ELEUSIS
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ELIAS
Eleusis (£-lu'sts), next to Athens the most important city of ancient Attica. It was situated on the Bay of Eleusis, opposite Salamis, and was connected with Athens by the Sacred Road. It was famous as the chief seat of the worship of Ceres (Demeter), whose mystic rites—the Eleusinian mysteries—were here performed with great pomp and solemnity from the earliest times (B. C. 1356?) till Alaric, the leader of the Goths, destroyed the famous temple of the goddess in 396 A. D. The site of the old city is now occupied by the little village of Leusina. Excavations since 1882 have revealed many remarkable ruins.
El'eva'tor, a machine for carrying passengers and freight from story to story in buildings. It consists of a car more or less open, which is raised and lowered in a suitable shaft in the building. Elevators may be moved by hand or by mechanical power. The power used is hydraulic, steam or electric power. In hydraulic elevators the power is due to the water-pressure acting on a piston working in a cylinder. Hydraulic elevators are of the ram or the suspended type. In the ram-type the car or platform is carried on a vertical rod that is attached directly to the piston of the water-cylinder. The length of the cylinder is < thus the same as that of the extreme height to which the elevator rises. Such elevators are used in Europe. They are safe, but very slow, and not adapted to great heights. In the suspended type of hydraulic elevator the piston only works through a short distance, but this motion is multiplied by an inverted block-and-tackle which raises the elevator. In steam and electric elevators the wire-rope which raises the elevator-car is wound about a drum, which is revolved by the steam-engine or the electric motor. The elevator is controlled from the car by ropes or rods which act on the valves of the hydraulic cylinder or on the starting and stopping devices of the engine or motor. Various safety-devices are used to prevent a fall of the elevator-car in case of the breaking of the rope, and accidents seldom take place. Elevators are an absolute essential to the modern tall building in the city. The speed used in elevators is several hundred feet per minute, and they can be used for any height. The elevator in the Washington monument runs 500 feet. This is one of the highest elevators in the world.
Elgar, Edward William, a prominent English composer, was born at Broadheath, near Worcester, on June 2, 1857. His Dream of Gerontius brought him great fame in 1900. This has been maintained by the large works that have followed: The Apostles and The Kingdom. The list of his orchestral and smaller compositions is considerable, and has aided in placing him in the first rank of contemporary composers.
Elgin (el'fln)j a city in Kane County northwestern Illinois, on Fox River, 36 miles northwest of Chicago. It has a large dairy-business, with extensive milk-condensing factories, supplying Chicago with butter and other dairy-products. It has large manufactories of carriages, shoes, farming-implements and washing-machines. Its other industries include meat-packing establishments, cotton-mills, soap-factories, etc. It is best known, however, as the seat of the watch-works, which employ 3,000 workmen and produce 1,800 watches daily. It was one of the first watch-factories in the United States, and the Elgin with other American watches has largely taken the place of foreign watches in the trade. The Northern Illinois Hospital for the Insane is at Elgin. There are also a Catholic seminary, a school of manual training, excellent public schools, many handsome churches and a public library. Population, 25,976.
Elgin Marbles, a celebrated collection of ancient sculpture brought from Greece (1801-03) by the Earl of Elgin, then English ambassador to Turkey. The British Museum obtained them from him in 1816 for about $i 7 5,000. The sculptures adorned certain buildings on the Acropolis of Athens, which then was a Turkish fortress. The chief portions, which are from the Parthenon or Temple of Minerva, were designed by the great sculptor Pheidias. At the time of their removal a fierce controversy arose in England as to Lord Elgin's right to take them from Athens. Lord Byron considered their removal very unjust, and his view was shared by many. See Newton's Contents of the British Museum, Elgin Room.
Elia. See LAMB, CHARLES.
Elias or Eli'jah, the greatest of the prophets of Israel, flourished about 900 B. C. The Bible tells how God, through him, imposed a three years' drouth upon the northern kingdom; how he was fed by ravens; how he challenged the pagan priests at Mt. Carmel to bring down fire from heaven to consume their sacrifice; and how he was later taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire. He was an uncompromising upholder of the Hebrew faith against idolatry, especially against the Baal-worship brought from Phoenicia by Jezebel, and saved the purer religion from destruction and corruption. Like Moses and Samuel, he was statesman as well as prophet, ordaining new kings for Israel and Syria and appointing Elisha his prophetic successor. The Jews of later times expected Elijah to return to announce the coming of the Messiah, and the prediction of his return is declared in the New Testament to have been fulfilled in John the Baptist. Elijah also appears with Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration. His story is
