Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/131

ADANSOX ADAXSON, Michel, a French naturalist, of Scotch descent, born at Aix, April 7, 1727, died in Paris, Aug. 3, 1806. At the age of 21 he went at his own cost, though of very limited fortune, to the French colony of Senegal to study nature. After five years he returned to France with a fine collection. He first at- tacked the Linnaean method, and his writings paved the way for the acceptance by the scientific world of Jussieu's system. The generic name Adansonia was given in his honor to the baobab tree, of which he gave the first scientific account. He was also dis- tinguished for philanthropy, and proposed to found a colony with free negroes in Senegal, which was not, however, favored by the min- istry of Louis XV. His name is associated with a plan for a vast cyclopsedia of natural history, which the academy had not the cour- age to take up. He, however, persisted in his ideas, devoting many years to the collection of immense masses of manuscript material. By the revolution he was stripped of everything, and reduced to such abject poverty, that when he was invited in 1798 to take his seat as a member of the reorganized institute (having been a member of the academy since 1759), he was obliged to decline for want of shoes. He afterward received a small pension, in the en- joyment of which he died in his 80th year. His principal works are : Histoire naturelle du Senegal (1 vol. 4to, 1757, including L 1 Histoire des coquillages, the earliest attempt at a scien- tific classification of shells according to their inhabitants), and Methode naturelle pour ap- prendre d connaitre les differentes families des plantes (2 vols. 8vo, 1764, written with a phonetic orthography of his own invention). He also contributed many valuable memoirs to the publications of the academy of sciences. .A DAK, the name of the 6th month in the civil year of the Jews, and of the 12th in their ecclesiastical year, answering to parts of Feb- ruary and March. A fast for the death of Moses is observed on the 7th, the fast of Esther on the 13th, and on the 14th and 15th the feast of Purim. A second Adar is intercalated seven times in every nineteen years, in order to harmonize the lunar and solar periods. ADDA (anc. Addua), a river of K Italy, a tributary of the Po. It rises in the Rhajtian Alps, flows S. W., S., and S. E. through the Valtellina and Lombardy, and the lakes of Como and Lecce, and enters the Po about 8 m. W. of Cremona. Its course is about 80 m. Lodi, the scene of one of Bonaparte's early triumphs, and Cassano, at which Moreau was defeated in 1799, are on its banks. ADDER. See VIPER. ADDINGTON, a S. county of the province of Ontario, Canada, bordering on the bay of Quinte, near the E. end of Lake Ontario ; area about 2,000 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 21,312. The county is about 122 m. long, and from 7 to 18 wide. It has between 20 and 30 lakes, the longest of which. Massanogo, is about 50 m. ADDISOX 111 long. The northern townships are new and thinly settled. The chief occupations are agri- culture and lumbering. Chief town, Bath. ADDINGTON. I. Henry, Lord Sidmouth, an English statesman, born May 30, 1757, died Feb. 15, 1844. He was the son of Dr. Anthony Addington of Reading, known as the author of treatises on scurvy and on the mortality of beasts, and for his attempt in 1778 to establish a political alliance between the earl of Bute and the earl of Chatham, whose physician he was. This connection with Lord Chatham led to an intimacy between Henry Addington and the younger William Pitt, who induced him to enter parliament in 1784. He was called to the bar in the same year, but never practised. In 1789 he was elected speaker, and continued to support Pitt, but voted against him on the slave question, favoring a gradual emancipa- tion. In 1801 Pitt resigned and Addington took his place as chancellor of the exchequer and first lord of the treasury, and formed a new ministry. He aided in forming the treaty of Amiens in 1802, the objectionable clauses in which were vigorously attacked by "Wind- ham and Grenville. But in 1803, when peace was considered dishonorable, he supported a war policy. The prince of Wales, afterward George IV., had a personal dislike to Addington, who was regarded as the chief of the special friends of George III., and the illness of the latter gave the prince opportunity to show his animosity. In 1804 Addington resigned, and the king created him a peer by the title of Viscount Sidmouth (Jan. 12, 1805), and ap- pointed him president of the council, which office he resigned in July. After Pitt's death, Lord Sidmouth entered the ministry of Gren- ville and Fox (Feb., 1806, to March, 1807), first as lord privy seal and afterward as president of the council. In 1812 Lord Sidmouth was appointed secretary for the home department in Lord Liverpool's ministry. In 1822, on the death of Lord Castlereagh, ho resigned his office, but at Lord Liverpool's request retained his seat in the cabinet two years longer. II. Henry In win, an English diplomatist, a rela- tive of the preceding, born March 24, 1790, died in London, March 6, 1870. He entered the foreign office after leaving Winchester col- lege, and was for upward of 30 years in the diplomatic service in various countries, includ- ing the United States, whither he was sent in 1822, and again in 1826. He was under-secre- tary of state from 1842 to 1854, when on his retirement he was made privy councillor. ADDISON, a W. county of Vermont, bound- ed W. by Lake Champlain and- drained by Otter creek and its tributaries, which afford excellent water power ; area, 750 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 23,484. Near the lake the surface is almost level, but it becomes rugged and moun- tainous toward the east. The soil is fertile. The productions in 1870 were 57,725 bushels of wheat, 144,257 of corn, 334,446 of oats, 28,211 of buckwheat, 317,043 of potatoes,