Altona has an organized fire department, which forms one of the chief items of expense in the city's budget, amounting annually to about $44,000. Altona owns and operates its own gas works at a net profit of about $75,000 annually. Its electric light plant is owned and operated by a private company, which pays the city 10% of its receipts.
Among the charitable and benevolent institutions are a public poorhouse. an infirmary, insane asylum, a house of refuge for boys, one general hospital, two hospitals for children, and a lying-in hospital. Its educational institutions include a gymnasium, three high scliools, several technical schools, twenty-seven grammar schools, and a museum.
Altona was settled in 1536, and rapidly developed into a prosperous commercial town. In 1640 it came under the rule of Denmark. Its trade suffered during the Napoleonic wars, but revived with peace. In 1866 it was annexed to Prussia. Consult H. Meyer, Hamburg und Altona (Hamburg, 1836).
ALTOONA, al-toi5'na.
A city in Blair Co., Pa., 117 miles east of Pittsburg, on the Pennsylvania Railroad (Map: Pennsylvania, C 3). It is at the eastern base of the Alleghany Mountains, between Alleghany Mountain and the Brush Mountain, situated amid the most picturesque mountain scenery, the city itself having an elevation of 1180 feet above the sea level. Altoona is a typical American railroad town, its industries centring principally in the immense shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which employ some 7000 operatives and have an extensive production of locomotives, passenger coaches, and freight cars. The city contains a public library and hospital, and Lakemont Park. Of particular interest is the famous Horseshoe Bend, near the city. The government is vested in a mayor, elected every three years, a bicameral city council, and subordinate administrative officials. There are municipal water works, built in 1860 and acquired by the city in 1872, which cost about $680,000. Altoona spends annually in maintenance and operation about $255,000; the principal items of expense being $85,000 for schools, $20,000 for the fire department, $20,000 for the water works, $15,000 for the police department, and $15,000 for municipal lighting. Altoona was founded in 1850 by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and was incorporated as a borough in 1854. and chartered as a city in 1868. The great railroad strike of 1877 caused considerable excitement here, and troops were ordered out to protect the company's property. Pop., 1880, 19,710 1890, 30,337; 1900, 38,973.
ALTOONA, or ALLATOO'NA, PASS. A pass near Allatoona, Ga., the scene, on October 5, 1864, of one of the most hotly contested of the minor battles of the Civil War. In his operations about Atlanta, General Sherman made Allatoona his secondary base, and stored there one million rations of bread, which General Hood determined to capture, detailing General S. G. French for the enterprise. As soon as Sherman was aware of Hood's designs he ordered General Corse (q.v.), stationed at Rome, to move with the utmost speed to the assistance of the small garrison, to hold the place against all odds, until the arrival of reënforcements. Accordingly, with a force of less than 2000, he maintained the defense against some 4000 Confederates from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon, when General French, alarmed by the approach of Federal reënforcements, withdrew. The loss in killed, wounded, and missing was about 700 on each side. An interesting account of the engagement is given in General Sherman's Memoirs (New York, 1888).
ALTORF, alt'orf.
See Altdorf.
ALTO-RILIEVO, iil'to-re-lya'vo
(Ital. high-relief). The term used in sculpture to designate that mode of representing objects by which they are made to project strongly and boldly from the background without being entirely detached. In alto-rilievo some portions of the figures usually stand quite free, and in this respect it differs not only from basso-rilievo, or low-relief, but from the intermediate kind of relief known as mezzo-rilievo, or semi-relief, in which the figures are fully rounded, but where there are no detached portions. A fourth term in the series is cavo-rilievo (q.v.), where the relief is sunk below the ground surface. A fifth Italian term is stiacciato, to describe what is really drawing or outlining on marble or stone with little or no relief. It was used mainly in the background of Renaissance reliefs as the furthest plane and as merely suggestive, beyond the work in basso-rilievo. These five terms cover every possible variety of relief. Their historic use is given under Relief Sculpture and Sculpture, History of. In order to be in high-relief, objects ought actually to project somewhat more than half their thickness, no conventional means being employed in this style to give them apparent prominence. In low, or bas-relief, on the other hand, the figures are usually flattened: but means are adopted to prevent the projection from appearing to the eye to be less than half; because if an object projects less than half, or, to state it otherwise, is more than half buried in the background, it is obvious that its true outline or profile cannot be represented. This rule, that in all reliefs there shall be either a real or an apparent projection of at least half the thickness of round (ibjects, was strictly observed in the best period of Greek art; but it has been often neglected in the execution of reliefs in later times, and hence attempts have been made at foreshortening and perspective, which have necessarily resulted in partial failure. For illustration of relief, see article Ghiberti.
ALTÖTTING, iilt-etlng.
A place of pilgrimage not far from the Inn, situated in one of the most beautiful and fertile plains of Upper Bavaria (Map: Bavaria, E 4). Multitudes of Catholics from Germany and Austria visit the ancient chapel containing a black wooden image of the Virgin (the Black Virgin), dating back to the eighth century, and great treasures of jewels, the hearts of Maximilian I. and of many princes of the Bavarian family are interred there. In the Peter and Paul's Chapel lies the body of Count Tilly. Altötting was originally a villa regia, where several German emperors held their court. From 1838 to 1873 it was the headquarters of the Redemptorist Fathers, and at present is the site of a Capuchin monastery.
ALTRANSTÄDT,;ilt'ran-stet.
A village in Saxony, 15 miles west of Leipzig (Map: Prussia, E 3). It is famous as the place where Augustus II., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, concluded a treaty with King Charles XII. of Sweden in 1706. Pop., 1900, 823.
