of three to two, that England was responsible for a portion of the acts committed by the Shenandoah; by a vote of four to one that England was liable for the results of all the operations of the Florida; and by a unanimous vote that England was responsible for all the depredations of the cruiser Alabama; and that liability also attached to the acts of the tenders of the Florida and the Alabama. The consideration of claims arising from the operations of other vessels was excluded for want of evidence. Instead of awarding specific damages apportioned against the several ships and among the several private parties injured, the court awarded a single sum of $15,500,000, as a full indemnity of all claims against Great Britain. This amount was accordingly paid in the following year. In order to determine the claims of private owners, and to distribute the fund among such claimants. Congress created, by the statute of June 23, 1874, a claims court by which judgments were rendered aggregating $9,315.753. A second and similar court was established by the statute of June 5, 1882. The indirect results of this arbitration — which belong rather to the history of international law than to that of the case under consideration — were of even greater importance than its direct results. In strengthening the principle of arbitration as a means of settling grave international differences, in furnishing a high example of justice and disinterestedness in judging between nations, and in defining and elevating the conception of national responsibility, the Geneva tribunal rendered an incalculable service to humanity. The rules laid down for the government of the arbitrators and the court will be found under the title Washington, Treaty of. For its permanent contributions to international law, see that title. The circumstances under which the case was submitted to arbitration, and its relation to other questions of difference between England and the United States existing at the time, are explained in the articles on Arbitration. International Law, and Washington, Treaty of.
Bibliography. For the most recent and complete work upon the Geneva arbitration, consult: J. B. Moore, International Arbitrations, pages 495-682 (Washington, 1898); and for a discussion of the claims courts, pages 4639-4685 of the same work: also Balch, The Alabama Arbitration (Philadelphia. 1900); Beaman, The Alabama Claims and their Settlement (Washington, 1871); Davis, Mr. Fish and the Alabama Claims (Boston, 1893); C. F. Adams, Life of Charles Francis Adams (Boston, 1900); Cushing, The Treaty of Washington, an authoritative work upon the preliminaries (Washington, 1873); for discussions of special phases of the subject, Bullock, Secret Service of the Confederate States (London, 1883); R. Semmes, The Cruise of the Alabama (London, 1864); and A. Sinclair, Two Years on the Alabama (Boston, 1895). A remarkable collection of printed and manuscript official papers pertaining to the arbitration was made by Hon. J. A. J. Creswell and given to the Johns Hopkins University.
ALABAMA STATE AGRICUL'TURAL AND MECHAN'ICAL COL'LEGE, originally Alabama Polytechnic Institute. An American college, situated at Auburn, Ala. It was organized in 1872, under the Federal land grant act of 1862. The value of its grounds, buildings, and equipment is $476,000, and its total income is about $51,000. It has a campus and forum of 304 acres; library, 15,000 volumes; faculty, 29; actual number of students, 384, in preparatory, collegiate, chemical and agricultural, pharmaceutical, and engineering courses.
AL'ABASTER (Gk. (
Greek characters), alabast[r]os,
a box or casket of alabaster, the name of the
mineral being (Greek characters), alabast[r]ites, which
according to Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvii, 10, 54,
§ 143, was derived from the Egyptian town
Alabastron, where it was quarried). A name
given to two kinds of white stone, chemically
distinct, but resembling each other in appear-
ance, and both used for ornamental purposes.
Alabaster proper is a white, granular, semi-transparent variety of gypsum (q.v.) or sulphate of lime. It occurs in various countries, but the finest is found near Volterra, in Tuscany, where it is worked into a variety of the smaller objects of sculpture, vases, time-piece stands, etc. Gypseous alabaster of good quality is also found in Derbyshire. England, and many ornamental articles are made of it at Matlock and other places. Being slightly soluble in water, it cannot be exposed to the weather; and its softness causes the surface easily to become rough and opaque. Nor is it generally found in sufficient masses for large works.
The other stone is a compact, crystalline carbonate of lime, deposited from water in the form of stalagmite, etc. It is distinguishable from the gypseous alabaster by its effervescing with an acid, and by its greater hardness; real alabaster may be scratched with the nail. Pots of perfume were called alabastra, even when made of other materials. Alabaster has not been found in commercial quantities in the United States. See Gypsum.
ALABASTER, William (1567-1640). An English divine, scholar, and poet, born at Hadleigh, Suffolk. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1596, as chaplain to Robert, Earl of Essex, accompanied the expedition led by the latter against Cadiz. In Spain he was converted to the Roman Catholic faith; but having subsequently again become Protestant, he was appointed a prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral, and was presented to the living of Tharfleld, Hertfordshire. "He was," says Fuller (Worthies of England). "an excellent Hebrician, and well skilled in cabalistical learning;" statements verified by such treatises as the Apparatus in Revelationem Jesu Christi (1607), and the Commentarius de Bestia Apocalyptica (1621), and by his Lexicon Pentaglotton (1637). By Anthony à Wood (Athenæ Oxonienses) he is with some hyperbole styled "the rarest poet and Grecian that any one age or nation produced." His poetic reputation must depend largely on his Latin tragedy Roxana (1632), written in the Senecan manner, and frequently presented in the hall of Trinity. This tragedy was referred to by Dr. Johnson (Life of Milton) as the only noticeable specimen of Latin verse of English authorship previous to the appearance of Milton's elegies.
ALACOQUE, a'h'i'kok'. Marguerite Marie (1647-90). A French nun, whose visions gave rise to the adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She was born in Burgundy. July 22, 1647. She took the veil in the convent of the Order of the Visitation, at Paray-le-Monial, where she is said to have performed miracles, prophesied, made
