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AZERBAIJAN- 866 AZORES suits, and, with his friends, Balbo and Gioberti, he made a tour through the provinces of Italy, awakening the revo- lutionary spirit which troubled the last years of Gregory XVI. After the Revolu- tion of 1848 he supported the cause of the King of Piedmont, and, at the head of the Papal troops^ fought against the Austrians at Vicenza, where he was wounded. In 1849, Victor Emmanuel ap- pointed him President of the Cabinet of Ministers, which office he resigned in 1852 to his political adversary, Count Cavour. In 1859, after the peace of Villafranca, he undertook a confidential mission as Ambassador Extraordinary to England; and was afterward appointed governor of the city of Milan. He died Jan. 15, 1866. AZERBAIJAN, REPUBLIC OF. This new state of Transcaucasia had its birth in circumstances resulting from the World War. Its frontiers are not yet defined with precision, but it has an area of about 57,000 square miles in east- ern Caucasia, is bounded on the south and east by Persia and the Caspian Sea, and on the north and west by Daghestan and Georgia. The population is mixed, though the bulk is of Iranian stock with a mixture of Tartars and Turks. After the overthrow of the Russian Czar and the establishment of the Soviet regime the people of Azerbaijan, to- gether with those of Georgia and Rus- sian Armenia, broke away from Russia and formed a joinf state, April 22, 1918, which they styled the Federal Republic of Transcaucasia. The interests of the different peoples, however, were so di- vergent that the experiment came to an end in about five weeks. Georgia was swayed by German influences, the people of Azerbaijan were sympathetic with the Turks who were their co-religionists, while Armenia was strongly in favor of the Allied cause. The Transcaucasian Republic therefore dissolved into its com- ponent parts, May 26, 1918, and two days later Azerbaijan declared its own independence. Baku, the great oil center and seaport of Azerbaijan, was at the time held by the Bolshevists, who in the early spring had captured it after a battle in which the natives lost 12,000 in killed. The new government which had established its seat at Elizabetpol appealed for aid to the Turks, and with the assistance of the latter retook Baku and drove back a Bolshevist army that was threatening Elizabetpol. The Azerbaijan Govern- ment then invited General Thomson, the commander of British troops stationed on Persian territory, to occupy Baku, for the sake of strengthening its defense. The request was acceded to, and British troops took possession of the town Nov. 17, 1918. At the end of 1919 the troops were withdrawn. The independence of Azerbaijan was acknowledged by the Allies in January, 1920. The Azerbaijan Parliament consists of 120 members, elected by universal suf- frage. Representatives of the various races in the state, Russians, Armenians, Poles, and Jews, are included jn the membership. The members of the Cab- inet are responsible to Parliament. The national budget for 1919 was put at 665,000,000 rubles. The great source of revenue for state purposes is the petro- leum industry. AZIMUTH, the angular distance of a celestial object from the N. or _S. point of the horizon (according as it is the N. or S. pole which is elevated), when the object is referred to the horizon by a vertical circle. Or the angle comprised between two vertical planes, one passing through the elevated pole, the other through the object. It is generally reckoned eastward or westward, from the N. or S. point for 180° either way; but Herschel prefers always reckoning it from the points of the horizon most re- mote from the elevated pole westward, so as to agree in its general direction with the apparent diurnal motion of the stars. Of course, he therefore counts from 0° to 360°. Azimuths, called also vertical circles, are great circles inter- secting each other in the zenith and nadir, and cutting the horizon at right angles in all the points thereof. On these are reckoned the altitude of the stars, and of the sun when he is not in the meridian. A magnetical azimuth is an arch of the horizon, contained between the sun's azimuth circle and the mag- netical meridian; or it is the apparent distance of the sun from the N. or S. point of the compass. AZORES, or WESTERN ISLANDS, a Portuguese archipelago, in the mid- Atlantic, between 36° 55' and 39° 55' N. lat. and between 25° 10' and 31° 16' W. long. Stretching over a distance of 400 miles, their nine islands are divided into three distinct groups — Sta. Maria and Sao Miguel in the S. E.; Terceira, Sao Jorge, Pico, Graciosa, and Fayal in the middle; and Flores and Corvo in the N. W. Of these, Flores lies 1,176 miles W. of Cape Rocca in Portugal, 1,484 S. W. of Falmouth, and 1,708 E. S. E. of Halifax. In 1431-1453 the Azores were taken possession of by the Portuguese. They were at that ' time