succeeded by Barbara Landmann, since whose death in 1884 the community has lacked an inspired leader. Amana was the strongest in numbers of the few sectarian communities in America which outlived the 19th century. A few new members have joined the community from Switzerland and Germany in recent years. In 1905 the community won a suit brought against it for its dissolution on the ground that, having been incorporated solely as a benevolent and religious body, it was illegally carrying on a general business.
See W. R. Perkins and B. L. Wick, History of the Amana Society or Community of True Inspiration, Historical Monograph, No. 1, in State University of Iowa publications (Iowa City, 1891); R. T. Ely, “Amana: A Study of Religious Communism,” in Harper’s Magazine for October 1902; and Bertha M. H. Shambaugh, Amana, the Community of True Inspiration (Iowa City, 1908).
AMANITA. The amanitas include some of the most showy representatives of the Agaricineae or mushroom order of fungi (q.v.). In the first stages of growth, they are completely enveloped by an outer covering called the veil. As the plant develops the veil is ruptured; the lower portion forms a sheath or volva round the base of the stem, while the upper portion persists as white patches or scales or warts on the surface of the cap.
| |||
| Amanita muscaria. | |||
| A, | the young plant. | g, | the gills. |
| B, | the mature plant. | a, | the annulus, or remnant of velum partiale. |
| C, | longitudinal section of mature plant. | v, | remains of volva or velum universale. |
| p, | the pileus. | s, | the stalk. |
The stem usually bears an upper ring of tissue, the remains of an inner veil, that stretched from the stem to the edge of the cap and broke away from the cap as the latter expanded. The presence of the volva, and the clear white gills and spores, distinguish this genus from all other agarics. They are beautiful objects in the autumn woods; Amanita muscaria, the fly fungus, formerly known as Agaricus muscarius, being especially remarkable by its bright red cap covered with white warts. Others are pure white or of varying shades of yellow or green. There are sixteen British species of Amanita; they grow on the ground in or near woods. Several of the species are very poisonous.
AMANUENSIS (a Latin word, derived from the phrase servus a manu, slave of the hand, a secretary), one who writes, from dictation or otherwise, on behalf of another.
AMAPALA, the only port on the Pacific coast of Honduras, on the northern shore of Tigre island, in the Bay of Fonseca (q.v.); in 13° 3′ N., and 87° 9′ W. Pop. (1905) about 4000. Amapala was founded in 1838, and its port was opened and declared free in 1868. The roadstead is perfectly sheltered and so deep that the largest vessels can lie within a few yards of the shore. It is the natural outlet for the commerce of some of the richest parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Salvador; and during the 19th century it exported large quantities of gold, silver and other ores, although its progress was retarded by the delay in constructing a transcontinental railway from Puerto Cortes. Its depots on the mainland, both about 30 m. distant, are La Brea, for the line to Puerto Cortes, and San Lorenzo, for Tegucigalpa. Silver is still exported, in addition to hides, timber, coffee and indigo, and there are valuable fisheries.
AMARANTH, or Amarant (from the Gr. άμάραντος, unwithering), a name chiefly used in poetry, and applied to certain plants which, from not soon fading, typified immortality. Thus Milton (Paradise Lost, iii. 353):—
“Immortal amarant, a flower which once
In paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon for man’s offence
To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,
And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven
Rolls o'er elysian flowers her amber stream:
With these that never fade the spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks.”
It should be noted that the proper spelling of the word is amarant; the more common spelling seems to have come from a hazy notion that the final syllable is the Greek word άνθος, “flower,” which enters into a vast number of botanical names.
The plant genus Amarantus (natural order Amarantaceae) contains several well-known garden plants, such as love-lies-bleeding (A. caudatus), a native of India, a vigorous hardy annual, with dark purplish flowers crowded in handsome drooping spikes. Another species A. hypochondriacus, is prince’s feather, another Indian annual, with deeply-veined lance-shaped leaves, purple on the under face, and deep crimson flowers densely packed on erect spikes. “Globe amaranth” belongs to an allied genus, Gomphrena, and is also a native of India. It is an annual about 18 in. high, with solitary round heads of flowers; the heads are violet from the colour of the bracts which surround the small flowers.
In ancient Greece the amaranth (also called χρυσάνθεμον and ἑλιχρυσος) was sacred to Ephesian Artemis. It was supposed to have special healing properties, and as a symbol of immortality was used to decorate images of the gods and tombs. In legend, Amarynthus (a form of Amarantus) was a hunter of Artemis and king of Euboea; in a village of Amarynthus, of which he was the eponymous hero, there was a famous temple of Artemis Amarynthia or Amarysia (Strabo x. 448; Pausan. i. 31, p. 5).
See Lenz, Botanik der alt. Griech. und Röm. (1859); J. Murr, Die Pflanzenwelt in der griech. Mythol. (1890).
AMARAPURA. (“the city of the gods”), formerly the capital of the Burmese kingdom, now a suburb of Mandalay, Burma, with a population in 1901 of 9103. The town was founded in 1783 to form a new capital about 6 m. to the north-east of Ava. It increased rapidly in size and population, and in 1810 was estimated to contain 170,000 inhabitants; but in that year the town was destroyed by fire, and this disaster, together with the removal of the native court to Ava in 1823, caused a decline in the prosperity of the place. In 1827 its population was estimated at only 30,000. It suffered severe calamity from an earthquake, which in 1839 destroyed the greater part of the city. It was finally abandoned in 1860, when king Mindon occupied Mandalay, 5 or 6 m. farther north. Amarapura was laid out on much the same plan as Ava. The ruins of the city wall, now overgrown with jungle, show it to have been a square with a side of about three-quarters of a mile in length. At each corner stood a solid brick pagoda about 100 ft. high. The most remarkable edifice was a celebrated temple, adorned with 250 lofty pillars of gilt wood, and containing a colossal bronze statue of Buddha. The remains of the former palace of the Burmese monarchs still survive in the centre of the town. During the time of its prosperity Amarapura was defended by a rampart and a large square citadel, with a broad moat, the walls being 7000 ft. long and 20 ft. high, with a bastion at each corner. The Burmans know it now as Myohaung, “the old city.” It has a station on the Rangoon-Mandalay railway, and is the junction for the line to Maymyo and the Kunlong ferry and for the Sagaing-Myitkyina railway. The group of villages called Amarapura by Europeans is known to the Burmans as Taung-myo, “the southern city,” as distinguished from Mandalay, the Myauk-myo, or “northern city,” 3 m. distant.
