rank. This was done, and the rule and practice are still in force.
Am'ber is a hard, brittle, yellow substance. It is found in large and small pieces; the largest are in the museum at Berlin, weighing eighteen pounds. It is found mostly clinging to seaweed along the shores of the Baltic Sea, where divers dive for it and dredgers throw it up on the shore for women and children to gather and pick over. Some is found in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maryland. When amber is rubbed, it develops electricity, and attracts light substances. This quality very much astonished the ancients, and they gave it the name "electron," from which we have the word "electricity." It is used mostly for beads, ornaments and mouthpieces for tobacco pipes, though large amber dishes have been found, showing that people long ago used it for manufacturing. The ancients valued amber highly, both as ornament and charm, amber necklaces being worn in the belief that the wearer would thereby be protected from witches, poisons and other evil.
Ambrose, Saint, one of the most prominent of the bishops of the early Christian church. He was born in Gaul about 340 A. D., and was educated for the profession of law. He was appointed preset of Liguria and Æmilia, and chose Milan as his residence. When the bishop of Milan died in 374, there was a great struggle between the orthodox and the Arian Christians in regard to the succession. Finally, Ambrose was unanimously elected, although he was not a priest. He accepted the office reluctantly, disposed of his property, and at once devoted himself to those studies which would prepare him for his office. His life was one of struggle as he opposed those in Rome, who wished to restore the worship of heathen gods, also the Arian sect which denied the divinity of Christ; and he even went on embassies to the northern tribes, which were planning to attack Italy. When the emperor, Theodosius, ordered the massacre of the Thessalonians in 390, Ambrose compelled him to perform penance for eight months, and exacted the promise that thereafter a period of thirty days should intervene before any sentence of death was executed. Ambrose left a large number of writings whose object was to defend and extend the Christian religion. It was through his preaching that Augustine was converted. He was the author of a kind of singing called the Ambrosian chant. He died in 397.
Am'bulance, a name applied to the covered wagons used in our large cities to convey the wounded and sick to the hospitals. Strictly, it means a movable hospital attached to an army in the field, to afford early help to the wounded in battle. It was introduced by the surgeon Larrey, into the French army in 1792. Before that, wounded soldiers were either carried to the rear by their comrades, or left uncared for, sometimes until a day after the battle. The usual working of an ambulance during a battle is as follows: The field station is usually just in rear of the troops, and therefore under fire; the wounded are there treated hastily, then carried on stretchers to the transfer station, which is out of rifle range. Here they are put into ambulance wagons and driven to the dressing station, out of artillery range, where the wounds are dressed, and the sufferers are finally taken to the field-hospital.
Am'ent. The characteristic flower cluster of birches, alders, willows, etc. See Inflorescence.
(Willow, male and female,
America (a-mer' i-ka). One of the five continents of the globe, has an area of 16,000,000 square miles, and is larger than Europe and Africa together. Its extreme length from the northern limit of Alaska to the south end of Patagonia is 8,700 miles, or, including the Arctic Islands on the north and Tierra del Fuego on the south, 9,600 miles. Its greatest width is over 3,000 miles. The isthmus of Panama, but twenty-eight miles wide at its narrowest point, separates the continent into North America and South America, and each of these is known as a continent.
These two continents are similar in physical characteristics. Each is a triangle, broadest at the north, and the trend of the western coast of each is directly southeast. Each has a vast mountain range on the western coast, a lower and less continuous range in the eastern section, with a wide central region of plains. Each is drained by three great river systems.
North America is larger than South America, having an area of 8,700,000 square miles. On the northeast is Hudson Bay, and on the eastern coast are the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the Bay of Fundy, Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of Honduras, with other smaller indentations, affording ample and safe harbors. The western coast has few inlets, the most important being San Francisco Bay, Puget Sound and the Gulf of California.
Surface and Drainage. On the western side is the great Rocky Mountain range, running the whole length of the continent. Besides the main Rocky Mountain range, called Sierra Madre in Mexico, are parallel ridges, the Coast, Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges. This vast system of mountain ranges and
