Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/213

ERIC. L83 ERICSSON. and constant suspicion of others not only alien- ated the affections of his subjects, hut prevented tin- growth of a strong government. Elizabeth of England and Mary oif Scotland were more than once the objects of his matrimonial schemes. Finally he married his mistress, a Swedish peas- ant girl, who exercised ui'cat influence over him, especially during his attacks of insanity. The nobility at last rebelled, and the estates in 15(18 deposed Eric and chose his brother John as King. Eric suffered the most rigorous confinement, and the frequent conspiracies to free him only made his lot the harder. To re vc all danger, John caused his brother to be poisoned in 1577. ERIC THE RED (c.950-1000) . The colonizer of Greenland. He was a native of Norway, and fled from the country under a charge of homicide, settling on the west coast of Iceland. Another murder in 984 forced him to flee to an island in the west, which had been discovered more than a century before, but not settled. In 985 Eric returned to Norway and secured colonists for the new land, which he called Greenland. He be- came the leading man of the colony, and called his chief town Gaidar. His son, Leif Ericson (q.v.). introduced Christianity, and is supposed to have landed on the New England coast about the year 1000. Eric has by some been credited with the discovery of America. In the eleventh century Greenland became tributary to Norway. After flourishing for about four centuries, the silt lenient suddenly disappeared from history, all communications, commercial and otherwise, being mysteriously broken off. It is sometimes sup posed that all of the people were carried off by the black death in the fourteenth century. ERTCA'CE-iE (Neo-Lat.,from Gk.ipelicy, creike, epUrj, dike, heath ) . An order of dicotyledonous plants, the heath family, which consists chiefly of small shrubs, but which contains some trees. The leaves are alternate, opposite, or in whorls, entire, destitute of stipules, often small, in some genera mostly evergreen and rigid. The flowers are sometimes solitary in the axils of the leaves, sometimes grouped in different modes of inflores- cence, and are often of great beauty, in which Tespect no order of plants excels this. The calyx is four or five parted, and the corolla, which is often bell-shaped, has four or five lobes. The stamens are twice as many as the corolla lobes, and the anthers in most genera open by small pores at the summit. Ovary four to five celled, and one to many seeded. The fruit is a capsule or a berry. About 50 genera and 1300 species of this order are known, of which the greater number are natives of South Africa, which region particular- ly abounds in the genus Erica and its allies, the true heaths. Some of them are also found at the utmost limits of northern vegetation. They are rare within the tropics, and occur only at considerable elevations. Few species are found in Australia. Many of the Ericaceae are social plants, and a single species sometimes covers a great tract, in which it constitutes the principal vegetation. This is most strikingly exemplified in the heaths of Europe and the north of Asia. Medicinal properties exist in some of the Erica- ceae, as the bearberry. The trailing arbutus of North America (Epipwa repens) , also called ground-laurel and mayflower. is a general favor- ite- Marcotic and poisonous qualities are of not infrequent occurrence. The berries of some species are edible. The Rhododendreae have by Borne been regarded a a distinct order, but are generally considered a suborder oi Ericaceae, which contains t he genera Rhododendron, Kalmia, Ledum, clu. The larger leaves and flowers, and generally also the largei plants oi the order, be lung in this suborder; which, however, contai also man) imall shrubs of subarctic and elevated mountain igions. Bj Bentham and Booker the green leaved species of Pyrolaceae arc includ- ed in the order, and Gray includes all of the Pyrolaeeae .i- a suborder of Ericaceae Bentham ami Hooker also re ve the Vi inioideae and make an independent order of them. According to Engler, the chief divisions and genera oi Eri- caceae are Rhododendroideas, represented by Rho- dodendron, Ledum, Kalmia (qq.v.), and l'hyl- lodoce; Arbutoideae, which embraces Vndromeda, Gaultheria, Arbutus (qq.v.), Cassiope, Epigaea, Arctostaphylus ; Vaccinioideae, with Vaccinium, Gaylussacia (qq.v.), Agapetes, Macleanea, and Thibaudia; and Erieoideae, of which Erica, Cal- luna, Ereniia, and Salaxis arc the principal genera. See Azalea . ERICHSEN, er'ik-scn. Sir John Ebio (1818- 96). An English surgeon, born in Copenhagen. He received his medical education at the Univer- sity College, London, and in Paris, and in 1844 became lecturer on anatomy and physiology at Westminster Hospital. In 1848 he became as- sistant surgeon, and in 1850 surgeun-in-eharge of the University College Hospital, serving also as professor of surgery from 1850 to 1866, and Holme professor of clinical surgery from 1866 to 1875. He was president of the Royal College of Sur- geons in 1880, was elected a fellow of the Royai Society in 1876, and was created a baronet in 1895. He is best known for his text-book on the Science and Art of Surgery ( 1st ed. 1853) , which was translated into German, Italian, and Spanish, and is still considered one of the standard text- books of surgery in the greater part of the world. ERICHT (er'lKt), Loch. A lake in the north- west of Perthshire, and south of Inverness-shire, Scotland, in a wild, uninhabited district, amid the Grampian Mountains (Map: Scotland, D 3). It is 14 miles long by 1% to 1% miles broad. Its banks rise steeply from the water's edge. By one outlet it joins Loch Rannoch, and by another it runs into Loch Lydoch, its waters ultimately reaching the Tay. Although its surface is about 1500 feet above the sea. it never freezes. In a cave at the south end Prince Charles found safe con- cealment in 1746. ERTCHTHO'NITJS (Lat., from Gk. 'Ep<,rft5- vwc). (1) The son of Dardanus and Batea, fa- ther of Tn is. and ancestor of .Eneas. (2) The sun of Hephaestus, identified with Erechtheus. ER'ICSON, Lr.lF. A probably historic person- age whose adventures are described in the Ice- landic sagas. lie was the son of the Norseman Eric the Red. and. about a.d. 1000, discovered a land to the west, which he called Vinland ('Vineland'l . The site of the early settlement has been variously placed along the Atlantic sea- board — on Labrador, on Newfoundland, and on the mainland farther south. Consult The Eng- lish Rediscovery and Colonization of America (London. 1891 )'. ERICSSON, John (1803-89). A distinguished engineer, lb- was born in the Parish of Fernebo, Vermland, Sweden, July 31, 1803. After serving