Anhydride
or anhydrous acid, a chemical substance formed by the substitution of an acid radical for the whole of the hydrogen in one or two molecules of water. By the action of water they are converted into acids.
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Single-source entries: A (50)
Each of these 14 subjects appears in only one of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. None is long enough to carry a page by itself, so they are gathered here by letter. Anything that grows moves out to a page of its own.
Anhydrite
an anhydrous calcium sulphate, classed by Dana under his celestite group. It is divided by Dana into Var. 1. Ordinary: (a) crystallized; (b) fibrous; (c) fine granular; (d) scaly granular, under which is ranked vulpinite. Var. 2. Pseudomorphous. It occurs in various parts of Europe and in North America.
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Ani
the name given to the birds belonging to the genus crotophaga, and indeed to those ranked under the sub-family Crotophaginæ, a division of the Cuculidæ, or cuckoos; the typical anis, those of the genus crotophagæ, are found in South America, the West Indies and Florida. They are about the size of our blackbird. ANILINE. See DYEING.
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Anima Mundi
The soul of the world; a pure ethereal spirit which was said by some ancient philosophers to be diffused throughout all nature. Plato is considered by some to be the originator of this idea; but it is of more ancient origin, and prevailed in the systems of certain eastern philosophers. By the Stoics it was believed to be the only vital force in the universe; it has been entertained by many philosophical sects in a variety of forms, and in more modern times by Paracelsus and others. It is also incorporated in the philosophy of Schelling. Rich says: "The anima mundi, or heaven of this world, in which the Anonymous stars are fixed, is understood to be a receptivity of the empyrean or heaven in which God dwells, so that the forms or seminal conceptions of the one correspond to the divine ideas of the other."
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Animal Chemistry
the department of organic chemistry which investigates the composition of the fluids and the solids of animals, and the chemical action that takes place in animal bodies.
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Animal Kingdom
one of the three great kingdoms of visible nature, the two other being the vegetable and the mineral kingdoms. Prof. Owen, in his "Palcation: Kingdom I., protozoa. Kingdom eontology," adopts the following classifi- II., animalia. Sub-kingdom I., invertebrata: Province 1, radiata; 2, articulata; 3, mollusca. Sub-kingdom II., vertebrata. Prof. Huxley, the animal kingdom in eight groups arwriting in 1869, divided ranged thus: VERTEBRATA, MOLLUSCA, ANNULOSA, MOLLUSCOIDA, ANNULOIDA, CELENTERATA, INFUSORIA, PROTOZOA.
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Animal Magnetism
a science, or art, so called because it was believed that it taught the method of producing on persons of susceptible organization effects somewhat similar to those which a magnet exerts upon iron.
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Animal Psychology
the study of mind as it is found in animals below man. It is sometimes called comparative psychology, although that term more probably belongs in the comparative study including man. The study is carried on in general by the observation of the behavior of animals under various conditions, in the study of their nervous structure, and in the interpretation of the facts derived in these studies as indicators of mind. ANIMAL WORSHIP. See RELIGION.
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Animalcule
a general name given to many forms of animal life from their minute size.
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Animism
The doctrine of spiritual beings, or the concept that a great part, if not the whole, of inanimate nature, as well as of animate beings, are endowed with reason and volition identical with that of man. It is difficult to distinguish this conception from that of personalisation, but the difference exists. The savage hears the wind whistle past him, and thinks that in it he can distinguish voices. He sees movement in streams, trees, and other objects, which he believes to be inhabited by spirits. The idea of a soul probably arose through dreams, apparitions, or clairvoyance, hallucinations and shadows, and perhaps through the return to life after periods of unconsciousness. Movement, therefore, argued life. The cult of fetishism well instances the belief in animism, for it posits the entrance into an inanimate body of a separate spiritual entity deliberately come to inhabit it. There is no necessity in this place to go into the question whether or not animism is at the basis of religious belief; but it is distinctly at the root of magical belief and practice.
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Anio
now ANIENE or TEVERONE, a river in Italy, a tributary which it enters above Rome, renowned of the Tiber, for the valley through where stand the remains of the villas of which it flows, Mæcenas and the Emperor Hadrian. Its famous waterfalls at Tivoli now furnish valuable electric energy which is transmitted to Rome.
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Anius
Son of Apollo by Creüsa, and priest of Apollo at Delos. By Dryope he had three daughters, to whom Dionysus gave the power of producing at will any quantity of wine, corn, and oil-whence they were called Oenotropae.
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Anjou
an ancient province of France, now forming the department of Maine-et-Loire, re, and parts of parts of the departments of Indre-et-Loire, Mayenne, and Sarthe; area, about 3,000 square miles. In 1060 the province passed into the hands of the house of Gatinais, of which sprang Count Godfrey V., who, in 1127, married Matilda, daughter of Henry I. of England, and so became the ancestor of the Plantagenet kings. Anjou remained in the possession of the English kings up to 1204, when John lost it to the French King, Philip Augustus. In 1226 Louis VIII. bestowed the province on his brother Charles; but in 1328 it was reunited to the French crown. John I. raised it to the rank of a ducal peerage, and gave it to his son Louis. Henceforth it remained separate from the French crown till 1480, when it fell to Louis XI. The last Duke of Anjou was the grandson of Louis XIV., Philip V. of Spain.
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Ankh
The Egyptian symbol of life, perhaps the life which remains to one after death. It is conjectured that it symbolises the union of the male and female principles, the origins of life, and that like the American cross, it typifies the four winds, the rain-bringers and fertilizers. It has been found manufactured in every description of material, and is sometimes encountered in combination with the dad or tat symbol (q.v.) It is usually carried in the right hand by divinities.
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