Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/518

bare and mountainous; and their coasts are rocky and surrounded by breakers, by which the approach is rendered exceedingly dangerous. The land rises immediately from the coasts to steep bald mountains, gradually ascending into lofty ranges running from east to west. Springs take their rise at the bottom of the mountains, and either flow in broad and rapid streams into the neighbouring sea, or, collecting in the rocky vales and glens, form ample lakes, which send off their superfluous waters by natural canals into the adjacent bays. These islands bear evident marks of volcanic formation, and several of them have still active volcanoes, which continually emit smoke and sometimes flames. The most important group of the chain is that called the Fox Islands, of which the largest are Unimak and Ounalaska, both near the western extremity of Alaska. The thin argillaceous soil of the Aleutian Islands produces little vegetation, and agriculture is almost unknown. The climate is subject to sudden changes, and is very unfavourable to any attempts at cultivation. Few trees grow on the islands, but there are some stunted shrubs of birch, willow, and alder. The timber required for building purposes is obtained from the driftwood thrown on the coasts. The principal occupations of the Aleutians are fishing and hunting, and the preparation of the implements necessary for both. Since the end of last century the fur traders have had settlements here for the capture of the seal and the sea-otter, which are found in great numbers on the shores; and of the Arctic fox, which roams over the islands. Fish are abundant; and dogs and reindeer are common. The population of the whole group is about 8000, the natives being a kindred race to the inhabitants of Kamtchatka. They are described as rather low in stature, but plump and well-shaped, with short necks, swarthy faces, black eyes, and long straight black hair. They have nominally been converted to Christianity by the missionaries of the Greek Church, but are said to be unchaste in their habits, and addicted to intemperance whenever they have the opportunity. Until 1867 these islands belonged to Russia, but they were included in the transfer to the United States of the whole Russian possessions in America made in that year. They now form part of the United States territory of Alaska. (See Alaska.) From the position of the Aleutian Islands, stretching like a broken bridge from Asia to America, some ethnologists have supposed that by means of them America was first peopled.

 

 

 

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

 

ALEXANDER III., commonly called “The Great,” son of Philip II., king of Macedonia, and of Olympias, daughter of the Molossian chief Neoptolemus, was born at Pella, 356 b.c. His father was a man of fearless courage and the soundest judgment; his mother was a woman of savage energy and fierce superstition. Alexander inherited the qualities of both his parents, and the result was the combination of a boundless ambition with the most sober practical wisdom. The child grew up with the consciousness that he was the heir of a king whose power was rapidly growing; and the stories told of him attest at the least the early awakening of a mind formed in the mould of the heroes of mythical Hellas. Nay, the blood of Achilles was flowing, as he believed, in his veins; and the flattery of his Acarnanian tutor Lysimachus, who addressed him as the son of Peleus, may have strengthened his love of the immortal poems which told the story of that fiery warrior. By another tutor, the Molossian Leonidas, his vehement impulses were checked by a wholesome discipline. But the genius of Alexander, the greatest of military conquerors, was moulded in a far greater degree by that of Aristotle, the greatest conqueror in the world of thought. At the age of thirteen he became for three years the pupil of a man who had examined the political constitutions of a crowd of states, and who had brought together a vast mass of facts and observations for the systematic cultivation of physical science. During these three years the boy awoke to the knowledge that a wonderful world lay before him, of which he had seen little, and threw himself eagerly, it is said, into the task of gathering at any cost a collection for the study of natural history. While his mind was thus urged in one direction, he listened to stories which told him of the great quarrel still to be fought out between the East and the West, and learnt to look upon himself as the champion of Hellas against the barbarian despot of Susa.

The future conqueror was sixteen years of age when he was left at home as regent while his father besieged Byzantium and Perinthus. Two years later the alliance of Thebes and Athens was wrecked on the fatal field of Chæronea, where Alexander, now eighteen years of age, encountered and overcame the Sacred Band which had been foremost in the victories of Leuctra and Mantinea (see Epaminondas); but the prospects of Alexander himself became now for a time dark and uncertain. Philip had divorced Olympias and married Cleopatra, the daughter of Attalus. This act roused the wrath not only of Olympias, but of her son, who with her took refuge in Epirus. Cleopatra became the mother of a son. Her father, Attalus, rose higher in the king’s favour, and not a few of Alexander’s friends were banished. But the feuds in his family were subjects of serious thought for Philip, who sought to