was given by the Royal Yacht Squadron in May, 1851, for a race around the Isle of Wight. The schooner-yacht America, of which Commodore J. C. Stevens, of the New York Yacht Club, was the principal owner, won the trophy August 22, 1851. The cup then came to this country and has since remained here, although contests were held for it in 1870, 1871, 1876, 1881, 1885, 1886 and 1887. In 1857 the cup was presented to the New York Yacht Club, by

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its owners, as a perpetual challenge cup. In appearance it is rather in the shape of a vase with a handle, or a pitcher, than a cup. It stands two feet high and weighs at least 100 ounces. Around its broadest part are medallions variously inscribed. The first inscription is as follows: "One hundred guinea cup, won August 22, 1851, at Cowes, England, by yacht America, at the Royal Yacht Squadron regatta, open to all nations, beating"-and then follow the names of all the vessels that took part in the race of 1851. On the next medallion is engraved: Schooner; 170 tons; Commodore John C. Stevens; built by George Steers; New York, 1851." The other spaces contain records of the results of the various races for the cup. In the race for the cup in 1870 the New York Yacht Club's schooner Magic beat the Cambria, the representative of several English yacht clubs. In 1871, New York Yacht Club's schooners Columbia and Sappho beat the English schooner Livonia. In this race the Columbia was disabled after the third race, and the series was finished by the Sappho. In 1876, New York Yacht Club's schooner Madeleine beat the Canadian schooner Countess of Dufferin. In 1881, New York Yacht Club's sloop Mischief beat the Canadian sloop Atalanta. In 1885, Eastern Yacht Club's sloop Puritan beat the cutter Genesta, representing the Royal Yacht Squadron. In 1886, Eastern Yacht Club's Mayflower beat the cutter Galatea, representing the Royal Northern Yacht Club. In 1887 the sloop Volunteer, representing the Eastern and New York Yacht Clubs, beat the cutter Thistle, representing the Royal Clyde Yacht Club.

Amulet is any object worn as a charm. It is often a stone, or piece of metal, with an inscription or some figure engraved on it, and is generally suspended from the neck, and worn as a preventive against sickness, witchcraft, etc. Its origin, like its name, seems to be Oriental. The ancient Egyptians had their amulets, sometimes forming necklaces. Among the Greeks such a protective charm was called phylacterion; among the Romans, amuletum. From the heathen, the use of amulets passed into the Christian Church, the inscription on them being ichthus (the Greek word for a fish), because it contained the initials of the Greek words for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. Amulets soon became so common among Christians that in the fourth century the clergy were interdicted from making and selling them on the pain of deprivation of holy orders, and in 721 the wearing of amulets was solemnly condemned by the Church. Among amulets in repute in the middle ages were the coins attributed to St. Helena, the mother of Constantine. These and other coins marked with a cross were thought specially efficacious against epilepsy, and are generally found perforated, for the purpose of being worn suspended from the neck.

Anagram is the transposition of the letters of a word, phrase or short sentence so as to form a new word or sentence, and is from the Greek ana, backward, and gramma, writing. The Cabalists

attached great importance to anagrams, believing in some relation of them to the character or destiny of the persons from whose names they were formed. Plato entertained a similar notion, and the later Platonists rivaled the Cabalists in ascribing to them mysterious virtues. The best anagrams are such as have, in the new order of letters, some signification appropriate to that from which they are formed. It was a great triumph of the medieval anagramist to find in Pilate's question, Quid est veritas? (What is truth?) its own answer, Est vir qui adest (It is the man who is here). D'Israeli, in his "Curiosities of Literature," has a chapter on anagrams. Among the great many considered by him worthy of record are the following: The mistress of Charles IX of France was named Marie Touchet; this became Il charme tout (I charm every one), which is historically just. The flatterers of James I of England proved his right to the British monarchy as the descendant of King Arthur from his name, Charles James Stuart, which becomes claims Arthur's seat. The author, in dedicating a book to the same monarch, finds that in James Stuart he has a just master. On a visit to King's Newton Hall, in Derbyshire, Charles II is said to have left written on one of the windows Cras ero lux (To-morrow I shall be light), which is the anagram of Carolus Rex. Ancient Year, The.-The Jewish year had two commencements. The religious year began with the month Abib (April), the civil year with Tissi (October). The year was solar. There were two seasons-summer and winter. The months were lunar, of thirty days each, and twelve in number, although a thirteenth was sometimes necessarily intercalated. It was called "Ve-adar." The ancient Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, Syrians, Phoenicians and Carthaginians each began their year at the autumnal equinox, or about September 22d. The beginning of the year among the Greeks, until 432 years before Christ, when Meton introduced the cycle called after him, was at the winter solstice, or about December 22d, and afterward at the summer solstice, about June 22d. The Roman year from the time of Numa began at the winter solstice. It was not probably the original intention of Cæsar to change this time, and his motive for delaying it several ways till January 1st was doubtless the desire to make the first of the year of the reformed calendar begin with the day of the new moon. In England, from the fourteenth century till the change of style in 1752, the legal and ecclesiastical year began March 25th, although it was not uncommon to reckon it from January 1st.

Angon.-A barbed spear, used by many early natives. The Franks, in the seventh century, employed angons both for thrusting and hurling. The staves were armed with iron, so as to leave but little of the wood uncovered. The head had two barbs. When hurled or thrust at an opponent, the head of the angon became fixed in the flesh by means of the barbs. This form of spear was mostly adopted by the Anglo-Saxon and other Teutonic nations.

Animal Worship.-Among primitive peoples, all animals are supposed to be endowed with souls which in many cases have formerly animated human beings. Hence a likeness is often recognized between an animal and some deceased friend, and the animal is addressed as the person would have been, and honored with a kind of worship. Many tribes call themselves by the name of, and even derive their pedigree from, some animal. Its cries become the omens of the tribe; and thus originate the divination and augury of more civilized nations. In the modern world the most civilized people among whom animal-worship vigorously survives lie within the range of Brahmanism. Here the sacred cow is not merely to be spared; she is as a deity worshiped and bowed to daily by the pious Hindu. Siva is incarnate in Hanuman, the monkey-god. The divine king of birds, Garuda, is Vishnu's vehicle, and the forms of fish and boar and tortoise assumed in the avatar legends of Vishnu. Perhaps no worship has prevailed more widely than that of the serpent. It had its place in Egypt and among the Hebrews; in Greece and Rome; among the Celts and Scandinavians in Europe; in Persia and India; in China and Thibet; in Mexico and Peru; in Africa, where it still flourishes as the state religion in Dahomey; in Java and Ceylon; among the Fijians and elsewhere in Oceanica; and even within the limits of Christianity we find the sect of the Ophites, who continued or renewed snake-worship, blended curiously with purer rites.

Apocrypha, The.-In the earliest Churches the word Apocrypha was applied with very different significations to a variety of writings; sometimes it was given those whose authorship and original form were unknown; sometimes to writings containing a hidden meaning; sometimes to those whose public use was not thought advisable. In this last signification it has been customary, since the time of Jerome, to apply the term to a number of writings which the Septuagint had circulated among the Christians, and which were sometimes considered as an appendage to the Old Testament, and sometimes as a portion of it. At the Council of Laodicea, 360 A. D., the Greek Church rejected all books except those in the present Protestant canon. In 474 Pope Gelasius convened a council of seventy bishops, which confirmed the opinion of Pope Innocent I, recognizing the Apocryphal books as sacred, and rejecting some of the doubtful books of the New Testament. The Council of Trent, 1545-'63, finally settled the question for the Roman Catholic Church, accepting the Apocrypha as a part of the sacred canon. The Protestant Churches reject their use in public worship. It was customary at one time to bind up the Apocrypha between the authorized versions of the Old and New Testaments, though this has now ceased, and, as a consequence, this curious, interesting and instructive part of Jewish literature is now known only to scholars.

Apollo Belvedere, one of the most perfect statues ever created

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