ACHaeAN LEAGUE, a confederation of 12 towns in the Peloponnesus, formed especially against the influence of the Macedonians.

ACHae'ANS, the common name of the Greeks in the heroic or Homeric period.

ACHAI'A, the N. district of the Peloponnesus, eventually the whole of it.

ACHARD, a Prussian chemist, one of the first to manufacture sugar from beetroot (1753-1821).

ACHARD', LOUIS AMeDeE, a prolific French novelist (1814-1876).

ACHA'TES, the attendant of aeneas in his wandering after the fall of Troy, remarkable for, and a perennial type of, fidelity.

ACHELO'uS, a river in Greece, which rises in Mt. Pindus, and falls into the Ionian Sea; also the G.o.d of the river, the oldest of the sons of Ocea.n.u.s, and the father of the Sirens.

ACHEN, an eminent German painter (1556-1621).

ACHENWALL, a German economist, the founder of statistic science (1719-1772).

ACH'ERON, a river in the underworld; the name of several rivers in Greece more or less suggestive of it.

ACH'ERY, a learned French Benedictine of St. Maur (1609-1685).

ACH'ILL, a rocky, boggy island, spa.r.s.ely inhabited, off W. coast of Ireland, co. Mayo, with a bold headland 2222 ft. high.

ACHILLE'ID, an unfinished poem of Statius.

ACHIL'LES, the son of Peleus and Thetis, king of the Myrmidons, the most famous of the Greek heroes in the Trojan war, and whose wrath with the consequences of it forms the subject of the Iliad of Homer. He was invulnerable except in the heel, at the point where his mother held him as she dipt his body in the Styx to render him invulnerable.

ACHILLES OF GERMANY, Albert, third elector of Brandenburg, "fiery, tough old gentleman, of formidable talent for fighting in his day; a very blazing, far-seen character," says Carlyle (1414-1486).

ACHILLES TENDON, the great tendon of the heel, where Achilles was vulnerable.

ACHMED PASHA, a French adventurer, served in French army, condemned to death, fled, and served Austria; condemned to death a second time, pardoned, served under the sultan, was banished to the sh.o.r.es of the Black Sea (1675-1747).

ACH'MET I., sultan of Turkey from 1603 to 1617; A. II., from 1691 to 1695; A. III., from 1703 to 1730, who gave asylum to Charles XII. of Sweden after his defeat by the Czar at Pultowa.

ACHIT'OPHEL, name given by Dryden to the Earl of Shaftesbury of his time.

ACHROMATISM, transmission of light, undecomposed and free from colour, by means of a combination of dissimilar lenses of crown and flint gla.s.s, or by a single gla.s.s carefully prepared.

ACIERAGE, coating a copper-plate with steel by voltaic electricity.

A'CI-REA'Le (38), a seaport town in Sicily, at the foot of Mount Etna, in NE. of Catania, with mineral waters.

A'CIS, a Sicilian shepherd enamoured of Galatea, whom the Cyclops Polyphemus, out of jealousy, overwhelmed under a rock, from under which his blood has since flowed as a river.

ACK'ERMANN, R., an enterprising publisher of ill.u.s.trated works in the Strand, a native of Saxony (1764-1834).

ACLAND, SIR HENRY, regius professor of medicine in Oxford, accompanied the Prince of Wales to America in 1860, the author of several works on medicine and educational subjects, one of Ruskin's old and tried friends (1815).

ACLINIC LINE, the magnetic equator, along which the needle always remains horizontal.

ACNE, a skin disease showing hard reddish pimples; ACNE ROSACEA, a congestion of the skin of the nose and parts adjoining.

ACOEMETae, an order of monks in the 5th century who by turns kept up a divine service day and night.

ACONCA'GUA, the highest peak of the Andes, about 100 m. NE. of Valparaiso, 22,867 ft. high; recently ascended by a Swiss and a Scotchman, attendants of Fitzgerald's party.

ACONITE, monk's-hood, a poisonous plant of the ranunculus order with a tapering root.

ACONITINE, a most virulent poison from aconite, and owing to the very small quant.i.ty sufficient to cause death, is very difficult of detection when employed in taking away life.

ACORN-Sh.e.l.lS, a crustacean attached to rocks on the sea-sh.o.r.e, described by Huxley as "fixed by its head," and "kicking its food into its mouth with its legs."

ACOUSTICS, the science of sound as it affects the ear, specially of the laws to be observed in the construction of halls so that people may distinctly hear in them.

ACRASIA, an impersonation in Spenser's "Faerie Queen," of intemperance in the guise of a beautiful sorceress.