Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/293

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ALDERSHOTT 269 railroad along the N. E. coast. St. Anne, the chief town (commonly called the Town), is in a beautiful valley nearly in the centre of the island. The inhabitants principally live by fishing and agriculture. The Alderney cow is small and graceful in form, of dun or tawny color, and remarkable for milking qualities. About 6 m. from Alderney to the west are the Caskets, a cluster of dangerous rocks, on which there are three lighthouses forming a triangle. Upon these rocks Prince William, son of Henry I., with a retinue of above 140 young noble- men, of the principal families of England and Normandy, perished in 1120; and in 1744 the Victory, of 110 guns, with a crew of 1,100 men, was totally lost. Together with the other Channel islands, Alderney formed a dependency of the Normans, and passed to the crown of England. It is itself a dependency of Guern- sey. The civil power of Alderney is, under the peculiar constitution of the Channel islands, vested in a judge appointed by the crown and six jurats chosen by the people for life. These, with 12 douzainiers, also chosen by the people and the governor, form a legislature in which the douzainiers deliberate, but neither they nor the governor may vote. The jurats, with the king's advocate and the greffier or registrar, constitute the court of justice, from which an appeal lies to the royal court at Guernsey, and in the last resort to the king in council. In criminal cases the court at Alderney is only a preliminary tribunal, the court at Guernsey having the final determination of the cause. ALDERSHOTT, an English military camp of instruction, in Hampshire, 50 m. by rail S. W. from London, established in 1854-'5 on Alder- shott common, a broad tract of sandy land. Near the site of the old village of Aldershott an entirely new town has sprung up, and the population of the parish has increased from about 900 in 1852 to over 20,000 in 1872, chiefly soldiers and persons connected with the military and civil services. A broad military road sepa- rates the town from the camp, which consists of N. and S. sections, divided by the Basingstoke canal, extending over an area of seven square miles, with accommodation for at least 20,000 soldiers. The structures consist of long rows of wooden huts for the soldiers permanently stationed there, around which they cultivate gardens ; the headquarters, a substantial brick building; several churches, a permanent bar- racks, hospitals, places of recreation, &c. The cost of establishing this national military depot has already considerably exceeded 1,000,000. During the last five years annual reviews have taken place here between the months of June and September; two or more regi- ments of the volunteer forces being detailed, in their turn, to cooperate with the regulars, and thus gain a practical knowledge of military duty in the camp and on the field. ALDHELM, an English divine and writer dur- ing the Saxon heptarchy, born about 656, died in 709. He was a relative of the king of the West Saxons. He is said to have been the first Englishman who wrote Latin poetry. About 685 he became the first abbot of Malmesbury, and in 705 the first bishop of Sherborne (after- ward the bishopric of Salisbury). He is chiefly known by his two works I)e Virginitate, in prose (published by Wharton, 1693), and De Laude Virginum, in verse. ALDINE EDITIONS, works which proceeded from the press of the Manutii (Aldus the Elder, Paulus, and Aldus the Younger), a celebrated family of printers in Venice during the 15th and 16th centuries. (See MANUTIUS.) The Aldine editions comprise the ancient classics, and the works of Petrarch, Boccaccio, Dante, and others. The editions of the senior Aldus, who founded the business in 1490, are the most esteemed. Spurious works with the imprint of the Aldi are by no means uncommon, as they were counterfeited even in their own time, and very extensively at later periods. The great perfection which has been attained in the art of printing, and the attention which has been given, especially during the present cen- tury, to the reprint of the classics, have con- siderably diminished the real value of the Al- dine editions, although rare specimens are still much sought for by collectors. The library of the late archduke of Tuscany contains, it is believed, the most perfect collection of Aldine works ; but they are met with in most of the great libraries, as the Bodleian at Oxford, the national library at Paris, and the British mu- seum. A. A. Renouard made a complete col- lection and published a catalogue of them in his Annales de Vimprimerie des Aides (Paris, 1803 and 1834). A LI MM. I. Antonio, count, an Italian states- man, born in Bologna in 1756, died in Pavia, Oct. 5, 1826. When Bologna in 1797 was wrested by General Bonaparte from the papal government, Aldini, who was then professor of jurisprudence, was sent to Paris by his fel- low citizens. He was chosen president of the council of the ancients in the Cisalpine repub- lic, and was held in much esteem by Napoleon, who in 1805 created him a count, and made him a minister of state for the kingdom of Italy. After the fall of Napoleon and the reestablish- ment of the former rulers in Italy, he resided in Lombardy. II. Giovanni, brother of the preceding, and nephew of Galvani, born in Bo logna, April 10, 1762, died in Milan, Jan. 17, 1834. He was professor of natural philosophy at Bologna, Italian counsellor of state, and knight of the order of the iron crown. He is well known by his works (written in Italian, French, and English) on the practical applica- tions of galvanism, illumination, tides, means of safety from fire, &c. He prepared a scheme for turning to profit the rise and fall of the tide in the lagoons of Venice in working mills ; and is also said to have been the inventor of articles of fire-proof clothing. ALDOBRANDINI, a noble family of Florence in the 16th and 17th centuries. SILVESTRO, a cele-