ALLIER, a department of central France, formed in 1790 from the old province of Bourbonnais. Pop. (1906) 417,961. Area, 2849 sq. m. It is bounded N. by the department of Nièvre, E. by Saône-et-Loire, from which it is divided by the river Loire, S.E. by Loire, S. by Puy-de-Dôme, S.W. by Creuse and N.W. by Cher. Situated on the northern border of the Central Plateau, the department slopes from south to north. Its highest altitudes are found in the south-east, in the Bois-Noirs, where one point reaches 4239 ft., and in the Monts de la Madeleine. Plains alternating with forests occupy the northern zone of the department, while the central and western regions form an undulating and well-watered plateau. Entering the department in the south, and, like the other chief rivers, flowing almost due north, the Allier drains the central district, receiving on its left the Sioule. East of the Allier is the Bebre, which joins the Loire within the limits of the department; and on the west the Cher, with its tributary the Aumance. Rigorous and rainy in the south-east, the climate elsewhere is milder though subject to sudden variations. Agriculturally the department is flourishing, the valleys of the Allier and the Sioule known as the Limagne Bourbonnaise comprising its most fertile portion. Wheat, oats, barley and other cereals are grown and exported, and owing to the abundance of pasture and forage, sheep and cattle-rearing are actively carried on. Potatoes and mangels yield good crops. Wines of fair quality are grown in the valley of the Sioule; walnuts, chestnuts, plums, apples and pears are principal fruits. Goats, from the milk of which choice cheese is made, and pigs are plentiful. A large area is under forests, the oak, beech, fir, birch and hornbeam being the principal trees. The mineral waters at Vichy (q.v.), Néris, Theneuille, Cusset and Bourbon l’Archambault are in much repute. The mineral wealth of the department is considerable, including coal as well as manganese and bituminous schist; plaster, building stone and hydraulic lime are also produced. Manufactories of porcelain, glass and earthenware are numerous. Montluçon and Commentry are iron-working centres. There are flour mills, breweries and saw-mills; and paper, chemicals, wooden shoes, wool and woollen goods are produced. Besides the products of the soil Allier exports coal, mineral waters and cattle for the Paris market. Building materials, brandy and coal are among the imports. The railways belong chiefly to the Orléans and Paris-Lyons-Mediterranean companies. The lateral canal of the Loire, the Berry Canal and the canal from Roanne to Digoin together traverse about 57 m. in the department. Allier is divided into the arrondissements of Moulins, Gannat, Lapalisse and Montluçon (29 cantons, 321 communes). It forms the diocese of Moulins and part of the ecclesiastical province of Bourges, and falls within the académie (educational division) of Clermont-Ferrand and the region of the XIII. army-corps. Its court of appeal is at Riom. Moulins, the capital, Montluçon and Vichy, are the principal towns. Souvigny possesses the church of a famous Cluniac priory dating from the 11th-12th and 15th centuries, and containing the splendid tombs (15th century) of Louis II. and Charles I. of Bourbon. At St Menoux, Ebreuil and Gannat there are fine Romanesque churches. Huriel has a church of the 11th century and a well-preserved keep, the chief survival of a medieval castle. St Pourçain-sur-Sioule has a large church, dating from the 11th to the 18th centuries. The castle of Bourbon l’Archambault, which belonged to the dukes of Bourbon, dates from the 13th and 15th centuries. The Romanesque churches of Veauce and Ygrande, and the châteaus of Veauce and Lapalisse, are also of interest, the latter belonging to the family of Chabannes.
ALLIES, THOMAS WILLIAM (1813–1903), English historical writer, was born at Midsomer Norton, near Bristol, on the 12th of February 1813. He was educated at Eton and at Wadham College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow in 1833. In 1840 Bishop Blomfield of London appointed him his examining chaplain and presented him to the rectory of Launton, Oxfordshire, which he resigned in 1850 on becoming a Roman Catholic. Allies was appointed secretary to the Catholic poor school committee in 1853, a position which he occupied till 1890. He died in London on the 17th of June 1903. Allies was one of the ablest of the English churchmen who joined the Church of Rome in the early period of the Oxford movement, his chief work, The Formation of Christendom (London, 8 vols., 1865–1895) showing much originality of thought and historical knowledge. His other writings: St Peter, his Name and Office (1852); The See of St Peter, the Rock of the Church (1850); Per Crucem ad Lucem (2 vols., 1879), have gone through many editions and been translated into several languages.
See his autobiography, A Life’s Decision (1880); and the study by his daughter, Mary H. Allies, Thomas Allies, the Story of a Mind (London, 1906), which contains a full bibliography of his works.
ALLIFAE (mod. Alife), a town of the Samnites, 15 m. N.W. of Telesia, and 17 m. E.N.E. of Teanum. The site of the Samnite city, which in the 4th century B.C. had a coinage of its own, is not known; the Roman town lay in the valley of the Vulturnus, and its walls (4th century) enclose a circuit of 112 m., in which are preserved remains of large baths (Thermae Herculis) and a theatre.
ALLIGATOR (Spanish el lagarto, “the lizard”), an animal so closely allied to the crocodile that some naturalists have classed them together as forming one genus. It differs from the true crocodile principally in having the head broader and shorter, and the snout more obtuse; in having the fourth, enlarged tooth of the under jaw received, not into an external notch, but into a pit formed for it within the upper one; in wanting a jagged fringe which appears on the hind legs and feet of the crocodile; and in having the toes of the hind feet webbed not more than half way to the tips. Alligators proper occur in the fluviatile deposits of the age of the Upper Chalk in Europe, where they did not die out until the Pliocene age; they are now restricted to two species, A. mississippiensis or lucius in the southern states of North America up to 12 ft. in length, and the small A. sinensis in the Yang-tse-kiang. In Central and South America alligators are represented by five species of the genus Caiman, which differs from Alligator by the absence of a bony septum between the nostrils, and the ventral armour is composed of overlapping bony scutes, each of which is formed of two parts united by a suture. C. sclerops, the spectacled alligator, has the widest distribution, from southern Mexico to the northern half of Argentina, and grows to a bulky size. The largest, attaining an enormous bulk and a length of 20 ft. is the C. niger, the jacaré-assu or large caiman of the Amazons. The names “alligator” and “crocodile” are often confounded in popular speech; and the structure and habits of the two animals are so similar that both are most conveniently considered under the heading Crocodile.
ALLINGHAM, WILLIAM (1824–1889), Irish man of letters and poet, was born at Ballyshannon, Donegal, on the 19th of March 1824 (or 1828, according to some authorities), and was the son of the manager of a local bank. He obtained a post in the custom-house of his native town and filled several similar situations in Ireland and England until 1870, when he had retired from the service, and became sub-editor of Fraser’s Magazine, which he edited from 1874 to 1879. He had published a volume of Poems in 1850, followed by Day and Night Songs, a volume containing many charming lyrics, in 1855. Allingham was on terms of close friendship with D. G. Rossetti, who contributed to the illustration of the Songs. His Letters to Allingham (1854–1870) were edited by Dr Birkbeck Hill in 1897. Lawrence Bloomfield, a narrative poem illustrative of Irish social questions, appeared in 1864. Allingham married in 1874 Helen Paterson, known under her married name as a water-colour painter. He died at Hampstead on the 18th of November 1889. Though working on an unostentatious scale, Allingham produced much excellent lyrical and descriptive poetry, and the best of his pieces are thoroughly national in spirit and local colouring.
William Allingham: a Diary (1907), edited by Mrs Allingham and D. Radford, contains many interesting reminiscences of Tennyson, Carlyle and other famous contemporaries.
ALLISON, WILLIAM BOYD (1829–1908), American legislator, was born at Perry, Ohio, on the 2nd of March 1829. Educated at Allegheny and Western Reserve Colleges, he studied law, and practised in Ohio until 1857. In that year he settled in Dubuque, Iowa, where he took a prominent part in Republican politics;
