Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/134

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114: ADELSBERG ADEN Seltz, Alsace, Dec. 16, 999. She was a daughter of Rudolph II., king of Burgundy, whose contest with King Hugo of Italy was peaceably ended by her marrying in 947 the latter's son, Lothaire II., after whose violent death in 950 she was imprisoned by his suc- cessor Berenger II. for declining to marry his deformed son Adalbert. She escaped to the castle of a relative and solicited the protection of Otho I., the Great, who, captivated by her beauty and character, married her in 951. She was crowned empress of the West in 962, and exerted much influence in Germany during a part of the reign of her son Otho II. and as regent during the minority of her grandson Otho III. She was called the "mother of kingdoms." The latter part of her life was consecrated to works of piety and charity at Seltz, where she founded a Benedictine monas- tery ; and she is honored as a saint on Dec. 16. Her biography has been written by St. Odilon and others in Latin, French, and German, and by G. B. Semeria in Italian (Vita politico-religiosa di Santa Adelaide, regina d'ltalia ed impcratrice del sacro Ro- mano imperio, Turin, 1842). ADELSBERG, a small market town of Carniola, Austria, on the Semmering railroad, midway between Laybach and Trieste, near a cele- brated cavern," which has five main divisions. The first, called Neptune or Great Dome grotto, traversed for the length of 400 feet by the Poik river, and rich in stalactites, consti- tutes the old part of the cavern, which has been known for upward of 600 years. The entrance to the new parts of the cavern was accidentally discovered in 1816. This lends in the first instance to the second main division, called the emperor Ferdinand's chamber, with large corridors called the ball-room and the circus, where annual festivals take place, and that of Calvary, a mound formed by the ruined columns of rocks more than 200 feet high. The third main division consists of two basins of water called the dropping well and Tartarus. The fourth main division, the arch- duke John grotto, opens behind a curtain of transparent spar, and contains other shapes called Little Curtain and Gothic Hall. The fifth main division, the Francis Joseph and Elizabeth grotto, explored for the first time in 1857, discloses a range of chambers with brilliant and fantastic shapes, and a pictur- esque elevation called Little Calvary. About three miles from Adelsberg is the Black or Magdalen grotto, through which runs a river. Here was first discovered the proteus anguinus, an animal half fish, half lizard, and eyeless. The Poik cavern, a mile from the last-named grotto, is only accessible by the aid of a rope, and remarkable Chiefly for the dashing of the river over the rocks. ADEL11SG. I. .loliaiiii Christoph, a German lexicographer, born at Spantekow, Pomerania, Aug. 8, 1732, died in Dresden, Sept. 10, 1806. He finished his studies at the university of Halle, and went to Leipsic, supporting him- self by translations of valuable foreign works. His Glossarium manuale ad Scriptores media et infimm Latinitatis (Halle, l772-'84) is his most important achievement in this depart- ment. His great work, for which he took Johnson's English dictionary as a pattern, is his Grammatisch-kritisches Worterbuch der hochdeutschen Mundart (Leipsic, 1774-'86). He also produced Deutsche Sprachlehre fur Schulen (Berlin, 1781), and Umstandliches Lehrgebdude der deutschen Sprache (Berlin, 1782). In 1787 Adelung was called to Dres- den, and appointed head librarian to the electoral library in that city, where he con- ceived the plan of his Mithridates, a work which was to contain an account of all the known languages of the earth, with a transla- tion of the Lord's prayer given as a specimen of each. He only lived to finish the first volume, which gave an account of the Asiatic, languages. The work was afterward taken up by Johann Severin Vater, and his own nephew Friedrich Adelung, and finished in 4 vols. It is said that he devoted 14 hours a day to study. II. Friedrieh TOD, nephew of the preceding, born in Stettin, Feb. 25, 1768, died in St. Peters- burg, Jan. 30, 1843. He began his career as a private tutor, and spent several years in Rome, but subsequently went to St. Peters- burg, where he was appointed by the emperor Alexander preceptor of his brothers Nicholas (afterward czar) and Michael. His principal works are : " The Relations between the San- scrit and Russian Languages" (1815), an "Es- say on the Sanscrit Literature and Language " (1830), and Bibliotheca Sanscrita (1837). ADEN (anc. Adane, Attanee, or Arabia Felix), a fortified British seaport town on the S. coast of Arabia and on the gulf of Aden, about 120 m. E. of the entrance to the Red sea at Bab-el- Mandeb, lat. 12 47' N., Ion. 45 9' E. ; pop. about 50,000. It is built on the N. E. end of the peninsula of Aden, and connected with the mainland by a low, sandy isthmus. The lat- ter, united with another peninsula called Jebel Hassan, forms the two extensive harbors of Aden, the best on the Arabian coast. The town stands at the E. base of a volcanic moun- tain range from 1,000 to 1,800 'feet high. It is a place of considerable strength and is well garrisoned, its situation between Asia and Africa resembling that of 'Gibraltar between Europe and Africa. The superiority of the port and abundant supply of water render Aden a valuable and important station on the way from India to Europe. The inhabitants are Asiatic and African, with a few Europeans, chiefly English. The English political resident is the governing authority. The town is sur- rounded with gardens and fruit trees. The climate, though dry and hot, is not insalubri- ous. In ancient times, Aden was the great centre of trade between Arabia, Egypt, and India. It was destroyed by the Romans in the time of Augustus, but soon revived. Marco