ELLIOTT. ELLIPSE. Poetry, and Letters <>[ Ebenczer Elliott i Lon- don. 1850) . ELLIOTT, Sir IIk.nkv Mikkk (1808-53). An English historian. At an early age he entered the service of the East India Company and was secretary to the Governor-General in 1S47. Two years afterwards he negotiated the important treaty with the native chiefs regarding the set- tlement of the Punjab and Gujarat. His prin- cipal literary productions are the following: Bibliographical Index to the Historians of Mohammedan India, vol. i. (1S49), a work in which the author enters upon an extensive bio- graphical and critical discussion of more than 200 Arabic and Persian historians, but which was not completed; and History of India as Told In/ Its Own Historians, edited bv John Dowson (8 vols., 1SGG-77; a Sequel by Sir E. C. Bailey, 1880). This latter is a valuable contribution to the history of Mohammedan rule in India. ■ ELLIOTT, Jesse Duncan (1782-1845). An American naval otlicer. He was born in Mary- land, was educated at Carlisle, Pa., and in 1804 entered the United States Navy as a midship- man. In October, 1812, he captured two British brigs, the Detroit and the Caledonia, near Fort Erie (q.v.), and thus won the first naval success for the Americans on the Great Lakes. At the capture of York (now Toronto), in April, 1813, he commanded the Madison, and in the bat- tle o/ Lake Erie. September, 1813, was the com- mander of the Niagara, and was second in com- mand to Perry. His conduct during the battle was subsequently much criticised, and was the subject for man}' years of considerable contro- ersy. In October, 1813, he succeeded Perry in command of the Lake Erie fleet. He afterwards commanded the sloop of war Ontario under De- catur, during the war against Algiers in 1815; was raised to the rank of captain in 1818, and commanded the West India Squadron and the Charleston Navy Yard. In 1840, after having commanded the Constitution in the Mediter- ranean Squadron for several years, he was tried by court-martial and was suspended from duty for four years. In October, 1843, however, he was restored to the service and was placed in command of the Philadelphia Navy Yard. For discussions of his conduct in the battle of Lake Erie, consult: Jarvis, A Biographical Notice of Commodore Jesse D. Elliott, Containing a Re- view of the Controversy Between Him and the Late Commodore Perry (Philadelphia, 1835); Burges, Battle of Lake Eric, with Notices of Commodore Elliott's Conduct in that Engagement (Philadelphia, 1839) ; Cooper, Battle of Lake Erie ( Cooperstown, 1843); and Bancroft, His- tory of the Battle of Lake Erie, and Miscel- laneous Papers (New York, 1891). ELLIOTT, Maxine. An American actress, born at Rockland. Maine. Her first serious role was as Felicia Umfraville, with E. S. Willard in The Middleman, in 1800. Afterwards she played with Willard in The Professor's Love Story and other pieces. With Daly's company she went to London in 1805, playing in Shakespearean parts as well as in light comedy. In 1S96 she joined N. C. Goodwin, with whom, in 1898, she played in Clyde Fitch's Nathan Hale. In 1808 she was married to Goodwin, and in 1900 they appeared with much popular success in H. V. Esmond's When We Were Twenty-one. In 1901 she es- sayed the role of Portia in The Uerehant of 'rni(<:. i < ni-iil I Strang, famous Actresses of the Day in Ann rim (Boston, L899). ELLIOTT, Samuel Mackenzie (1811-73). An American phy-ician, born at Inverness, Sni land. He was educated at the Royal College of Surgeons in Glasgow. In 1833 he came to the United States and finally established himself in .New York City, as an oculist. He served in the Civil War as lieutenant-colonel of the Highland Guard, and was wounded in the first battle of Bull Run. Subsequently he was brevetted briga- dier-general. ELLIOTT, Sarah Barnwell (?— ). An Americas novelist, daughter of Stephen Elliott (1800-ijij), first Bishop of Georgia. Her more noteworthy volumes of fiction are The Felmeres (1879) ; Jerry, a pathetic story of 'poor-white' life in the Tennessee mountains, originally pub- lished serially in Scribner's Magazine, later translated into German, and republished in Australia: The Durket Sperret, a realistic story also of the Tennessee mountaineer; .1» Incident and Other Happenings (1890); and The Mak- ing of Jane (1901). She also wrote an excellent biography of Sam Houston (1000), for the "Beacon Biographical Series," and many short stories, chiefly of Southern life. ELLIOTT, Stephen (1771-1830). An Ameri- can naturalist. He was born in Charleston. S. C. ; graduated at Yale in 1701, and was a member of the State Legislature from 1793 until 1812. He assisted in organizing the Literary and Philosophical Society of South Carolina, and was for a time its president. He was also one of the founders of the State medical college, in which, for some years, he was professor of natural history and botany. He published The Botany of South Carolina and Georgia (1821- 24), and was for a time the editor of The Southern Review. ELLIPSE (Lat. ellipsis, from Gk. ITOeifie, ellcipsis, omission, from iXkeivsiv, elleipein, to omit, from hi, en, in -f- fatireiv, leipein, to leave). An important geometric figure, repre- senting the approximate shape of the planetary / ^^~-s-^ '"* ' F' F orbits. It is one of the conic sections (q.v.) and received its name from Apollonius (q.v.). It is a curve of the second order and second class i — Curves), and may be defined as the locus of a
