94 A C H A C H ance maybe referred to its connection with Aratus of Sicyon, about 30 years later, as it was further augmented by the splendid abilities of Philopoemen. Thus did this people, so celebrated in the heroic age, once more emerge from com parative obscurity, and become the greatest among the states of Greece in the last days of its national independence. The inhabitants of Patrse and of Dyme were the first assertors of ancient liberty. The tyrants were banished, and the towns again made one commonwealth. A public council was then held, in which affairs of importance were discussed and deter mined ; and a register was provided for recording the trans actions of the council. This assembly had two presidents, who were nominated alternately by the different towns. But instead of two presidents, they soon elected but one. Many neighbouring towns, which admired the constitution of this republic, founded on equality, liberty, the love of justice, and of the public good, were incorporated with the Achaean s, and admitted to the full enjoyment of their laws and privileges. The Achsean League affords the most perfect example in antiquity of the federal form of govern ment; and, allowing for difference of time and place, its resemblance to that of the United States government is very remarkable. (See Arts. AMPHICTYONY and FEDERAL GOVERNMENT; also Freeman s Federal Government, 2 vols. 8vo. 1863, and Comparative Politics, 8vo. 1873; Droysen, Geschichte des Hellenismus, 2 vols. ; Helwing, Geschichte des Achdischen Blindest) ACHAN, the son of Carmi, of the tribe of Judah, at the taking of Jericho concealed two hundred shekels of silver, a Babylonish garment, and a wedge of gold, con trary to the express command of God. This sin proved fatal to the Israelites, who were repulsed at the siege of Ai. In this emergency Joshua prostrated himself before the Lord, and begged that he would have mercy upon his people. Achan was discovered by casting lots, and he and his children were stoned to death. This expiation being made, Ai was taken by stratagem. (Josh. vii. viii.) ACHARD, FRANZ CARL, a Prussian chemist, born at Berlin on the 28th April 1753, was the first to turn Marggraff s discovery of the presence of sugar in beet-root to commercial account. He erected a factory on an estate in Silesia, granted to him about 1800 by the king of Prussia, and produced there large quantities of sugar to meet the scarcity occasioned by the closing of the West Indian ports to continental traders. In 1812 a similar establish ment was erected by Napoleon at Rambouillet, although the Institute of France in 1800, while honouring Achard for his researches, had declared his process to have little practical value. At the close of the war the manufacture of beet-root sugar was protected by duties on other sugars that were almost prohibitive, so that the real worth of Achard s discoveries could not be tested. Achard was a frequent contributor to the Memoirs of tlie Academy of Berlin, and published in 1780 Ghymisch-Physische Schriften, con taining descriptions and results of his very numerous and carefully conducted experiments on the adhesion of bodies. He died in 1821. ACHARIUS, ERIK, a Swedish physician and botanist, born at Gefle in 1757. The son of a comptroller of customs, he studied first in his native town, and then in 1773 at the University of Upsal, where Linnaeus was one of his teachers. In 1782 he took the degree of M.D. at the University of Lund, and practised thereafter in various districts of Sweden. But the direction of his studies had been determined by his contact with Linnaeus, and he found his appropriate sphere when he was appointed Professor of Botany at the Wadstena Academy in 1801. Five years before he had been admitted a member of the Academy at Stockholm. He devoted himself to the study of the cryptogamic orders of plants, and especially of the family of lichens. All his publications were connected with this subject, the Lichenographia Universalis (Got- tiugen, 1804) being the most important. Acharius died of apoplexy in 1819. His name has been given by botanists to more than one species of plants. ACHATES, the faithful friend and companion of ^Eneas, celebrated in Virgil s ^Eneid as fidus Achates. ACHEEN. See ACHIN. ACHELOUS, the largest river in Greece, rises in Mount Piiidus, and dividing ^Etolia from Acarnania, falls into the Ionian Sea. In the lower part of its course the river winds in an extraordinary manner through very fertile but marshy plains. Its water descends from the mountains, heavily charged with fine mud, which is deposited along its banks and in the sea at its mouth, where a number of small islands have gradually been formed. It was formerly called Tkoas, from its impetuosity in its upper portion, and Homer gave it the name of Icing of rivers. It has a course of 130 miles. The epithet Acheloius is used for aqucus (Virgil), the ancients calling all water Achelous, according to Ephorus. The river is now called Aspro Potamo. ACHENWALL, GOTTFRIED, a German writer, cele brated as having formulated and developed the science (Wissenschaft der Stouten], to which he was the first to apply the name scicntia statistica, or statistics. Born at Elbiug, in East Prussia, in October 1719, he studied at Jena, Halle, and Leipsic, and took a degree at the last- named university. He removed to Marburg in 1746, where for two years he read lectures on history, and on the law of nature and of nations. Here, too, he commenced those inquiries in statistics by which his name became known. In 1748, having been invited by Miinchhausen, the Hanoverian minister, to occupy a chair at the univer sity, he removed to Gottingen, where he resided till his death in 1772. His chief works were connected with statistics. The Staatsverfassungen der europdischcn Reiche appeared first in 1752, and revised editions corrected from information which he travelled through England, France, and other countries to collect were published in 1762 and 1768. He was married in 1752 to a lady named Walther, who obtained some celebrity by a volume of poems published in 1750, and by other writings. ACHERON, in Classical Mythology, the son of Ceres, who, for supplying the Titans with drink when they were in contest with Jupiter, was turned into a river of Hades, over which departed souls were ferried on their way to Elysium. The name eventually was used to designate the whole of the lower world. ACHILL, or "Eagle" Island, off the west coast of Ire land, forms part of the county of Mayo. It is of triangular shape, and extends 15 miles from east to west, and 12 from north to south, its total area being 51,521 acres. The island is very mountainous; its extreme western point, Achill Head, is a bold and rugged promontory rising to a height of 2222 feet above the sea. Large bogs, incapable of cultivation, alternate with the hills of this desolate isle, of whose extensive surface not more than 500 acres have been reclaimed. The inhabitants earn a scanty subsistence by fishing and tillage ; their dwellings are miserable hovels. There is a mission-station on the island, and remains of ancient churches are still extant. ACHILLES ( A X tAAew s). When first taken up by the legendary history of Greece, the ancestors of Achilles were settled in Phthia and in ^Egina. That their original seat, however, was in the neighbourhood of Dodona and the Achelous is made out from a combination of the following facts: That in the Iliad (xvi. 233) Achilles prays to Zeus of Dodona; that this district was the first to bear the name of Hellas; that the followers of Achilles at Troy were
the only persons named Hellenes in the time of Homer
