August 1829. The Findhorn rose 50 ft. above the ordinary level, inundating an area of 20 sq. m.; the Divie rose 40 ft., and the Lossie flooded all the low ground around Elgin. The floods tore down bridges and buildings, and obliterated farms and homesteads.
Authorities.—Lachlan Shaw, History of the Province of Moray (Gordon’s edition, Glasgow, 1882); A Survey of the Province of Moray (Elgin, 1798); W. Rhind, Sketches of the Past and Present State of Moray (Edinburgh, 1839); E. Dunbar Dunbar, Documents relating to the Province of Moray (Edinburgh, 1895); C. A. Gordon, History of the House of Gordon (Aberdeen, 1890); C. Rampini, History of Moray and Nairn (Edinburgh, 1897); C. Innes, Elgin, Past and Present (Elgin, 1860); J. Macdonald, “Burghead” (Proceedings of Glasgow Archaeological Soc.), (1891); Sir T. Dick Lauder, The Wolf of Badenoch (Glasgow, 1886); An Account of the Great Floods of August 1829 in the Province of Moray and Adjoining Districts (Elgin, 1873).
ELGON, also known as Masawa, an extinct volcano in British East Africa, cut by 1° N. and 3412° E., forming a vast isolated mass over 40 m. in diameter. The outer slopes are in great measure precipitous on the north, west and south, but fall more gradually to the east. The southern cliffs are remarkable for extensive caves, which have the appearance of water-worn caves on a coast line and have for ages served as habitations for the natives. The higher parts slope gradually upwards to the rim of an old crater, lying somewhat north of the centre of the mass, and measuring some 8 m. in diameter. The highest point of the rim is about 14,100 ft. above the sea. Steep spurs separated by narrow ravines run out from the mountain, affording the most picturesque scenery. The ravines are traversed by a great number of streams, which flow north-west and west to the Nile (through Lake Choga), south and south-east to Victoria Nyanza, and north-east to Lake Rudolf by the Turkwell, the head-stream of which rises within the crater, breaking through a deep cleft in its rim. To the north-west of the mountain a grassy plain, swampy in the rains, falls towards the chain of lakes ending in Choga; towards the north-east the country becomes more arid, while towards the south it is well wooded. The outer slopes are clothed in their upper regions with dense forest formed in part of bamboos, especially towards the south and west, in which directions the rainfall is greater than elsewhere. The lower slopes are exceptionally fertile on the west, and produce bananas in abundance. On the north-west and north the region between 6000 and 7000 ft. possesses a delightful climate, and is well watered by streams of ice-cold water. The district of Save on the north is a halting-place for Arab and Swahili caravans going north. On the west the slopes are densely inhabited by small Bantu-Negro tribes, who style their country Masawa (whence the alternative name for the mountain); but on the south and north there are tribes which seem akin to the Gallas. Of these, the best known are the El-gonyi, from whom the name Elgon has been derived. They formerly lived almost entirely in the caves, but many of them have descended to villages at the foot of the mountain. Elgon was first visited in 1883 by Joseph Thomson, who brought to light the cave-dwellings on the southern face. It was crossed from north to south, and its crater reached, in 1890 by F. J. Jackson and Ernest Gedge, while the first journey round it was made by C. W. Hobley in 1896. (E. He.)
ELI (Hebrew for “high”? 1 Sam. chaps. i.-iv.), a member of the ancient priesthood founded in Egypt (1 Sam. ii. 27), priest of the temple of Shiloh, the sanctuary of the ark, and also “judge” over Israel. This was an unusual combination of offices, when it is considered that in the history preserved to us he appears in the weakness of extreme old age, unable to control the petulance and rapacity of his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who disgraced the sanctuary and disgusted the people. While the central authority was thus weakened, the Philistines advanced against Israel, and gained a complete victory in the great battle of Ebenezer, where the ark was taken, and Hophni and Phinehas slain. On hearing the news Eli fell from his seat and died. In a passage not unlike the account of the birth of Benjamin (Gen. xxxv. 16 sqq.), it is added that the wife of Phinehas, overwhelmed at the loss of the ark and of her husband, died in child-birth, naming the babe Ichabod (1 Sam. iv. 19 sqq.). This name, which popular etymology explained by the words “the glory is removed (or, stronger, ‘banished’) from Israel” (cf. Hos. x. 5), should perhaps be altered from I-kābōd (as though “not glory”) to Jōchebed (Yōkebed, a slight change in the original), the name which tradition also gave to the mother of Moses (q.v.). After these events the sanctuary of Shiloh appears to have been destroyed (cf. Jer. vii. 12, xxvi. 6, 9), and the descendants of Eli with the whole of their clan or “father’s house” subsequently appear as settled at Nob (1 Sam. xxi. 1, xxii. 11 sqq., cp. xiv. 3), perhaps in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem (Is. x. 32). In the massacre of the clan by Saul, and the subsequent substitution of the survivor Abiathar by Zadok (1 Kings ii. 27, 35), later writers saw the fulfilment of the prophecies of judgment which was said to have been uttered in the days of Eli against his corrupt house (1 Sam. ii. 27 sqq., iii. 11 sqq.).[1]
See further, Samuel, Books of; and on Eli as a descendant of a Levite clan (1 Sam. ii 27 sq.), see Levites (§ 3). (W. R. S.; S. A. C.)
ELIAS, of Cortona (c. 1180–1253), disciple of St Francis of Assisi, was born near Assisi, about 1180, of the working class, but became schoolmaster at Assisi and then notary at Bologna. In 1217 he was the head of the Franciscan mission to the Holy Land, and in 1219 St Francis made him first provincial minister of Syria. When St Francis was recalled from the East in 1220 he brought Elias with him. Elias played a leading part in the early history of the Franciscan order (see Franciscans); Francis made him his vicar general in 1221; and he was the practical acting superior of the order till Francis’ death in 1226, and the real superior till the general chapter of 1227. This chapter did not elect him minister general, but that of 1232 did; at the chapter of 1239 he was deposed. During these years he erected the basilica and monastery at Assisi which were entirely his creation—he collected the funds and carried the work through, being himself the builder and even the architect. Elias was a man of extraordinary ability, the friend both of Gregory IX. and of his opponent Frederick II. After his deposition Elias joined the party of the emperor and so incurred excommunication. Frederick sent him as ambassador to Constantinople. He dressed and lived as a Franciscan throughout and a small number of friars adhered to him; for these he built a church and monastery at Cortona. Unavailing efforts were made to bring about his reconciliation with the order and the Church; at last on his death-bed he made his submission to the pope and died in 1253, having received the Sacraments.
The best account of Elias is that by Ed. Lempp, Frère Élie de Cortone (1901), who points out the conflict of view, as to the relations between Elias and Francis, between the Speculum perfectionis and the First Life, by Thomas of Celano; Lempp and Sabatier accept the hostile picture given by the Speculum perfectionis. But see further Francis of Assisi, Saint, “Note on Sources,” and especially the articles by Goetz, there referred to, in the Hist. Vierteljahrsschrift. There is a good article on Elias, but written before the new materials had been produced, in Wetzer und Welte, Kirchenlexicon (ed. 2). (E. C. B.)
ELIAS, JOHN (1774–1841), Welsh Nonconformist preacher and reformer, was born on the 2nd of May 1774, in the parish of Abererch, Carnarvonshire. In his youth he came under the influence of the Calvinistic Methodist revival and became a preacher at nineteen. In 1799 he married and settled at Llanfechell in Anglesey, giving up his trade as a weaver to become a small shopkeeper. His fame as a preacher increased, and under the direction of Thomas Charles of Bala he established numerous Sunday schools, and gave and secured considerable Welsh support to the founding of the London Missionary Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Religious Tract Society. On Charles’s death in 1814 he became the recognized leader of the Calvinistic Methodist Church, and the story of his life is simply a record of marvellously successful preaching tours. He died on the 8th of June 1841; ten thousand people attended his funeral.
- ↑ On the old views relating to the succession of the priests, according to which the high-priesthood was diverted from the line of Eleazar and Phinehas into that of Ithamar, see Robertson Smith, Old Test. in Jewish Church, 2nd ed., p. 266.
