160 AVELLINO AVERAGE and her 8 vols. of prose writings secured for her a high reputation. AVELLINO, a. fortified town of S. Italy, capi- tal of the province of Principato Ulteriore, 28 m. E. of Naples; pop. about 15,000. It has a cathedral, several fine public buildings, and a public granary. It is celebrated for its filberts, which are largely produced in the vicinity, and are hence called in Latin nuees Avellcmce, and in French cmelinet. There is also a large trade in chestnuts and grain, and manufactures of hats and cloth. At the village of Atripalda, 2 m. distant, are the remains of the ancient town of Abellinum, which being destroyed in the wars between the Greeks and Lombards, the inhabitants settled on the present site. The town has suffered much from earthquakes. AVE MARIA, a short prayer much used in the Roman and Greek Catholic churches. The first clause is the salutation of St. Elizabeth to the Blessed Virgin, with the names "Maria" and "Jesus" added. The second clause is an acclamation employed by the fathers of the council of Ephesus and the people generally, to express their joy at the decision of the question raised by Nestorius whether Mary is truly the mother of God. It is usually joined with the Pater Noster. AVESBRliGGER, Leopold. See AUENBEUGGEE. AVENTINUS, fflons. See ROME. AVENTURBfE, a variety of quartz, and also one of feldspar. The peculiarity in each, for which the name is given, is the play of reflect- ed or refracted light from numerous points in the mass of the stone the reflections being bright and sparkling, and of different colors, while the ground may be translucent with little brilliancy, and of a dull color. The effect is probably produced by the crystalline faces hi the structure of the stone refracting the light differently. There are, however, some varie- ties, called also aventurine, in which the play of colors results from the presence of numerous little scales of mica, or other foreign ingre- dients, each of which reflects the light, and all together produce a similar effect to that of the true varieties of aventurine. An artificial glass of this name is manufactured at Venice, which is well adapted to ornamental purposes, being even more beautiful than the natural minerals. Within the glass are substances apparently vitreous, of great brilliancy, of the color of copper, and in very small crystals of the form of tetrahedrons. It is said to h'ave been dis- covered by a workman in Murano through accident (aventuro) letting fall brass filings into molten glass. AYENZOAR (properly IBN ZOHK), Abu Mr- wan, an Arabian physician, born at Pefiaflor in Spain about 1072, died in 1162. He began the study of medicine at the age of 10 under the direction of his father, who imposed upon him an oath never to make use of poisons. He was the preceptor of Averroes. Avenzoar tried to bring medicine within the range of experi- mental science. Several of his works, translated into Latin, have been published. His Rectifi- catio Medicationis et Regiminis was published at Venice in 1490 and 1496, with the remarks of Averroes in 1514, and at Lyons in 1851. AVERAGE. I. General (sometimes called gross or extraordinary), in mercantile law, the con- tribution made by all the parties concerned in a sea adventure to make good an expense or loss sustained by one or more of them for the benefit of all. The fundamental principle of the law of general average, as expressed in Justinian's Pandects, and adopted by all com- mercial nations, though with considerable di- versity of practice, comes from the Rhodian law, the first known system of marine law, which thus stated the rule: "If goods are thrown overboard in order to lighten a ship, the loss incurred for the sake of all shall be made good by the contribution of all." It would be difficult to set forth the essentials of a case for general average more clearly than they have been stated in the supreme court of the United States (Barnard v. Adams, 10 How. 270), Mr. Justice Grier delivering the opin- ion : " In -order to constitute a case for gen- eral average, three things must concur: 1. A common danger, or a danger in which ship, cargo, and crew all participate a danger im- minent and apparently inevitable, except by voluntarily incurring the loss of a portion of the whole to save the remainder. 2. There must be a voluntary jettison, jaetus, or casting away of some portion of the joint concern for the purpose of avoiding this imminent peril; or, in other words, a transfer of the peril from the whole to a particular portion of the whole. 3. This attempt to avoid a common peril must be successful. The right to contribution is not made to depend on any real or presumed inten- tion to destroy the thing cast away, but on the fact that it has been selected to suffer the peril in place of the whole that the remainder may be saved." Not only the value of the property destroyed, but what follows as a necessary con- sequence of its destruction, as injuries to other goods, expenses of refitting, and the wages and provisions of the crew in the port of relief, are subjects of contribution. So is also ransom paid to a pirate, by both the common and civil law (the rule of which on this point has been repealed in England), and in gene- ral whatever necessary and voluntary loss or expense is incurred by a part for the good of all. Goods -finally saved must contribute for loss sustained in procuring temporary safety. By the French ordinance, goods stowed upon deck are expressly excluded from the benefit but not from the burden of general average,- since they are supposed to hamper the vessel and increase the danger ; and such is the general tenor of both the English and American law. In the courts of all three countries, however, an established usage to carry upon deck, as with small coasting vessels, is allowed to take a case out of the operation of the rule. Both the continental and the American law is somewhat
