A N T A 129 to lis to the west of the Azores, and for which Cuba, or some other West Indian island, was mistaken, is too doubtful and too vague in its application to be of any value in determining the proper use of the term ; the weight of authority seems to be in favour of the first acceptation. In this sense the Antilles have been divided into two groups : the Greater Antilles, including Cuba, Jamaica, Hayti, and Porto Rico; and the Lesser Antilles, funning the remainder of the islands. See WEST INDIES. ANTIMACHUS, the Colophonian, a Greek poet who was honoured by the Alexandrine grammarians with the second place in their epic canon. Of his works nothing remains to us but the merest fragments ; and of his life, we know little more than that he was born at Claros ; was beaten by a rival in a poetical competition at Samos ; met, either then or in equally discouraging circum stances, with Plato ; fell in love with a lady called Lyde ; lost her by death ; bewailed her in an elegy of extreme erudition, if not of extraordinary pathos ; and celebrated in his epic the seven heroes of Thebes. Schellenberg collected Ids fragmentary remains at Halle in 178G; and Eoll at Dillenberg, in 1845. H. G. Stoll published at Gottingen in 1841 Animadversiones in Antimachi Fragmenta; and the remains of the Thebais are to be found in Diintzer, Fragm. des Episch. Poes. der Griech. ANTIMONY, a metal found native to a small extent in many of the localities from which its ores are derived. It has been obtained at Sahlberg, near Sahl in Sweden, at Andreasberg in the Harz, at Allemont in Dauphiny, Przibram in Bohemia, besides being brought from Borneo, Chili, Mexico, New Brunswick, etc. It also occurs in nature alloyed with other metals ; allemontite being arsenical antimony ; dyscrasite, antimonial silver ; and breithauptite, a native alloy of antimony and nickel. Among the ores of antimony may be enumerated valentinite, or white anti mony, and cervantite, or antimony ochre, both oxides of antimony ; and kermesite, red antimony, or antimony blende, an oxysulphide of the metal. Various sulph- antimonites of other metals are also met with, but they possess only a mineralogical interest. The antimony of commerce is derived almost entirely from the sulphide, stibnite, or grey antimony ore (Sb.,S 3 ), which is found in great abundance in Borneo, in Nevada, and at Prince William antimony mine, New Brunswick. It is also mined at Schemnitz and Kremnitz in Hungary, at Przibram in Bohemia, at Wolfsberg in the Harz, and at Braunsdorf, near Freiberg, Bavaria. Formerly it was largely produced in Cornwall, but it is no longer worked on a commercial scale in Great Britain. Stibnite occurs generally in veins, and has a leaden grey colour, with a metallic, sometimes iridescent lustre ; it fuses with great facility, and produces a grey streak. It is the crrt/u./u.<, or stibium of the ancients, who applied to it the epithet TrXaruo^OaXp.ov, from its having been used by women in Eastern countries to give increased lustre to their eyes, by darkening the eye-lashes, a practice still pursued in some parts. The paint said in the Holy Scriptures to have been used by Jezebel, seems to have been this substance ; for St Jerome, who knew the manners of Eastern women, has, in the Vulgate, rendered the passage " oculos ejus 2x>suit stibio." Stibnite was the hipus metal- lorum of the alchemists, and Basil Valentin was able to show that it contained sulphur. That famous alchemist was acquainted with metallic antimony, and by him and his successors it was known as regidus, or regulus of anti mony, from the readiness with which it acted on the royal metal gold. The tradition that the name antimony was given to the sulphide on account of a preparation of it having proved fatal to the monks (hence anti-monachos) in a German religious house will hardly bear investigation. Crude anti mony of commerce is the ore separated from its associated earthy gangue an operation effected by simple fusion. The sulphide is then reduced to an oxide by roasting in a rever- beratory furnace. From this oxide metallic antimony is obtained by fusion with charcoal, which has been saturated with a solution of carbonate of sodium. The metal may also be prepared direct from the sulphur ore by roasting with a mixture of cream of tartar and nitre, or with iron filings. Antimony is a brilliant silver-grey metal, having a foliated texture and a strong tendency to assume a crystalline structure, which causes the cakes of metal to present a characteristic stellate surface. Its specific gravity is 6 715 ; it melts at 842 Fahr., and when heated to redness takes fire, burning with a brilliant white flame. It is brittle, and can be easily pulverised. Antimony is chiefly valuable for the alloys it yields with other metals. Britannia metal is an alloy largely used, containing usually about 81 parts of tin, 1 6 of antimony, 2 of copper, and 1 of zinc. Type metal contains varying proportions of lead and antimony, ranging from 17 to 20 per cent, of the latter, or even more, according to the hardness desired ; with sometimes small proportions of other metals for stereotype plates, &c. Babbitt s anti-friction metal for the bearings of machinery is composed of 83 3 parts of tin, 8 3 parts of copper, and 8 3 of antimony. Antimony alloys with lead and tin, sepa rately or in combination, are also used in place of gun metal for the bushes of heavy machinery. Antimonial prepara tions are of great value in pharmacy, and for such purposes it is essential that they should be absolutely free from the arsenical and other impurities which commercial antimony and its ores always contain. The principal preparation used medicinally is tartarated antimony, or tartar emetic, a tar- trate of potash and antimony. Taken in small doses, from isth to -oth of a grain, tartar emetic acts as a diaphoretic, renders mucous surfaces moist, and promotes secretion of urine. In larger doses it excites nausea, and, as its name indicates, vomiting. It is also prepared in the form of an ointment for external application as a counter-irritant, producing a painful pustular eruption. Antimonial wine is a preparation of tartar emetic, used as a diaphoretic and expectorant. Butter of antimony, or the liquor of chloride of antimony, is used as a powerful caustic, and antimonial powder, or James s powder, is employed as a diaphoretic in fevers and rheumatism. Other officinal preparations con taining antimony are oxide of antimony ; black anti mony, or the native sulphide, prepared; sulphurated anti mony; and compound calomel pills. Crude antimony sulphide is used in the manufacture of black lead pencils. For the action of antimony as a poison, see POISONS. ANTINOMIANS (avri, against, and vo/xos, law), a term first employed by Luther as a designation of the followers of John Agricola, who maintained that the moral law r was not binding, as such, upon Christians (see AGRICOLA, JOHANNES). In this, as in many other cases, however, the thing existed long before the name. From the 1st century of the Christian era downwards, there have been those who, on one ground or other, denied that the law was of use or obligation under the gospel dispensation, and the term Antinomian is, accordingly, applied with sufficient propriety to many who lived at an earlier date than the sect or school to describe whom Luther invented it. It would seem, from several passages in the New Testament (Horn. iii. 8, 31, vi. 1 ; Eph. v. 6; 2 Pet. ii. 18, 19), in which the apostles warn their followers against perversions of their doctrine as an excuse for licentiousness, that Antinomianism, in its grosser form, found a place even in the primitive church. It is to be noticed that this first manifestation of the heresy seems to have been due to the same cause as that which operated in the case of Agricola, a mistaken interpretation of the doctrine of justification by faith. The Gnostic sects, several of whom are classed as Antinomian, seem to have
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