Ava
2026 Editor's Note: This page uses language about other peoples, religions, or nationalities that was commonplace when the book was published and is offensive by today's standards. The text has been left exactly as it was printed, rather than cut or softened, so that the historical record — including how ordinary such language once was — is preserved. (Ed: ET 2026-07-22) ARVA, YAVA, or KAVA (piper methysticum), a plant of the natural order piperaceæ, possessing narcotic properties. Until recently , it was ranked in It is a shrubby plant, with heart-shaped acuminate leaves, and very short, solitary, axillary spikes of flowers. It is a native of many of the South Sea islands, where the inhabitants intoxicate themselves with a fermented liquor prepared from the upper portion of the root and the base of the stem . The narcotic property is ascribed to an acrid resin kawine , which is present in the root. The intoxication is not like that produced by ardent spirits, but rather a stupefaction like that caused by opium. The habitual use of ava causes a whitish scurf on the skin, which, among the heathen Tahitians, was reckoned a badge of nobility , the common people not having the means of indulgence requisite to produce it. Ava is, like cocaine , a local anesthetic.
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Avalanche
the fall of a mass of ice or snow from a mountain slope. Ordinary avalanches are of frequent, even momentary, occurrence in mountain regions, but they are ordinarily so small or so far above the line of habitation that they do no harm. Occasionally, however, immense accumulations slip loose and go crashing down through the forests into the valley below. The Union Pacific Railway protects long stretches of its tracks with strongly framed snow sheds calculated to uphold the weight of snow that comes sliding down all winter. The region most noted for avalanches, or at least the region in which they have been studied most closely, is that of the Alps. Mountain climbers regard the danger from avalanches as the greatest risk they take. 2026 Editor's Note: Avalanches took a staggering toll the entry never imagined: in December 1916, during the First World War, avalanches in the Alps killed thousands of soldiers in a matter of days — some deliberately triggered as weapons. Today ski patrols set them off with explosives before they can strike, and backcountry travelers carry transceivers to be dug out in time. (Ed: BR 2026-07-08)
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Avalanches
masses of snow or ice that slide or roll down the declivities of high mountains, and often occasion great devastation. They have various names, according to their nature. Drift or powder avalanches consist of snow, which, loose and dry from strong frost, once set in motion by the wind, accumusuddenly lates in its descent, and comes suc into the valley in an overwhelming dustcloud. Avalanches of this kind occur chiefly in winter, and are dangerous on men and animals, and overturning account of their suddenness, suffocating houses by the compression of the air which they cause. Another kind of avalanche resembles a landslip. When the snow begins to melt in spring, the soil beneath becomes loose and slippery; and the snow slides down the declivity by its own weight, carrying with it soil, trees, and rocks. Ice avalanches are those that are seen and heard in summer thundering down the steeps-e. g, of the Jungfrau. They consist of masses of ice that detach themselves from the glaciers in the upper regions. They are most common in July, August and September. Nine great Alpine avalanches , which cost 447 lives, are on record between 1518 and 1879, the most destructive being one of 1827 , which swept away half the village of Biel, in the upper Valais, with 88 inhabitants .
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Avalon
a peninsula forming the E. part of Newfoundland , in which St. John's, the capital, is situated.
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Avalon
a borough of Pennsylvania in Allegheny co., about 6 miles W. of Pittsburgh. It is on the Ohio river, and the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago railroad. It is a suburb of Pittsburgh and is entirely residential . Pop. (1910) 4,317; (1920) 5,277.
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Avanturine
or AVENTURINE, a variety of quartz containing glittering spangles s of mica through it; also a sort of artificial gem of similar appearance.
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Avars
a people, probably of Turanian origin, who at an early period may have migrated from the region E. of the Tobol in Siberia to that about the Don, the Caspian Sea, and the Volga. A part advanced to the Danube in 555 A. D., and settled in Dacia. They served in Justinian's army, aided the Lombards in destroying the kingdom of the Gepide, and in the 6th century conquered under their khan, Bajan, the region of Pannonia. They then won Dalmatia, pressed into Thuringia and Italy against the Franks and Lombards, and subdued the Slavs dwelling on the Danube, as well as the Bulgarians on the Black Sea. But they were intimately limited to Pannonia, where they were overcome by Charlemagne, and nearly extirpated by the Slavs of Moravia. After 827 they disappear from history. Traces of their fortified settlements are found, and known as Avarian rings.
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Avatar
more properly AVATARA, in Hindu mythology, an incarnation of the Deity. Of the innumerable avatars the chief are the 10 incarnations of Vishnu, who appeared successively as a fish, a tortoise, a boar.
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Avatcha
a volcano and bay in Kamtchatka. The volcano, which is 9,000 feet high, was last active in 1855. The town of Petropavlovsk lies in the bay.
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Ave Maria
the first two words of the angel Gabriel's salutation (Luke i: 28), and the beginning of the very common Latin prayer to the Virgin in the Roman Catholic Church. Its lay use was sanctioned at the end of the 12th century, and a papal edict of 1326 ordains the repetition of the prayer thrice each morning, noon, and evening, the hour being indicated by sound of bells called the Ave Marią or Angelus Domini. The prayers are counted upon the small beads of the rosary, as the pater nosters are upon the large ones.
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