Chapter IX: Front Matter (9)

ELIZABETH CITY, a town, port of entry and the county-seat of Pasquotank county, North Carolina, U.S.A., on the Pasquotank river, at the head of navigation, 46 m. S. by E. of Norfolk, Virginia. Pop. (1890) 3251; (1900) 6348 (3164 negroes); (1910) 8412. It is served by the Norfolk & Southern, and the Suffolk & Carolina railways, and is on the Dismal Swamp and Albemarle & Chesapeake canals. Elizabeth City is a winter meeting-place for hunters. It is the seat of a state normal school for negroes and of the Atlantic Collegiate Institute, is a trucking centre, has shipyards, and has a large wholesale trade in clothing, groceries and general merchandise; from it are shipped considerable quantities of fish, cotton and lumber. The town is the port of entry of the Albemarle customs district, but its foreign trade is unimportant. Among its manufactures are cotton goods, iron, lumber, nets and twine, bricks, and carriages and wagons. The oyster fisheries in the vicinity are of considerable importance. Elizabeth City was settled in 1793, and was first incorporated in the same year.

ELK, or MOOSE, the largest of all the deer tribe, distinguished from other members of the _Cervidae_ by the form of the antlers of the males. These arise as cylindrical beams projecting on each side at right angles to the middle line of the skull, which after a short distance divide in a fork-like manner. The lower prong of this fork may be either simple, or divided into two or three tines, with some flattening. In the East Siberian elk (_Alces machlis bedfordiae_) the posterior division of the main fork divides into three tines, with no distinct flattening. In the common elk (_A. machlis_ or _A. alces_), on the other hand, this branch usually expands into a broad palmation, with one large tine at the base, and a number of smaller snags on the free border; there is, however, a phase of the Scandinavian elk in which the antlers are simpler, and recall those of the East Siberian race. The palmation appears to be more marked in the North American race (_A. m. americanus_) than in the typical Scandinavian elk. The largest of all is the Alaskan race (_A. m. gigas_), which is said to stand 8 ft. in height, with a span of 6 ft. across the antlers. The great length of the legs gives a decidedly ungainly appearance to the elk. The muzzle is long and fleshy, with only a very small triangular naked patch below the nostrils; and the males have a peculiar sac, known as the bell, hanging from the neck. From the shortness of their necks, elks are unable to graze, and their chief food consists of young shoots and leaves of willow and birch. In North America during the winter one male and several females form a "moose-yard" in the forest, which they keep open by trampling the snow. Although generally timid, the males become very bold during the breeding season, when the females utter a loud call; and at such times they fight both with their antlers and their hoofs. The usual pace is a shambling trot, but when pressed elks break into a gallop. The female gives birth to one or two young at a time, which are not spotted. In America the elk is known as the moose, and the former name is transferred to the wapiti deer. (R. L.*)

ELKHART, a city of Elkhart county, Indiana, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Elkhart and St Joseph rivers, about 100 m. E. of Chicago. Pop. (1890) 11,360; (1900) 15,184, of whom 1353 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 19,282. Elkhart is at the junction of the western division with the main line of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railway, and is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Northern Indiana railways (the latter electric). It is attractively situated and has fine business and public buildings, including a Carnegie library and the Clark hospital, with which a nurses' training school is connected. It has also several parks, including the beautiful Island Park and McNaughton Park, the latter the annual meeting-place of the St Joseph Valley Chautauqua. A valuable water-power is utilized for manufacturing purposes. There are extensive railway-car shops and iron and brass foundries, and the manufactures include band instruments, furniture, telephone supplies, electric transformers, bridges, paper, flour, starch, rubber goods, acetylene gas machines, printing presses, drugs and carriages. The total value of the factory product was $4,345,466 in 1905, an increase of 10.5% since 1900. At Elkhart is the main publishing house of the Mennonite Church in America, two weekly periodicals being issued, one in English, _The Herald of Truth_, and one in German, the _Mennonitische Rundschau_. The first settlement was made here about 1834; and Elkhart was chartered as a city in 1875.

ELKINGTON, GEORGE RICHARDS (1801-1865), founder of the electroplating industry in England, was born in Birmingham on the 17th of October 1801, the son of a spectacle manufacturer. Apprenticed to his uncles, silver platers in Birmingham, he became, on their death, sole proprietor of the business, but subsequently took his cousin, Henry Elkington, into partnership. The science of electrometallurgy was then in its infancy, but the Elkingtons were quick to recognize its possibilities. They had already taken out certain patents for the application of electricity to metals when, in 1840, John Wright, a Birmingham surgeon, discovered the valuable properties of a solution of cyanide of silver in cyanide of potassium for electroplating purposes. The Elkingtons purchased and patented Wright's process, subsequently acquiring the rights of other processes and improvements. Large new works for electroplating and electrogilding were opened in Birmingham in 1841, and in the following year Josiah Mason became a partner in the firm. George Richards Elkington died on the 22nd of September 1865, and Henry Elkington on the 26th of October 1852.

ELLA, or AELLA, the name of three Anglo-Saxon kings.

ELLA (d. c. 514), king of the South Saxons and founder of the kingdom of Sussex, was a Saxon ealdorman, who landed near Arundel in Sussex with his three sons in 477. Defeating the Britons, who were driven into the forest of Andredsweald, Ella and his followers established themselves along the south coast, although their progress was slow and difficult. However, in 491, strengthened by the arrival of fresh bands of immigrants, they captured the Roman city of Anderida and "slew all that were therein." Ella, who is reckoned as the first Bretwalda, then became king of the South Saxons, and, when he died about 514, he was succeeded by his son Cissa.

ELLA (d. 588), king of the Deirans, was the son of an ealdorman named Iffa, and became the first king of Deira when, in 559, the Deirans separated themselves from the neighbouring kingdom of Bernicia. The English slaves, who aroused the interest of Pope Gregory I. at Rome, were subjects of Ella, and on this occasion the pope, punning the name of their king, suggested that "Alleluia" should be sung in his land. When Ella died in 588 Deira was conquered by Bernicia. One of his sons was Edwin, afterwards king of the Northumbrians.

ELLA (d. 867), king of the Northumbrians, became king about 862 on the deposition of Osbert, although he was not of royal birth. Afterwards he became reconciled with Osbert, and together they attacked the Danes, who had invaded Northumbria, and drove them into York. Rallying, however, the Danes defeated the Northumbrians, and in the encounter both Ella and Osbert were slain. In certain legends Ella is represented as having brought about the Danish invasion of Northumbria by cruel and unjust actions.

See _The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, edited by C. Plummer (Oxford,
1892-1899); Bede, _Historiae ecclesiasticae_, edited by C. Plummer
(Oxford, 1896); Henry of Huntingdon, _Historia Anglorum_, edited by T.
Arnold, Rolls Series (London, 1879); Asser, _De rebus gestis
Aelfredi_, edited by W.H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904); J.R. Green, _The
Making of England_ (London, 1897), and the _Dictionary of National
Biography_, vol. i. (London, 1895).

ELLAND, an urban district in the Elland parliamentary division of Yorkshire, England, on the Calder, 2-1/2 m. S. of Halifax by the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1901) 10,412. The church of St Mary is Decorated and Perpendicular. Cotton-mills, woollen-factories, ironworks, flagstone quarries at Elland Edge, and fire-clay works employ the industrial population. Elland Hall, though almost rebuilt, retains the recollection of a remarkable family feud between the Ellands and the Beaumonts of Crosland Hall, the site of which may be traced in the vicinity. A nephew of Sir John Elland, in 1342, met death at the hands of a relative of the Beaumonts upon whom Sir John took vengeance, as also upon the heads of the allied houses of Lockwood and Quarmby. The children of these families were educated in the hope of avenging their parents, and after many years succeeded in doing so, cutting off Sir John Elland and his heir.

ELLENBOROUGH, EDWARD LAW, 1ST BARON (1750-1818), English judge, was born on the 16th of November 1750, at Great Salkeld, in Cumberland, of which place his father, Edmund Law (1703-1787), afterwards bishop of Carlisle, was at the time rector. Educated at the Charterhouse and at Peterhouse, Cambridge, he passed as third wrangler, and was soon afterwards elected to a fellowship at Trinity. In spite of his father's strong wish that he should take orders, he chose the legal profession, and on quitting the university was entered at Lincoln's Inn. After spending five years as a special pleader under the bar, he was called to the bar in 1780. He chose the northern circuit, and in a very short time obtained a lucrative practice and a high reputation. In 1787 he was appointed principal counsel for Warren Hastings in the celebrated impeachment trial before the House of Lords, and the ability with which he conducted the defence was universally recognized. He had begun his political career as a Whig, but, like many others, he saw in the French Revolution a reason for changing sides, and became a supporter of Pitt. On the formation of the Addington ministry in 1801, he was appointed attorney-general and shortly afterwards was returned to the House of Commons as member for Newtown in the Isle of Wight. In 1802 he succeeded Lord Kenyon as chief justice of the king's bench. On being raised to the bench he was created a peer, taking his title from the village of Ellenborough in Cumberland, where his maternal ancestors had long held a small patrimony. In 1806, on the formation of Lord Grenville's ministry "of all the talents," Lord Ellenborough declined the offer of the great seal, but accepted a seat in the cabinet. His doing so while he retained the chief justiceship was much criticized at the time, and, though not without precedent, was open to such obvious objections on constitutional grounds that the experiment has not since been repeated. As a judge he had grave faults, though his decisions displayed profound legal knowledge, and in mercantile law especially were reckoned of high authority. He was harsh and overbearing to counsel, and in the political trials which were so frequent in his time showed an unmistakable bias against the accused. In the trial of William Hone (q.v.) for blasphemy in 1817, Ellenborough directed the jury to find a verdict of guilty, and their acquittal of the prisoner is generally said to have hastened his death. He resigned his judicial office in November 1818, and died on the 13th of December following.

Ellenborough was succeeded as 2nd baron by his eldest son, Edward, afterwards earl of Ellenborough; another son was Charles Ewan Law (1792-1850), recorder of London and member of parliament for Cambridge University from 1835 until his death in August 1850.

Three of Ellenborough's brothers attained some degree of fame. These were John Law (1745-1810), bishop of Elphin; Thomas Law (1759-1834), who settled in the United States in 1793, and married, as his second wife, Anne, a granddaughter of Martha Washington; and George Henry Law (1761-1845), bishop of Chester and of Bath and Wells. The connexion of the Law family with the English Church was kept up by George Henry's sons, three of whom took orders. Two of these were Henry Law (1797-1884), dean of Gloucester, and James Thomas Law (1790-1876), chancellor of the diocese of Lichfield.

ELLENBOROUGH, EDWARD LAW, _Earl of_ (1790-1871), the eldest son of the 1st Lord Ellenborough, was born on the 8th of September 1790. He was educated at Eton and St John's College, Cambridge. He represented the subsequently disfranchised borough of St Michael's, Cornwall, in the House of Commons, until the death of his father in 1818 gave him a seat in the House of Lords. He was twice married; his only child died young; his second wife was divorced by act of parliament in 1830.

In the Wellington administration of 1828 Ellenborough was made lord privy seal; he took a considerable share in the business of the foreign office, as an unofficial assistant to Wellington, who was a great admirer of his talents. He aimed at succeeding Lord Dudley at the foreign office, but was forced to content himself with the presidency of the board of control, which he retained until the fall of the ministry in 1830. Ellenborough was an active administrator, and took a lively interest in questions of Indian policy. The revision of the company's charter was approaching, and he held that the government of India should be transferred directly to the crown. He was impressed with the growing importance of a knowledge of central Asia, in the event of a Russian advance towards the Indian frontier, and despatched Burnes on an exploring mission to that district. Ellenborough subsequently returned to the board of control in Peel's first and second administrations. He had only held office for a month on the third occasion when he was appointed by the court of directors to succeed Lord Auckland as governor-general of India. His Indian administration of two and a half years, or half the usual term of service, was from first to last a subject of hostile criticism. His own letters sent monthly to the queen, and his correspondence with the duke of Wellington, published in 1874, afford material for an intelligent and impartial judgment of his meteoric career. The events chiefly in dispute are his policy towards Afghanistan and the army and captives there, his conquest of Sind, and his campaign in Gwalior.

Ellenborough went to India in order "to restore peace to Asia," but the whole term of his office was occupied in war. On his arrival there the news that greeted him was that of the massacre of Kabul, and the sieges of Ghazni and Jalalabad, while the sepoys of Madras were on the verge of open mutiny. In his proclamation of the 15th of March 1842, as in his memorandum for the queen dated the 18th, he stated with characteristic clearness and eloquence the duty of first inflicting some signal and decisive blow on the Afghans, and then leaving them to govern themselves under the sovereign of their own choice. Unhappily, when he left his council for upper India, and learned the trifling failure of General England, he instructed Pollock and Nott, who were advancing triumphantly with their avenging columns to rescue the British captives, to fall back. The army proved true to the governor-general's earlier proclamation rather than to his later fears; the hostages were rescued, the scene of Sir Alexander Burnes's murder in the heart of Kabul was burned down. Dost Mahommed was quietly dismissed from a prison in Calcutta to the throne in the Bala Hissar, and Ellenborough presided over the painting of the elephants for an unprecedented military spectacle at Ferozepur, on the south bank of the Sutlej. But this was not the only piece of theatrical display which capped with ridicule the horrors and the follies of these four years in Afghanistan. When Sultan Mahmud, in 1024, sacked the Hindu temple of Somnath on the north-west coast of India, he carried off, with the treasures, the richly studded sandal-wood gates of the fane, and set them up in his capital of Ghazni. The Mahommedan puppet of the English, Shah Shuja, had been asked, when ruler of Afghanistan, to restore them to India; and what he had failed to do the Christian ruler of opposing Mahommedans and Hindus resolved to effect in the most solemn and public manner. In vain had Major (afterwards Sir Henry) Rawlinson proved that they were only reproductions of the original gates, to which the Ghazni moulvies clung merely as a source of offerings from the faithful who visited the old conqueror's tomb. In vain did the Hindu sepoys show the most chilling indifference to the belauded restoration. Ellenborough could not resist the temptation to copy Napoleon's magniloquent proclamation under the pyramids. The fraudulent folding doors were conveyed on a triumphal car to the fort of Agra, where they were found to be made not of sandalwood but of deal. That Somnath proclamation (immortalized in a speech by Macaulay) was the first step towards its author's recall.

Hardly had Ellenborough issued his medal with the legend "Pax Asiae Restituta" when he was at war with the amirs of Sind. The tributary amirs had on the whole been faithful, for Major (afterwards Sir James) Outram controlled them. But he had reported the opposition of a few, and Ellenborough ordered an inquiry. His instructions were admirable, in equity as well as energy, and if Outram had been left to carry them out all would have been well. But the duty was entrusted to Sir Charles Napier, with full political as well as military powers. And to add to the evil, Mir Ali Morad intrigued with both sides so effectually that he betrayed the amirs on the one hand, while he deluded Sir Charles Napier to their destruction on the other. Ellenborough was led on till events were beyond his control, and his own just and merciful instructions were forgotten. Sir Charles Napier made more than one confession like this: "We have no right to seize Sind, yet we shall do so, and a very advantageous, useful and humane piece of rascality it will be." The battles of Meeanee and Hyderabad followed; and the Indus became a British river from Karachi to Multan.

Sind had hardly been disposed of when troubles arose on both sides of the governor-general, who was then at Agra. On the north the disordered kingdom of the Sikhs was threatening the frontier. In Gwalior to the south, the feudatory Mahratta state, there were a large mutinous army, a Ranee only twelve years of age, an adopted chief of eight, and factions in the council of ministers. These conditions brought Gwalior to the verge of civil war. Ellenborough reviewed the danger in the minute of the 1st of November 1845, and told Sir Hugh Gough to advance. Further treachery and military licence rendered the battles of Maharajpur and Punniar, fought on the same day, inevitable though they were, a surprise to the combatants. The treaty that followed was as merciful as it was wise. The pacification of Gwalior also had its effect beyond the Sutlej, where anarchy was restrained for yet another year, and the work of civilization was left to Ellenborough's two successors. But by this time the patience of the directors was exhausted. They had no control over Ellenborough's policy; his despatches to them were haughty and disrespectful; and in June 1844 they exercised their power of recalling him.

On his return to England Ellenborough was created an earl and received the thanks of parliament; but his administration speedily became the theme of hostile debates, though it was successfully vindicated by Peel and Wellington. When Peel's cabinet was reconstituted in 1846 Ellenborough became first lord of the admiralty. In 1858 he took office under Lord Derby as president of the board of control, for the fourth time. It was then his congenial task to draft the new scheme for the government of India which the mutiny had rendered necessary. But his old fault of impetuosity again proved his stumbling-block. He wrote a caustic despatch censuring Lord Canning for the Oudh proclamation, and allowed it to be published in _The Times_ without consulting his colleagues, who disavowed his action in this respect. General disapprobation was excited; votes of censure were announced in both Houses; and, to save the cabinet, Ellenborough resigned.

But for this act of rashness he might have enjoyed the task of carrying into effect the home constitution for the government of India which he sketched in his evidence before the select committee of the House of Commons on Indian territories on the 8th of June 1852. Paying off his old score against the East India Company, he then advocated the abolition of the court of directors as a governing body, the opening of the civil service to the army, the transference of the government to the crown, and the appointment of a council to advise the minister who should take the place of the president of the board of control. These suggestions of 1852 were carried out by his successor Lord Stanley, afterwards earl of Derby, in 1858, so closely even in details, that Lord Ellenborough must be pronounced the author, for good or evil, of the present home constitution of the government of India. Though acknowledged to be one of the foremost orators in the House of Lords, and taking a frequent part in debate, Ellenborough never held office again. He died at his seat, Southam House, near Cheltenham, on the 22nd of December 1871, when the barony reverted to his nephew Charles Edmund Law (1820-1890), the earldom becoming extinct.

See _History of the Indian Administration_ (Bentley, 1874), edited by
Lord Colchester; _Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select
Committee on Indian Territories_ (June 1852); volume i. of the
_Calcutta Review_; the _Friend of India_, during the years 1842-1845;
and John Hope, _The House of Scindea: A Sketch_ (Longmans, 1863). The
numerous books by and against Sir Charles Napier, on the conquest of
Sind, should be consulted.

ELLERY, WILLIAM (1727-1820), American politician, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Newport, Rhode Island, on the 22nd of December 1727. He graduated from Harvard in 1747, engaged in trade, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1770. He was a member of the Rhode Island committee of safety in 1775-1776, and was a delegate in Congress in 1776-1781 and again in 1783-1785. Just after his first election to Congress, he was placed on the important marine committee, and he was made a member of the board of admiralty when it was established in 1779. In April 1786 he was elected commissioner of the continental loan office for the state of Rhode Island and from 1790 until his death at Newport, on the 15th of February 1820, he was collector of the customs for the district of Newport.

See Edward T. Channing, "Life of William Ellery," in vol. 6 of Jared
Sparks's _American Biography_ (Boston and London, 1836).

ELLESMERE, FRANCIS EGERTON, 1ST EARL OF (1800-1857), born in London on the 1st of January 1800, was the second son of the 1st duke of Sutherland. He was known by his patronymic as Lord Francis Leveson Gower until 1833, when he assumed the surname of Egerton alone, having succeeded on the death of his father to the estates which the latter inherited from the duke of Bridgewater. Educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, he entered parliament soon after attaining his majority as member for the pocket borough of Bletchingly in Surrey. He afterwards sat for Sutherlandshire and for South Lancashire, which he represented when he was elevated to the peerage as earl of Ellesmere and Viscount Brackley in 1846. In politics he was a moderate Conservative of independent views, as was shown by his supporting the proposal for establishing the university of London, by his making and carrying a motion for the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, and by his advocating free trade long before Sir Robert Peel yielded on the question. Appointed a lord of the treasury in 1827, he held the post of chief secretary for Ireland from 1828 till July 1830, when he became secretary-at-war for a short time. His claims to remembrance are founded chiefly on his services to literature and the fine arts. Before he was twenty he printed for private circulation a volume of poems, which he followed up after a short interval by the publication of a translation of Goethe's Faust, one of the earliest that appeared in England, with some translations of German lyrics and a few original poems. In 1839 he visited the Mediterranean and the Holy Land. His impressions of travel were recorded in his very agreeably written _Mediterranean Sketches_ (1843), and in the notes to a poem entitled _The Pilgrimage_. He published several other works in prose and verse, all displaying a fine literary taste. His literary reputation secured for him the position of rector of Aberdeen University in 1841. Lord Ellesmere was a munificent and yet discriminating patron of artists. To the splendid collection of pictures which he inherited from his great-uncle, the 3rd duke of Bridgewater, he made numerous additions, and he built a noble gallery to which the public were allowed free access. Lord Ellesmere served as president of the Royal Geographical Society and as president of the Royal Asiatic Society, and he was a trustee of the National Gallery. He died on the 18th of February 1857. He was succeeded by his son (1823-1862) as 2nd earl, and his grandson (b. 1847) as 3rd earl.

ELLESMERE, a market town in the Oswestry parliamentary division of Shropshire, England, on the main line of the Cambrian railway, 182 m. N.W. from London. Pop. of urban district (1901) 1945. It is prettily situated on the west shore of the mere or small lake from which it takes its name, while in the neighbourhood are other sheets of water, as Blake Mere, Cole Mere, White Mere, Newton Mere and Crose Mere. The church of St Mary is of various styles from Norman onward, but was partly rebuilt in 1848. The site of the castle is occupied by pleasure gardens, commanding an extensive view from high ground. The town hall contains a library and a natural history collection. The college is a large boys' school. The town is an important agricultural centre. Ellesmere canal, a famous work of Thomas Telford, connects the Severn with the Mersey, crossing the Vale of Llangollen by an immense aqueduct, 336 yds. long and 127 ft. high.

The manor of Ellesmere (_Ellesmeles_) belonged before the Conquest to Earl Edwin of Mercia, and was granted by William the Conqueror to Roger, earl of Shrewsbury, whose son, Robert de Belesme, forfeited it in 1112 for treason against Henry I. In 1177 Henry II. gave it with his sister in marriage to David, son of Owen, prince of North Wales, after whose death it was retained by King John, who in 1206 granted it to his daughter Joan on her marriage with Llewellyn, prince of North Wales; it was finally surrendered to Henry III. by David, son of Llewellyn, about 1240. Ellesmere owed its early importance to its position on the Welsh borders and to its castle, which was in ruins, however, in 1349. While Ellesmere was in the hands of Joan, lady of Wales, she granted to the borough all the free customs of Breteuil. The town was governed by a bailiff appointed by a jury at one of the court leets of the lord of the manor, until a local board was formed in 1859. In 1221 Henry III. granted Llewellyn, prince of Wales, a market on Thursdays in Ellesmere. The inquisition taken in 1383 after the death of Roger le Straunge (Lord Strange), lord of Ellesmere, shows that he also held two fairs there on the feasts of St Martin and the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. By 1597 the market had been discontinued on account of the plague by which many of the inhabitants had died, and the queen granted that Sir Edward Kynaston, Kt., and thirteen others might hold a market every Thursday and a fair on the 3rd of November. Since 1792 both have been discontinued. The commerce of Ellesmere has always been chiefly agricultural.

ELLICE (LAGOON) ISLANDS, an archipelago of the Pacific Ocean, lying between 5 deg. and 11 deg. S. and about 178 deg. E., nearly midway between Fiji and Gilbert. It is under British protection, being annexed in 1892. It comprises a large number of low coralline islands and atolls, which are disposed in nine clusters extending over a distance of about 400 m. in the direction from N.W. to S.E. Their total area is 14 sq. m. and the population is about 2400. The chief groups, all yielding coco-nuts, pandanus fruit and yams, are Funafuti or Ellice, Nukulailai or Mitchell, Nurakita or Sophia, Nukufetau or De Peyster, Nui or Egg, Nanomana or Hudson, and Niutao or Lynx. Nearly all the natives are Christians, Protestant missions having been long established in several of the islands. Those of Nui speak the language of the Gilbert islanders, and have a tradition that they came some generations ago from that group. All the others are of Samoan speech, and their tradition that they came thirty generations back from Samoa is supported by recent research. They have an ancient spear which they believe was brought from Samoa, and they actually name the valley from which their ancestors started. A missionary visiting the Samoan valley found there a tradition of a party who put to sea never to return, and he also found the wood of which the staff was made growing plentifully in the district. Borings and soundings taken at Funafuti in 1897 indicate almost beyond doubt that the whole of this Polynesian region is an area of comparatively recent subsidence.

See _Geographical Journal_, passim; and _Atoll of Funafuti: Borings
into a Coral Reef_ (Report of Coral Reef Committee of Royal Society,
London, 1904).

ELLICHPUR, or ILLICHPUR, a town of India in the Amraoti district of Berar. Pop. (1901) 26,082. It is first mentioned authentically in the 13th century as "one of the famous cities of the Deccan." Though tributary to the Mahommedans after 1294, it remained under Hindu administration till 1318, when it came directly under the Mahommedans. It was afterwards capital of the province of Berar at intervals until the Mogul occupation, when the seat of the provincial governor was moved to Balapur. The town retains many relics of the nawabs of Berar. It has ginning factories and a considerable trade in cotton and forest produce. It is connected by good roads with Amraoti and Chikalda. It was formerly the headquarters of the district of Ellichpur, which had an area of 2605 sq. m. and a population in 1901 of 297,403. This district, however, was merged in that of Amraoti in 1905. The civil station of Paratwada, 2 m. from the town of Ellichpur, contains the principal public buildings.

ELLIOTSON, JOHN (1791-1868), English physician, was born at Southwark, London, on the 29th of October 1791. He studied medicine first at Edinburgh and then at Cambridge, in both which places he took the degree of M.D., and subsequently in London at St Thomas's and Guy's hospitals. In 1831 he was elected professor of the principles and practice of physic in London University, and in 1834 he became physician to University College hospital. He was a student of phrenology and mesmerism, and his interest in the latter eventually brought him into collision with the medical committee of the hospital, a circumstance which led him, in December 1838, to resign the offices held by him there and at the university. But he continued the practice of mesmerism, holding seances in his home and editing a magazine, _The Zoist_, devoted to the subject, and in 1849 he founded a mesmeric hospital. He died in London on the 29th of July 1868. Elliotson was one of the first teachers in London to appreciate the value of clinical lecturing, and one of the earliest among British physicians to advocate the employment of the stethoscope. He wrote a translation of Blumenbach's _Institutiones Physiologicae_ (1817); _Cases of the Hydrocyanic or Prussic Acid_ (1820); _Lectures on Diseases of the Heart_ (1830); _Principles and Practice of Medicine_ (1839); _Human Physiology_ (1840); and _Surgical Operations in the Mesmeric State without Pain_ (1843). He was the author of numerous papers in the _Transactions_ of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, of which he was at one time president; and he was also a fellow both of the Royal College of Physicians and Royal Society, and founder and president of the Phrenological Society. W.M. Thackeray's _Pendennis_ was dedicated to him.

ELLIOTT, EBENEZER (1781-1849), English poet, the "corn-law rhymer," was born at Masborough, near Rotherham, Yorkshire, on the 17th of March 1781. His father, who was an extreme Calvinist and a strong radical, was engaged in the iron trade. Young Ebenezer, although one of a large family, had a solitary and rather morbid childhood. He was sent to various schools, but was generally regarded as a dunce, and when he was sixteen years of age he entered his father's foundry, working for seven years with no wages beyond a little pocket money. In a fragment of autobiography printed in the _Athenaeum_ (12th of January 1850) he says that he was entirely self-taught, and attributes his poetic development to long country walks undertaken in search of wild flowers, and to a collection of books, including the works of Young, Barrow, Shenstone and Milton, bequeathed to his father by a poor clergyman. At seventeen he wrote his _Vernal Walk_ in imitation of Thomson. His earlier volumes of poems, dealing with romantic themes, received little but unfriendly comment. The faults of _Night_, the earliest of these, are pointed out in a long and friendly letter (30th of January 1819) from Robert Southey to the author.

Elliott's wife brought him some money, which was invested in his father's share of the iron foundry. But the affairs of the firm were then in a desperate condition, and money difficulties hastened his father's death. Elliott lost all his money, and when he was forty years old began business again in Sheffield on a small borrowed capital. He attributed his father's pecuniary losses and his own to the operation of the corn laws. He took an active part in the Chartist agitation, but withdrew his support when the agitation for the repeal of the corn laws was removed from the Chartist programme. The fervour of his political convictions effected a change in the style and tenor of his verse. The _Corn-Law Rhymes_ (3rd ed., 1831), inspired by a fierce hatred of injustice, are vigorous, simple and full of vivid description. In 1833-1835 he published _The Splendid Village_; _Corn-Law Rhymes, and other Poems_ (3 vols.), which included "The Village Patriarch" (1829), "The Ranter," an unsuccessful drama, "Keronah," and other pieces. He contributed verses from time to time to _Tait's Magazine_ and to the _Sheffield and Rotherham Independent_. In the meantime he had been successful in business, but he remained the sturdy champion of the poor. In 1837 he again lost a great deal of money. This misfortune was also ascribed to the corn laws. He retired in 1841 with a small fortune and settled at Great Houghton, near Barnsley, where he died on the 1st of December 1849. In 1850 appeared two volumes of _More Prose and Verse by the Corn-Law Rhymer_. Elliott lives by his determined opposition to the "bread-tax," as he called it, and his poems on the subject are saved from the common fate of political poetry by their transparent sincerity and passionate earnestness.

An article by Thomas Carlyle in the _Edinburgh Review_ (July 1832) is
the best criticism on Elliott. Carlyle was attracted by Elliott's
homely sincerity and genuine power, though he had small opinion of his
political philosophy, and lamented his lack of humour and of the sense
of proportion. He thought his poetry too imitative, detecting not only
the truthful severity of Crabbe, but a "slight bravura dash of the
fair tuneful Hemans." His descriptions of his native county reveal
close observation and a vivid perception of natural beauty.

See an obituary notice in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (Feb. 1850). Two
biographies were published in 1850, one by his son-in-law, John
Watkins, and another by "January Searle" (G.S. Phillips). A new
edition of his works by his son, Edwin Elliott, appeared in 1876.

ELLIPSE (adapted from Gr. [Greek: elleipsis], a deficiency, [Greek: elleipein], to fall behind), in mathematics, a conic section, having the form of a closed oval. It admits of several definitions framed according to the aspect from which the curve is considered. _In solido_, i.e. as a section of a cone or cylinder, it may be defined, after Menaechmus, as the perpendicular section of an "acute-angled" cone; or, after Apollonius of Perga, as the section of any cone by a plane at a less inclination to the base than a generator; or as an oblique section of a right cylinder. Definitions _in plano_ are generally more useful; of these the most important are: (1) the ellipse is the conic section which has its eccentricity less than unity: this involves the notion of one directrix and one focus; (2) the ellipse is the locus of a point the sum of whose distances from two fixed points is constant: this involves the notion of two foci. Other geometrical definitions are: it is the oblique projection of a circle; the polar reciprocal of a circle for a point within it; and the conic which intersects the line at infinity in two imaginary points. Analytically it is defined by an equation of the second degree of which the highest terms represent two imaginary lines. The curve has important mechanical relations, in particular it is the orbit of a particle moving under the influence of a central force which varies inversely as the square of the distance of the particle; this is the gravitational law of force, and the curve consequently represents the orbits of the planets if only an individual planet and the sun be considered; the other planets, however, disturb this orbit (see MECHANICS).

The relation of the ellipse to the other conic sections is treated in the articles CONIC SECTION and GEOMETRY; in this article a summary of the properties of the curve will be given.

To investigate the form of the curve use may be made of the
definition: the ellipse is the locus of a point which moves so that
the ratio of its distance from a fixed point (the _focus_) to its
distance from a straight line (the _directrix_) is constant and is
less than unity. This ratio is termed the _eccentricity_, and will be
denoted by e. Let KX (fig. 1) be the directrix, S the focus, and X the
foot of the perpendicular from S to KX. If SX be divided at A so that
SA/AX = e, then A is a point on the curve. SX may be also divided
externally at A', so that SA'/A'X = e, since e is less than unity; the
points A and A' are the _vertices_, and the line AA' the _major axis_
of the curve. It is obvious that the curve is symmetrical about AA'.
If AA' be bisected at C, and the line BCB' be drawn perpendicular to
AA', then it is readily seen that the curve is symmetrical about this
line also; since if we take S' on AA' so that S'A' = SA, and a line
K'X' parallel to KX such that AX = A'X', then the same curve will be
described if we regard K'X' and S' as the given directrix and focus,
the eccentricity remaining the same. If B and B' be points on the
curve, BB' is the _minor axis_ and C the _centre_ of the curve.

Metrical relations between the axes, eccentricity, distance between
the foci, and between these quantities and the co-ordinates of points
on the curve (referred to the axes and the centre), and focal
distances are readily obtained by the methods of geometrical conics or
analytically. The semi-major axis is generally denoted by a, and the
semi-minor axis by b, and we have the relation b^2 = a^2(1 - e^2). Also
a^2 = CS.CX, i.e. the square on the semi-major axis equals the
rectangle contained by the distances of the focus and directrix from
the centre; and 2a = SP + S'P, where P is any point on the curve, i.e.
the sum of the focal distances of any point on the curve equals the
major axis. The most important relation between the co-ordinates of a
point on an ellipse is: if N be the foot of the perpendicular from a
point P, then the square on PN bears a constant ratio to the product
of the segments AN, NA' of the major axis, this ratio being the square
of the ratio of the minor to the major axis; symbolically PN^2 =
AN.NA'(CB/CA)^2. From this or otherwise it is readily deduced that the
ordinates of an ellipse and of the circle described on the major axis
are in the ratio of the minor to the major axis. This circle is termed
the _auxiliary circle_.

Of the properties of a tangent it may be noticed that the tangent at
any point is equally inclined to the focal distances of that point;
that the feet of the perpendiculars from the foci on any tangent
always lie on the auxiliary circle, and the product of these
perpendiculars is constant, and equal to the product of the distances
of a focus from the two vertices. From any point without the curve
two, and only two, tangents can be drawn; if OP, OP' be two tangents
from O, and S, S' the foci, then the angles OSP, OSP' are equal and
also SOP, S'OP'. If the tangents be at right angles, then the locus of
the point is a circle having the same centre as the ellipse; this is
named the _director circle_.

The middle points of a system of parallel chords is a straight line,
and the tangent at the point where this line meets the curve is
parallel to the chords. The straight line and the line through the
centre parallel to the chords are named _conjugate diameters_; each
bisects the chords parallel to the other. An important metrical
property of conjugate diameters is the sum of their squares equals the
sum of the squares of the major and minor axis.

In analytical geometry, the equation ax^2 + 2hxy + by^2 + 2gx + 2fy +
c = 0 represents an ellipse when ab > h^2; if the centre of the curve
be the origin, the equation is a^1x^2 + 2h^1xy + b^1y^2 = C^1, and if
in addition a pair of conjugate diameters are the axes, the equation
is further simplified to Ax^2 + By^2 = C. The simplest form is x^2/a^2
+ y^2/b^2 = 1, in which the centre is the origin and the major and
minor axes the axes of co-ordinates. It is obvious that the
co-ordinates of any point on an ellipse may be expressed in terms of a
single parameter, the abscissa being a cos [phi], and the ordinate b
sin [phi], since on eliminating [phi] between x = a cos [phi] and y =
b sin [phi] we obtain the equation to the ellipse. The angle [phi] is
termed the _eccentric angle_, and is geometrically represented as the
angle between the axis of x (the major axis of the ellipse) and the
radius of a point on the auxiliary circle which has the same abscissa
as the point on the ellipse.

The equation to the tangent at [theta] is x cos [theta]/a + y sin
[theta]/b = 1, and to the normal ax/cos [theta] - by/sin [theta] =
a^2 - b^2.

The area of the ellipse is [pi]ab, where a, b are the semi-axes; this
result may be deduced by regarding the ellipse as the orthogonal
projection of a circle, or by means of the calculus. The perimeter can
only be expressed as a series, the analytical evaluation leading to an
integral termed _elliptic_ (see FUNCTION, ii. _Complex_). There are
several approximation formulae:--S = [pi](a + b) makes the perimeter
about 1/200th too small; s =[pi][root](a^2+b^2) about 1/200th too
great; 2s = [pi](a + b) + [pi][root](a^2 + b^2) is within 1/30,000 of
the truth.

An ellipse can generally be described to satisfy any five conditions.
If five points be given, Pascal's theorem affords a solution; if five
tangents, Brianchon's theorem is employed. The principle of
involution solves such constructions as: given four tangents and one
point, three tangents and two points, &c. If a tangent and its point
of contact be given, it is only necessary to remember that a double
point on the curve is given. A focus or directrix is equal to two
conditions; hence such problems as: given a focus and three points; a
focus, two points and one tangent; and a focus, one point and two
tangents are soluble (very conveniently by employing the principle of
reciprocation). Of practical importance are the following
constructions:--(1) Given the axes; (2) given the major axis and the
foci; (3) given the focus, eccentricity and directrix; (4) to
construct an ellipse (approximately) by means of circular arcs.

(1) If the axes be given, we may avail ourselves of several
constructions, (a) Let AA', BB' be the axes intersecting at right
angles in a point C. Take a strip of paper or rule and mark off from a
point P, distances Pa and Pb equal respectively to CA and CB. If now
the strip be moved so that the point a is always on the minor axis,
and the point b on the major axis, the point P describes the ellipse.
This is known as the _trammel_ construction.

(b) Let AA', BB' be the axes as before; describe on each as diameter a
circle. Draw any number of radii of the two circles, and from the
points of intersection with the major circle draw lines parallel to
the minor axis, and from the points of intersection with the minor
circle draw lines parallel to the major axis. The intersections of the
lines drawn from corresponding points are points on the ellipse.

(2) If the major axis and foci be given, there is a convenient
mechanical construction based on the property that the sum of the
focal distances of any point is constant and equal to the major axis.
Let AA' be the axis and S, S' the foci. Take a piece of thread of
length AA', and fix it at its extremities by means of pins at the
foci. The thread is now stretched taut by a pencil, and the pencil
moved; the curve traced out is the desired ellipse.

(3) If the directrix, focus and eccentricity be given, we may employ
the general method for constructing a conic. Let S (fig. 2) be the
focus, KX the directrix, X being the foot of the perpendicular from S
to the directrix. Divide SX internally at A and externally at A', so
that the ratios SA/AX and SA'/A'X are each equal to the eccentricity.
Then A, A' are the vertices of the curve. Take any point R on the
directrix, and draw the lines RAM, RSN; draw SL so that the angle LSN
= angle NSA'. Let P be the intersection of the line SL with the line
RAM, then it can be readily shown that P is a point on the ellipse.
For, draw through P a line parallel to AA', intersecting the directrix
in Q and the line RSN in T. Then since XS and QT are parallel and are
intersected by the lines RK, RM, RN, we have SA/AX = TP/PQ = SP/PQ,
since the angle PST = angle PTS. By varying the position of R other
points can be found, and, since the curve is symmetrical about both
the major and minor axes, it is obvious that any point may be
reflected in both the axes, thus giving 3 additional points.

(4) If the axes be given, the curve can be approximately constructed
by circular arcs in the following manner:--Let AA', BB' be the axes;
determine D the intersection of lines through B and A parallel to the
major and minor axes respectively. Bisect AD at E and join EB. Then
the intersection of EB and DB' determines a point P on the (true)
curve. Bisect the chord PB at G, and draw through G a line
perpendicular to PB, intersecting BB' in O. An arc with centre O and
radius OB forms part of a curve. Let this arc on the reverse side to P
intersect a line through O parallel to the major axis in a point H.
Then HA^1 will cut the circular arc in J. Let JO intersect the major
axis in O1. Then with centre O1 and radius OJ = OA^1, describe an arc.
By reflecting the two arcs thus described over the centre the ellipse
is approximately described.

ELLIPSOID, a quadric surface whose sections are ellipses. Analytically, it has for its equation x^2/a^2 + y^2/b^2 + z^2/c^2 = 1, a, b, c being its axes; the name is also given to the solid contained by this surface (see GEOMETRY: _Analytical_). The solids and surfaces of revolution of the ellipse are sometimes termed ellipsoids, but it is advisable to use the name spheroid (q.v.).

The ellipsoid appears in the mathematical investigation of physical properties of media in which the particular property varies in three directions within the media; such properties are the elasticity, giving rise to the strain ellipsoid, thermal expansion, ellipsoid of expansion, thermal conduction, refractive index (see CRYSTALLOGRAPHY), &c. In mechanics, the ellipsoid of gyration or inertia is such that the perpendicular from the centre to a tangent plane is equal to the radius of gyration of the given body about the perpendicular as axis; the "momental ellipsoid," also termed the "inverse ellipsoid of inertia" or Poinsot's ellipsoid, has the perpendicular inversely proportional to the radius of gyration; the "equimomental ellipsoid" is such that its moments of inertia about all axes are the same as those of a given body. (See MECHANICS.)

ELLIPTICITY, in astronomy, deviation from a circular or spherical form; applied to the elliptic orbits of heavenly bodies, or the spheroidal form of such bodies. (See also COMPRESSION.)

ELLIS (originally SHARPE), ALEXANDER JOHN (1814-1890), English philologist, mathematician, musician and writer on phonetics, was born at Hoxton on the 14th of June 1814. He was educated at Shrewsbury, Eton, and Trinity College, Cambridge, and took his degree in high mathematical honours. He was connected with many learned societies as member or president, and was governor of University College, London. He was the first in England to reduce the study of phonetics to a science. His most important work, to which the greater part of his life was devoted, is _On Early English Pronunciation, with special reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer_ (1869-1889), in five parts, which he intended to supplement by a sixth, containing an abstract of the whole, an account of the views and criticisms of other inquirers in the same field, and a complete index, but ill-health prevented him from carrying out his intention. He had long been associated with Isaac Pitman in his attempts to reform English spelling, and published _A Plea for Phonotypy and Phonography_ (1845) and _A Plea for Phonetic Spelling_ (1848); and contributed the articles on "Phonetics" and "Speech-sounds" to the 9th edition of the _Ency. Brit._ He translated (with considerable additions) Helmholtz's _Sensations of Tone as a physiological Basis for the Theory of Music_ (2nd ed., 1885); and was the author of several smaller works on music, chiefly in connexion with his favourite subject phonetics. He died in London on the 28th of October 1890.

ELLIS, GEORGE (1753-1815), English author, was born in London in 1753. Educated at Westminster school and at Trinity College, Cambridge, he began his literary career by some satirical verses on Bath society published in 1777, and _Poetical Tales_, by "Sir Gregory Gander," in 1778. He contributed to the _Rolliad_ and the _Probationary Odes_ political satires directed against Pitt's administration. He was employed in diplomatic business at the Hague in 1784; and in 1797 he accompanied Lord Malmesbury to Lille as secretary to the embassy. On his return he was introduced to Pitt, and the episode of the _Rolliad_, which had not been forgotten, was explained. He found continued scope for his powers as a political caricaturist in the columns of the _Anti-Jacobin_, a weekly paper which he founded in connexion with George Canning and William Gifford. For some years before the _Anti-Jacobin_ was started Ellis had been working in the congenial field of Early English literature, in which he was one of the first to arouse interest. The first edition of his _Specimens of the Early English Poets_ appeared in 1790; and this was followed by _Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances_ (1805). He also edited Gregory Lewis Way's translation of select _Fabliaux_ in 1796. Ellis was an intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott, who styled him "the first converser I ever saw," and dedicated to him the fifth canto of _Marmion_. Some of the correspondence between them is to be found in Lockhart's _Life_. He died on the 10th of April 1815. The monument erected to his memory in the parish church of Gunning Hill, Berks, bears a fine inscription by Canning.