functions being in the liands of selectmen. Popu- lation in I8OO; G319; in 11)00, 7061. Atliol was first settled in 1735 and was called Pequoig until 1762, when it was incorporated as a town under its present name. See Hhtory of Worcester County (2 vols., Boston, 1879).'
ATHOR, a'thor, ATHYR, ii'thir, or HATHOR, hil'thor ( EgA-ptian Haf-hor). An Egyp-
tian goddess. The original seat of lier cult seems
to have been Denderah in Upjier Egypt, where
the ruins of her famous temple are still to be
seen, but at a very early period her worship
spread over the whole of Egj'pt. Her primitive
fetish was, apparently, a buffalo's skull raised
on a pole, and from this was developed the
sacred Athor column, which plays an important
part in Egyptian architecture, bearing, as capi-
tal, a female head with the ears of a cow. The
same head forms the central ornament of the
si&trum, or rattle for temple music, which ap-
pears among the insignia of' this goddess. In
later times Athor was regarded as the goddess
of music and the dance, of joy and love. By
the Greeks, she was identified with Aphrodite
(Venus). Earlier, however, she was conceived
as a cosmical divinity, typifying the sky, and
the traditional explanation of lier name as mean-
ing 'the house of horns' ( i.e. of the sun ) is
a result of this conception. The world is fre-
quently represented in the form of her sacred
animal, the cow, bearing between her horns the
sun-god or his disk. In Egyptian mythological
texts, Athor is sometimes called the mother of
the sun, which is daily born from the sky. As
the nocturnal sky, she became the goddess of
the dead, and, under the latest dynasties, de-
ceased women were supposed to become Athor,
just as deceased men became Osiris. The repre-
sentations of Athor vary greatly. Usually she
is depicted in the form of a woman with a
cow's head. The third month of the Egyptian
year (Athor) was named for this goddess. For
illustration, see Egypt.
ATH'OS (Gk. "Affus. called in modern times
A7101' 'Opot, Hagion Oros, by the Greeks, and
Monte Santo by the Italians, the name signi-
fying Holy Mount). Properly the highest ele-
vation on the easternmost of the three Chalci-
dian peninsulas. In a broader sense of the word
the whole peninsula was called Athos. The
peninsula is about 40 miles long and is connected
with the mainland by an isthmus hardly a mile
and a half broad. It contained in ancient times
several towns, and the mountain Athos (fi340
feet) is at its southern extremity. The point
was a perilous one for sailors, and Xerxes, when
planning the invasion of Greece, ran a canal
through the isthmus, traces of which are still
to be seen. Mount Athos has been since the
Middle Ages the seat of a monastic republic,
which, at the present time, consists of twenty
monasteries and about (5000 monks. The origin
of some of these religious houses is dated by
legend as far back as the time of Constantine.
In the Thirteenth Century they were pillaged
by the Latin conquerors of Constantinople, but
recovered under the succeeding emperors. In re-
cent times, they have through three centuries
of Moslem rule preserved their independence
and former privileges. In the Middle Ages they
were the centre of Greek learning and they have
furnished to scholars many valuable Greek
manuscripts, but at the present day there is a
universal lack of learning among the monks of
these establishments. Consult: Curzon, Mows-
trric.i ill the Leraiit (London, 1881); A. Ney-
rat. //.4/7IOS (Paris, 1880); Athelstan Riley,
Athos (London, 1887); and Brockhaus. Die
Kiinst ill lien Xthos-Klostern (Leipzig, 1891).
ATHOS, a'tfis'. The nom-de-guerre of a
character in Dumas's Musketeer romances, whose
real name in the story was the Comte de la F&re.
He is one of the three guardsmen with whom
d'Artagnan (q.v.) associates himself — the hus-
band of the infamous 'Miladi,' and father of
the Vicomte de Bragelonne, who gave his name
to the last book of the trilogy-.
ATH-WART', ATHWART'SHIP. See Beab-
INO.
ATHYR, ii'thir. See Athor.
ATITLAN, ii't^-tliin'. A lake situated in the
Department of Solola, Guatemala, 4700 feet
above the sea-level, over 24 miles long and 10
miles wide, with a circumference of 64 miles
(Map: Central America, B 3). It has a depth
of more than a thousand feet, is surrounded by
steep declivities, and has no visible outlet,
though many small streams flow into it. At its
southern end are two large volcanoes, San Pedro,
7000 feet high; and Atitlan, over 10,500 feet
high.
ATITLAN, or SANTIAGO DE ATITLAN, siin'te-a'go da ft'te-tliin'. An Indian town on the mountain lake of Atitlan, in the Department of Solola, Guatemala, 49 miles west of the city of Guatemala. It has mineral springs and cotton-spinning is an important industrv. Population, 9000.
ATKARSK, at-karsk'. The capital of a
district in the Government of Saratov, Russia;
near the junction of the Medvieditza with one
of its feeders (Map: Russia, F 4). It carries
on a brisk trade in grain. Population, in 1897,
10,000. The settlement of Etkara is mentioned
in the Fourteenth Century.
AT'KINSON, Edward (1827 — ). An American economist. He was bom in Brookline, Mass., and was educated in private schools. For many years he managed manufacturing companies and afterwards conducted a fire insurance company for the mutual insurance of factories. He invented the 'Aladdin oven,' an improved
cooking apparatus. He has contributed extensively to periodicals and has published many pamphlets and books on economic subjects, banking, railways, cotton manufactures, the tariff, money, fire prevention, and the nutritive value of foods. During the Presidential campaign of 1900 he was an active opponent of the Administration's policy of expansion. Among his more extended works are: The Distribution of Products ( 1885) ; The Industrial Progress of the Xdtion (1889); and The Science of Nutrition (10th ed., 1898).
ATKINSON, George Francis (1854—). An American botanist. He was born at Raisinville, Monroe County, Mich., received his education at Olivet College, Michigan, and at Cornell University, and was made assistant professor of general zoiilogy and entomology at the University of North Carolina in 1885 and professor of botany and zoology there in 1886. In 1889 he was
