Al'litera'tion is the frequent recurrence, met with often in English poetry and occasionally in prose composition, of the same letter or sound at the beginning of recurring words. "Alliteration's artful aid" is a familiar example. Instances of it are often met with in the Elizabethan writers and in those of early Anglo-Saxon times, chiefly in the poets. Examples are occasionally found in prose, where, when skilfully used and combined with assonance, alliteration heightens the effect of what is written or said; but its use, in both prose and verse, is often more of a trick in a writer, and should therefore be sparingly indulged in. In Shakespeare it is often met with, as in the phrase occurring in the song in The Tempest, "full fathom five thy father lies"; it is also frequently found in Spenser, and in Langland's Piers Plowman, as well as in the modern German writers, such as Goethe and Heine, where it is occasionally used with pleasing effect. Fine examples are also to be found in Tennyson and Swinburne. Among other modern English authors Coleridge, moreover, uses it as an embelishment of his verse, thus:
"The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free."
How much the use of alliteration is the mere trick of a writer may be seen in the couplet:
"Cossack commanders cannonading come,
Dealing destruction's devastating doom."
Much of alliteration's use will moreover be familiar to many in the proverbs and phrases in current speech, as in "life and limb," "out of house and home," "the bonnie bairn," "with peril and pain," "warring words," "the scum of the streets," "a vile varlet," "a dainty dame," "zeal, zest," "a rascally rogue," "the merry month of May," etc. See Guest's English Rhythms.
Allotropy (al-lot'ro-p} or Allotropism, a chemical term to explain a conversion or change in physical property, but not in substance, in certain bodies. More explicitly, it is the property or capability which certain bodies show of assuming different forms and qualities under a presumed diversity of molecular arrangement. Examples of allotropic conditions are seen in carbon, sulphur, phosphorus and oxygen; practical instances are carbon (1) in its soft state, as in plumbago, black lead and charcoal and (2) (hard and crystallized) as in the diamond. Phosphorus is another instance of this dual property: (1) as a colorless wax-like solid, poisonous and dangerously inflammable and (2) as a red powder with neither of these destructive qualities. Similar contrasts are seen in oxygen and ozone.
Alloy', a mixture of two or more metals melted together. Some of the metals, when combined with other metals, are rendered more serviceable for certain uses. Thus copper alone is not fit for castings, and is too tough to be easily worked by tools, but when alloyed with zinc, forming brass, it can be cast, rolled or turned. Gold and silver, also, when pure are very soft and easily worn out. They are hardened by alloying them with other metals in different proportions. The silver coins of the United States are made up of nine parts of silver and one of copper, while the gold coins consist of nine parts gold and the other part is divided into one-quarter silver and three-quarters copper. Alloys are generally harder and much more fusible than would be indicated by the hardness and fusibility of the component metals. Besides the alloys that have been mentioned, some important ones are bell-metal and bronze consisting of copper and tin; type-metal, containing lead and antimony and sometimes tin also; German-silver, composed of copper, nickel and zinc; and solder, which is ordinarily made of lead and tin. Alloys of which one metal is mercury are called amalgams.
Allston (awl'ston), Washington (born 1779, died 1843), an American historical painter and poet.
A native of South Carolina, he was graduated at Harvard in 1800. He pursued the study of his art in Charleston, London, Paris and Rome. During his studies he formed a close friendship with the great painter, Benjamin West, and also with Coleridge and Thorwaldsen. He practised his profession mainly at Boston and Cambridge. Allston was of a deeply religious nature, and many of his pictures are scenes from the Bible. As a writer, he was also eminent. His friend Coleridge says of him that he was surpassed by no man of his age in artistic and poetic genius.
Allu'vium, the name given to the masses of sand, earth and gravel brought down by currents of water and spread over plains, forming what is called alluvial land. Thus the Ganges, the Nile, the Amazon and the Mississippi have formed their deltas. It is estimated that the Mississippi every year carries down enough sediment to cover 268 square miles of land with a layer of earth one foot deep. The so-called bottom lands are those formed by alluvial deposits. Along rivers it is sometimes formed into terraces by the rising of floods to different heights.
Alma (äl'ma), a small river in the Crimea. Here was fought an important battle in the
