Skip to content

Chapter CLIX: Act 1875: , but, broadly speaking, they are divided into two (15)

Text size

ANDAMAN ISLANDS, a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal. Large and small, they number 204, and lie 590 m. from the mouth of the Hugli, 120 m. from Cape Negrais in Burma, the nearest point of the mainland, and 340 m. from the northern extremity of Sumatra. Between the Andamans and Cape Negrais intervene two small groups, Preparis and Cocos; between the Andamans and Sumatra lie the Nicobar Islands, the whole group stretching in a curve, to which the meridian forms a tangent between Cape Negrais and Sumatra; and though this curved line measures 700 m., the widest sea space is about 91 m. The extreme length of the Andaman group is 219 m. with an extreme width of 32 m. The main part of it consists of a band of five chief islands, so closely adjoining and overlapping each other that they have long been known collectively as ``the great Andaman.'' The axis of this band, almost a meadian line, is 156 statute miles long. The five islands are in order from north to south: North Andaman (51 m. long); Middle Andaman (59 m.); South Andaman (49 m.); Baratang, running parallel to the east of the South Andaman for 17 m. from the Middle Andaman; and Rutland Island (11 m.). Four narrow straits part these islands: Austin Strait, between North and Middle Andaman; Homfray's Strait between Middle Andaman and Baratang, and the north extremity of South Andaman; Middle (or Andaman) Strait between Baratang and South Andaman; and Macpherson Strait between South Andaman and Rutland Island. Of these only the last is navigable by ocean-going vessels. Attached to the chief islands are, on the extreme N., Landfall Islands, separated by the navigable Cleugh Passage; Interview Island, separated by the very narrow but navigable Interview Passage, off the W. coast of the Middle Andaman; the Labyrinth Island off the S.W. coast of the South Andaman, through which is the safe navigable Elphinstone Passage; Ritchie's (or the Andaman) Archipelago off the E. coast of the South Andaman and Baratang, separated by the wide and safe Diligent Strait and intersected by Kwangtung Strait and the Tadma Juru (Strait). Little Andaman, roughly 26 m. by 16, forms the southern extremity of the whole group and lies 31 m. S. of Rutland Island across Duncan Passage, in which lie the Cinque and other islands, forming Manners Strait, the main commercial highway between the Andamans and the Madras coast. Besides these are a great number of islets lying off the shores of the main islands. The principal outlying islands are the North Sentinel, a dangerous island of about 28 sq. m., lying about 18 m. off the W. coast of the South Andaman; the remarkable marine volcano, Barren Idand (1150 ft.), quiescent for more than a century, 71 m. N.E. of Port Blair; and the equally curious isolated mountain, the extinct volcano of Narcondam, rising 2330 ft. out of the sea, 71 m. E. of the North Andaman. The land area of the Andaman Idands is 2508 sq. m. About 18 m. to the W. of the Andamans are the dangerous Western Banks and Dalrymple Bank, rising to within a few fathoms of the surface of the sea and forming, with the two Sentinel Islands, the tops of a line of submarine hills parallel to the Andamans. Some 40 m. distant to the E. is the Invisible Bank, with one rock just awash; and 34 m. S.E. of Narcondam is a submarine hill rising to 377 fathoms below the surface of the sea. Narcondam, Barren Island and the Invisible Bank, a great danger of these seas, are in a line almost parallel to the Andamans inclining towards them from north to south.

Topography.--The islands forming Great Andaman consist of a mass of hills enclosing very narrow valleys, the whole covered by an exceedingly dense tropical jungle. The hills rise, especially on the east coast, to a considerable elevation: the chief heights being in the North Andaman, Saddle Peak (2400 ft.); in the Middle Andaman, Mount Diavolo behind Cuthbert Bay (1678 ft.); in the South Andaman, Koiob (1505 ft.), Mount Harriet (1193 ft.) and the Cholunga range (1063 ft.); and in Rutland Island, Ford's Peak (1422 ft.). Little Andaman, with the exception of the extreme north, is practically flat. There are no rivers and few perennial streams in the islands. The scenery is everywhere strikingly beautiful and varied, and the coral beds of the more secluded bays in its harbours are conspicuous for their exquisite colouring.

Harbours.--The coasts of the Andamans are deeply indented, giving existence to a number of safe harbours and tidal creeks, which are often surrounded by mangrove swamps. The chief harbours, some of which are very capacious, are (starting northwards from Port Blair, the great harbour of South Andaman) on the E. coast: Port Meadows, Colebrooke Passage, Elphinstone Harbour (Homfray's Strait), Stewart Sound and Port Cornwallis. The last three are very large. On the W. coast: Temple Sound, Interview Passage, Port Anson or Kwangtung Harbour (large), Port Campbell (large), Port Mouat and Macpherson Strait. There are besides many other safe anchorages about the coast, notably Shoal Bay and Kotara Anchorage in the South Andaman; Cadell Bay and the Turtle Islands in the North Andaman; and Outram Harbour and Kwangtung Strait in the archipelago. The whole of the Andamans and the outlying islands were completely surveyed topographically by the Indian Survey Department under Colonel Hobday in 1883-1886, and the surrounding seas were charted by Commander Carpenter in 1888-1889.

Geology.--The Andaman Islands, in conjunction with the other groups mentioned above, form part of a lofty range of submarine mountains, 700 m. long, running from Cape Negrais in the Arakan Yoma range of Burma, to Achin Head in Sumatra. This range separates the Bay of Bengal from the Andaman Sea; and it contains much that is geologically characteristic of the Arakan Yoma, and formations common also to the Nicobars and to Sumatra and the adjacent islands. The older rocks are early Tertiary or late Cretaceous but there are no fossils to indicate age. The newer rocks, common also to the Nicobars and Sumatra, are in Ritchie's Archipelago chiefly and contain radiolarians and foraminifera. There is coral along the coasts everywhere, and the Sentinel Islands are composed of the newer rocks with a superstructure of coral. A theory of a still continuing subsidence of the islanda was formed by Kurz in 1866 and confirmed by Oldham in 1884. Signs of its continuance are found on the east coast in several places. Barren Island is a volcano of the general Sunda group which includes also the Pegu group to which Narcondam belongs. Barren Island was last in eruption in 1803, but there is still a thin column of steam from a sulphur bed at the top and a variable hot spring at the point where the last outburst of lava flowed into the sea.

Climate.--Rarely affected by a cyclone, though within the influence of practically every one that blows in the Bay of Bengal, the Andamans are of the greatest importance because of the accurate information relating to the direction and intensity of storms which can be communicated from them better than from any other point in the bay, to the vast amount of shipping in this part of the Indian Ocean. Trustworthy information also regarding the weather which may be expected in the north and east of India, is obtained at the islands, and this proves of the utmost value to the controllers of the great trades dependent upon the rainfall. A well-appointed meteorological station has been established at Port Blair since 1868. Speaking generally, the climate of the Andamans themselves may be described as normal for tropical islands of similar latitude. It is warm always, but tempered by pleasant sea-breezes; very hot when the sun is northing; irregular rainfall, but usually dry during the north-east, and very wet during the south-west monsoon. Not only does the rainfall at one place vary from year to year, but there is an extraordinary difference in the returns for places quite close to one another. The official figures in inches for the station at Port Blair, which is situated in by far the driest part of the settlement, were:--

_______________________________________________________________________
| 1895. | 1896. | 1897. | 1898. | 1899. | 1900. | 1901. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| 125.64 | 107.28 | 136.41 | 127.22 | 87.01 | 83.28 | 132.50 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

A tidal observatory has also been maintained at Port Blair since 1880.

Flora.--A section of the Forest Department of India has been established in the Andamans since 1883, and in the neighbourhood of Port Blair 156 sq. m. have been set apart for regular forest operations which are carried on by convict labour. The chief timber of indigenous growth is padouk (Pterocarpus dalbergioides) used for buildings, boats, furniture, fine joinery and all purposes to which teak, mahogany, hickory, oak and ash are applied. This tree is widely spread and forms a valuable export to European markets. Other first-class timbers are koko (Albizzia lebbek), white chuglam (Terminalia bialata), black chugiam (Myristica irya), marble or zebra wood (Diospyros kurzii) and satin-wood (Murraya exotica), which differs from the satin-wood of Ceylon (Chloroxylon swietenia.) All of these timbers are used for furniture and similar purposes. In addition there are a number of second-and third-class timbers, which are used locally and for export to Calcutta. Gangaw (Messua ferrea) the Assam iron-wood, is suitable for sleepers; and didu (Bombax insigne) is used for tea-boxes and packing-cases. Among the imported flora are tea, Siberian coffee, cocoa, Ceara rubber (which has not done well), Manila hemp, teak, cocoanut and a number of ornamental trees, fruit-trees, vegetables and garden plants. Tea is grown in considerable quantities and the cultivation is under a department of the penal settlement. The general character of the forests is Burmese with an admixture of Malay types. Great mangrove swamps supply unlimited fire-wood of the best quality. The great peculiarity of Andaman flora is that, with the exception of the Cocos islands, no cocoanut palms are found in the archipelago.

Fauna.--Animal life is generally deficient throughout the Andamans, especially as regards mammalia, of which there are only nineteen separate species in all, twelve of these being peculiar to the islands. There is a small pig (Sus andamanensis), important to the food of the people, and a wild cat (Paradoxurus tytleri); but the bats (sixteen species) and rats (thirteen species) constitute nearly three-fourths of the known mammals. This paucity of animal life seems inconsistent with the theory that the islands were once connected with the mainland. Most of the birds also are derived from the distant Indian region, while the Indo-Burmese and Indo-Malayan regions are represented to a far less degree. Rasorial birds, such as peafowl, junglefowl, pheasants and partridges, though well represented in the Arakan hills, are rare in the islands; while a third of the different species found are peculiar to the Andamans. Moreover, the Andaman species differ from those of the adjacent Nicobar Islands. Each group has its distinct harrier-eagle, red-cheeked paroquet, oriole, sun- bird and bulbul. Fish are very numerous and many species are peculiar to the Andaman seas. Turtles are abundant and supply the Calcutta market. Of imported animals, cattle, goats, asses and dogs thrive well, ponies and horses indifferently, and sheep badly, though some success has been achieved in breeding them.

Population.--The Andaman Islands, so near countries that have for ages attained considerable civilization and have been the seat of great empires, and close to the track of a great commerce which has gone on at least 2000 years, are the abode of savages as low in civilization as almost any known on earth. Our earliest notice of them is in a remarkable collection of early Arab notes on India and China (A.D. 851) which accurately represents the view entertained of this people by mariners down to modern times. ``The inhabitants of these islands eat men alive. They are black, with woolly hair, and in their eyes and countenances there is something quite frightful. . . . They go naked and have no boats. If they had, they would devour all who passed near them. Sometimes ships that are windbound and have exhausted their provision of water, touch here and apply to the natives for it; in such cases the crews sometimes fall into the hands of the latter and most of them are massacred.'' The traditional charge of cannibalism has been very persistent; but it is entirely denied by the islanders themselves, and is now and probably always has been untrue. Of their massacres of shipwrecked crews, even in quite modern times, there is no doubt, but the policy of conciliation unremittingly pursued for the last forty years has now secured a friendly reception for shipwrecked crews at any port of the islands except the south and west of Little Andaman and North Sentinel Island. The Andamanese are probably the relics of a negro race that once inhabited the S.E. portion of Asia and its outlying islands, representatives of which are also still to be found in the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines. Their antiquity and their stagnation are attested by the remains found in their kitchen-middens. These are of great age, and rise sometimes to a height exceeding 15 ft. The fossil shells, pottery and rude stone implements, found alike at the base and at the surface of these middens, prove that the habits of the islanders have not varied since a remote past, and lead to the belief that the Andamans were settled by their present inhabitants some time during the Pleistocene period, and certainly no later than the Neolithic age. The population is not susceptible of accurate computation, but probably it has always been small. The estimated total at a census taken in 1901 was only 2000. Though all descended from one stock, there are twelve distinct tribes of the Andamanese, each with its own clearly-defined locality, its own distinct variety of the one fundamental language and to a certain extent its own separate habits. Every tribe is divided into septs fairly well defined. The tribal feeling may be expressed as friendly within the tribe, courteous to other Andamanese if known, hostile to every stranger, Andamanese or other. Another division of the natives is into Aryauto or long-shore-men, and the Eremtaga or jungle-dwellers. The habits and capacities of these two differ, owing to surroundings, irrespectively of tribe. Yet again the Andamanese can be grouped according to certain salient characteristics: the forms of the bows and arrows, of the canoes, of ornaments and utensils, of tattooing and of language. The average height of males is 4 ft. 10 1/2 in.; of females, 4 ft. 6 in. Being accustomed to gratify every sensation as it arises, they endure thirst, hunger, want of food and bodily discomfort badly. The skin varies in colour from an intense sheeny black to a reddish-blown on the collar-bones, cheeks and other parts of the body. The hair varies from a sooty black to dark and light brown and red. It grows in small rings, which give it the appearance of growing in tufts, though it is really closely and evenly distributed over the whole scalp. The figures of the men are muscular and well-formed and generally pleasing; a straight, well-formed nose and jaw are by no means rare, and the young men are often distinctly good-looking. The only artificial deformity is a depression of the skull, chiefly among one of the southern tribes, caused by the pressure of a strap used for carrying loads. The pleasing appearance natural to the men is not a characteristic of the women, who early have a tendency to stoutness and ungainliness of figure, and sometimes to pronounced prognathism. They are, however, always bright and merry, are under no special social restrictions and have considerable influence. The women's heads are shaved entirely and the men's into fantastic patterns. Yellow and red ochre mixed with grease are coarsely smeared over the bodies, grey in coarse patterns and white in fine patterns resembling tattoo marks. Tattooing is of two distinct varieties. In the south the body is slightly cut by women with small flakes of glass or quartz in zigzag or lineal patterns downwards. In the north it is deeply cut by men with pig-arrows in lines across the body. The male matures when about fifteen years of age, marries when about twenty-six, begins to age when about forty, and lives onto sixty or sixty-five if he reaches old age. Except as to the marrying age, these figures fairly apply to women. Before marriage free intercourse between the sexes is the rule, though certain conventional precautions are taken to prevent it. Marriages rarely produce more than three children and often none at all. Divorce is rare, unfaithfulness after marriage not common and incest unknown. By preference the Andamanese are exogamous as regards sept and endogamous as regards tribe. The children are possessed of a bright intelligence, which, however, soon reaches its climax, and the adult may be compared in this respect with the civilized child of ten or twelve. The Andamanese are, indeed, bright and merry companions, busy in their own pursuits, keen sportsmen, naturally independent and not lustful, but when angered, cruel, jealous, treacherous and vindictive, and always unstable--in fact, a people to like but not to trust. There is no idea of government, but in each sept there is a head, who has attained that position by degrees on account of some tacitly admitted superiority and commands a limited respect and some obedience. The young are deferential to their elders. Offences are punished by the aggrieved party. Property is communal and theft is only recognized as to things of absolute necessity, such as arrows, pigs' flesh and fire. Fire is the one thing they are really careful about, not knowing how to renew it. A very rude barter exists between tribes of the same group in regard to articles not locally obtainable. The religion consists of fear of the spirits of the wood, the sea, disease and ancestors, and of avoidance of acts traditionally displeasing to them. There is neither worship nor propitiation. An anthropomorphic deity, Puluga, is the cause of all things, but it is not necessary to propitiate him. There is a vague idea that the ``soul'' will go somewhere after death, but there is no heaven nor hell, nor idea of a corporeal resurrection. There is much faith in dreams, and in the utterances of certain ``wise men,'' who practise an embryonic magic and witchcraft. The great amusement of the Andamanese is a formal night dance, but they are also fond of simple games. The bows differ altogether with each group, but the same two kinds of arrows are in general use: (1) long and ordinary for fishing and other purposes; (2) short with a detachable head fastened to the shaft by a thong, which quickly brings pigs up short when shot in the thick jungle. Bark provides material for string, while baskets and mats are neatly and stoutly made from canes and buckets out of bamboo and wood. None of the tribes ever ventures out of sight of land, and they have no idea of steering by sun or stars. Their canoes are simply hollowed out of trunks with the adze and in no other way, and it is the smaller ones which are outrigged; they do not last long and are not good sea-boats, and the story of raids on Car Nicobar, out of sight across a stormy and sea-rippled channel, must be discredited. Honour is shown to an adult when he dies, by wrapping him in a cloth and placing him on a platform in a tree instead of burying him. At such a time the encampment is deserted for three months. The Andaman languages are extremely interesting from the philological standpoint. They are agglutinative in nature, show hardly any signs of syntactical growth though every indication of long etymological growth, give expression to only the most direct and the simplest thought, and are purely colloquial and wanting in the modifications always necessary for communication by writing. The sense is largely eked out by manner and action. Mincopie is the first word in Colebrooke's vocabulary for ``Andaman Island, or native country,'' and the term--though probably a mishearing on Colebrooke's part for Mongebe (``I am an Onge,'' i.e. a member of the Onge tribe)--has thus become a persistent book-name for the people. Attempts to civilize the Andamanese have met with little success either among adults or children. The home established near Port Blair is used as a sort of free asylum which the native visits according to his pleasure. The policy of the government is to leave the Andamanese alone, while doing what is possible to ameliorate their condition.

Penal Setllement.--The point of enduring interest as regards the Andamans is the penal system, the object of which is to turn the life-sentence and few long-sentence convicts, who alone are sent to the settlement, into honest, self-respecting men and women, by leading them along a continuous course of practice in self-help and self-restraint, and by offering them every inducement to take advantage of that practice. After ten years' graduated labour the convict is given a ticket-of-leave and becomes self-supporting. He can farm, keep cattle, and marry or send for his family, but he cannot leave the settlement or be idle. With approved conduct, however, he may be absolutely released after twenty to twenty-five years in the settlement; and throughout that time, though possessing no civil rights, a quasi-judicial procedure controls all punishments inflicted upon him, and he is as secure of obtaining justice as if free. There is an unlimited variety of work for the labouring convicts, and some of the establishments are on a large scale. Very few experts are employed in supervision; practically everything is directed by the officials, who themselves have first to learn each trade. Under the chief commissioner, who is the supreme head of the settlement, are a deputy and a staff of assistant superintendents and overseers, almost all Europeans, and sub-overseers, who are natives of India. All the petty supervising establishments are composed of convicts. The garrison consists of 140 British and 300 Indian troops, with a few local European volunteers. The police are organized as a military battalion 643 strong. The number of convicts has somewhat diminished of late years and in 1901 stood at 11,947. The total population of the settlement, consisting of convicts, their guards, the supervising, clerical and departmental staff, with the families of the latter, also a certain number of ex-convicts and trading settlers and their families, numbered 16,106. The labouring convicts are distributed among four jails and nineteen stations; the self-supporters in thirty-eight villages. The elementary education of the convicts' children is compulsory. There are four hospitals, each under a resident medical officer, under the general supervision of a senior officer of the Indian medical service, and medical aid is given free to the whole population. The net annual cost of the settlement to the government is about L. 6 per convict. The harbour of Port Blair is well supplied with buoys and harbour lights, and is crossed by ferries at fixed intervals, while there are several launches for hauling local traffic. On Ross Island there is a lighthouse visible for 19 m. A complete system of signalling by night and day on the Morse system is worked by the police. Local posts are frequent, but there is no telegraph and the mails are irregular.

History.--It is uncertain whether any of the names of the islands given by Ptolemy ought to be attached to the Andamans; yet it is probable that his name itself is traceable in the Alexandrian geographer. Andaman first appears distinctly in the Arab notices of the 9th century, already quoted. But it seems possible that the tradition of marine nomenclature had never perished; that the 'Agathou daimonos nesos was really a misunderstanding of some form like Agdaman, while Nesoi Baroussai survived as Lanka Balus, the name applied by the Arabs to the Nicobars. The islands are briefly noticed by Marco Polo, who probably saw without visiting them, under the name Angamanain, seemingly an Arabic dual, ``The two Angamans,'' with the exaggerated but not unnatural picture of the natives, long current, as dog-faced Anthropophagi. Another notice occurs in the story of Nicolo Conti (c. 1440), who explains the name to mean ``Island of Gold,'' and speaks of a lake with peculiar virtues as existing in it. The name is probably derived from the Malay Handuman, coming from the ancient Hanuman (monkey). Later travellers repeat the stories, too well founded, of the ferocious hostility of the people; of whom we may instance Cesare Federici (1569), whose narrative is given in Ramusio, vol. iii. (only in the later editions), and in Purchas. A good deal is also told of them in the vulgar and gossiping but useful work of Captain A. Hamilton (1727). In 1788-1789 the government of Bengal sought to establish in the Andamans a penal colony, associated with a harbour of refuge. Two able officers, Colebrooke of the Bengal Engineers, and Blair of the sea service, were sent to survey and report. In the sequel the settlement was established by Captain Blair, in September 1789, on Chatham Island, in the S.E. bay of the Great Andaman, now called Port Blair, but then Port Cornwallis. There was much sickness, and after two years, urged by Admiral Cornwallis, the government transferred the colony to the N.E. part of Great Andaman, where a naval arsenal was to be established. With the colony the name also of Port Cornwallis was transferred to this new locality. The scheme did ill; and in 1796 the government put an end to it, owing to the great mortality and the embarrassments of maintenance. The settlers were finally removed in May 1796. In 1824 Port Cornwallis was the rendezvous of the fleet carrying the army to the first Burmese war. In 1839, Dr Helfer, a German savant employed by the Indian government, having landed in the islands, was attacked and killed. In 1844 the troop-ships ``Briton'' and ``Runnymede'' were driven ashore here, almost close together. The natives showed their usual hostility, killing all stragglers. Outrages on shipwrecked crews continued so rife that the question of occupation had to be taken up again; and in 1855 a project was formed for such a settlement, embracing a convict establishment. This was interrupted by the Indian Mutiny of 1857, but as soon as the neck of that revolt was broken, it became more urgent than ever to provide such a resource, on account of the great number of prisoners falling into British hands. Lord Canning, therefore, in November 1857, sent a commission, headed by Dr F. Mouat, to examine and report. The commission reported favourably, selecting as a site Blair's original Port Cornwallis, but pointing out and avoiding the vicinity of a salt swamp which seemed to have been pernicious to the old colony. To avoid confusion, the name of Port Blair was given to the new settlement, which was established in the beginning of 1858. For some time sickness and mortality were excessively large, but the reclamation of swamp and clearance of jungle on an extensive scale by Colonel Henry Man when in charge (1868-1870), had a most beneficial effect, and the health of the settlement has since been notable. The Andaman colony obtained a tragical notoriety from the murder of the viceroy, the earl of Mayo, by a Mahommedan convict, when on a visit to the settlement on the 8th of February 1872. In the same year the two groups, Andaman and Nicobar, the occupation of the latter also having been forced on the British government (in 1869) by the continuance of outrage upon vessels, were united under a chief commissioner residing at Port Blair.

See Sir Richard Temple, The Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Indian Census, 1901); C. B. Kloss, In the Andamans and Nicobars (1903); E. H. Man, Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands (1883); M. V. Portman, Record of the Andamanese (11 volumes MS. in India Office, London, and Home Department, Calcutta), 1893- 1898, Andamanese Monual (1887), Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group of Tribes (1898), and History of our Relations with the Andamanese (1899); S. Kurz, Vegetation of the Andamans (1867); G. S. Miller, Mammals of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (vol. xxiv. of the Proceedings of the National Museum, U.S.A.); A. L. Butler, ``Birds of the Andamans and Nicobars'' (Proc. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., vols. xii. and xiii.); and A. Alcock, A Naturalist in Indian Seas (1902).

ANDANTE (Ital. for ``moving slowly,'' from andare, to go), a musical term to indicate pace, coming between adagio and allegro; it is also used of an independent piece of music or of the slow movement in a sonata, symphony, &c.

ANDERIDA, an ancient Roman fort at Pevensey, near Eastbourne in Sussex (England), built about A.D. 300 as part of a scheme of land-defence against the Saxon pirates; repaired, probably by the great Stilicho, about A.D. 400; and after the Norman Conquest utilized by William the Conqueror for a Norman castle. Its massive Roman enceinte still stands but little damaged.

ANDERNACH, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the left bank of the Rhine, 10 m. N.W. of Coblenz by the main line to Cologne. Pop. (1900) 7889. Viewed from the river it makes a somewhat gloomy, though picturesque, impression, with its parish church (a basilica dating from the 12th century, with four towers), the round watch-tower on the Rhine, old walls in places 15 ft. thick, and a famous crane (erected 1554) for lading merchandise. Among other buildings are a Gothic Minorite church (now Protestant), a town hall, and a prison, formerly the castle of the archbishops of Cologne. Andernach has considerable industries, brewing and manufactures of chemicals and perfumes, and has also a trade in corn and wine. But its most notable article of commerce is that of mill-stones, made of lava and tufa-stone, a product much used by the Dutch in the construction of their dykes.

Andernach (Antunnacum) is the old Roman Castellum ante Nacum, founded by Drusus and fortified in the 3rd century A.D. In 1109 Andernach received civic rights, passed in 1167 to the electors of Cologne, in 1253 joined the confederation of the Rhine cities and was the most southern member of the Hanseatic league. Here in 1474 a treaty was signed between the emperor Frederick III., the four electors of the Rhine and France. In 1794 Andernach passed to France, but in 1815 was ceded, together with the left bank of the Rhine, to Prussia.

ANDERSEN, HANS CHRISTIAN (1805-1875), Danish poet and fabulist, was born at Odense, in Funen, on the 2nd of April 1805. He was the son of a sickly young shoemaker of twenty-two, and his still younger wife: the whole family lived and slept in one little room. Andersen very early showed signs of imaginative temperament, which was fostered by the indulgence and superstition of his parents. In 1816 the shoe-maker died and the child was left entirely to his own devices. He ceased to go to school; he built himself a little toy-theatre and sat at home making clothes for his puppets, and reading all the plays that he could borrow; among them were those of Holberg and Shakespeare. At Easter 1819 he was confirmed at the church of St Kund, Odense, and began to turn his thoughts to the future. It was thought that he was best fitted to be a tailor; but as nothing was settled, and as Andersen wished to be an opera-singer, he took matters into his own hand and started for Copenhagen in September 1819. There he was taken for a lunatic, snubbed at the theatres, and nearly reduced to starvation, but he was befriended by the musicians Christoph Weyse and Siboni, and afterwards by the poet Frederik Hoegh Guldberg (1771-1852). His voice failed, but he was admitted as a dancing pupil at the Royal Theatre. He grew idle, and lost the favour of Guldberg, but a new patron appeared in the person of Jonas Collin, the director of the Royal Theatre, who became Andersen's life-long friend. King Frederick VI. was interested in the strange boy and sent him for some years, free of charge, to the great grammar-school at Slagelse. Before he started for school he published his first volume, The Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave (1822). Andersen, a very backward and unwilling pupil, actually remained at Slagelse and at another school in Elsinore until 1827; these years, he says, were the darkest and bitterest in his life. Collin at length consented to consider him educated, and Andersen came to Copenhagen. In 1829 he made a considerable success with a fantastic volume entitled A Journey on Foot from Holman's Canal to the East Point of Amager, and he published in the same season a farce and a book of poems. He thus suddenly came into request at the moment when his friends had decided that no good thing would ever come out of his early eccentricity and vivacity. He made little further progress, however, until 1833, when he received a small travelling stipend from the king, and made the first of his long European journeys. At Le Locle, in the Jura, he wrote Agnate and the Merman; and in October 1834 he arrived in Rome. Early in 1835 Andersen's novel, The Improvisatore, appeared, and achieved a real success; the poet's troubles were at an end at last. In the same year, 1835, the earliest instalment of Andersen's immortal Fairy Tales (Eventyr) was published in Copenhagen. Other parts, completing the first volume, appeared in 1836 and 1837. The value of these stories was not at first perceived, and they sold slowly. Andersen was more successful for the time being with a novel, O.T., and a volume of sketches, In Sweden; in 1837 he produced the best of his romances, Only a Fiddler. He now turned his attention, with but ephemeral success, to the theatre, but was recalled to his true genius in the charming miscellanies of 1840 and 1842, the Picture-Book without Pictures, and A Poet's Bazaar. Meanwhile the fame of his Fairy Tales had been steadily rising; a second series began in 1838, a third in 1845. Andersen was now celebrated throughout Europe, although in Denmark itself there was still some resistance to his pretensions. In June 1847 he paid his first visit to England, and enjoyed a triumphal social success; when he left, Charles Dickens saw him off from Ramsgate pier. After this Andersen continued to publish much; he still desired to excel as a novelist and a dramatist, which he could not do, and he still disdained the enchanting Fairy Tales, in the composition of which his unique genius lay. Nevertheless he continued to write them, and in 1847 and 1848 two fresh volumes appeared. After a long silence Andersen published in 1857 another romance, To be or not to be. In 1863, after a very interesting journey, he issued one of the best of his travel-books, In Spain. His Fairy Tales continued to appear, in instalments, until 1872, when, at Christmas, the last stories were published. In the spring of that year Andersen had an awkward accident, falling out of bed and severely hurting himself. He was never again quite well, but he lived till the 4th of August 1875, when he died very peacefully in the house called Rolighed, near Copenhagen. (E. G.)

ANDERSON, ADAM (1692--1765), Scottish economist, was born in 1692, and died in London on the 10th of January 1765. He was a clerk for forty years in the South Sea House, where he published a work entitled Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce from the Earliest Accounts to the Present Time, containing a History of the Great Commercial Interests of the British Empire (1762, 2 vols. fol.).

ANDERSON, ALEXANDER (c. 1582-1620?), Scottish mathematician, was born at Aberdeen. In his youth he went to the continent and taught mathematics at Paris, where he published or edited, between the years 1612 and 1619, various geometrical and algebraical tracts, which are conspicuous for their ingenuity and elegance. He was selected by the executors of Franciscus Vieta to revise and edit his manuscript works, a task which he discharged with great ability. The works of Anderson amount to six thin 4to volumes, and as the last of them was published in 1619, it is probable that the author died soon after that year, but the precise date is unknown.

ANDERSON, SIR EDMUND (1530-1605), English lawyer, descended from a Scottish family settled in Lincolnshire, was born in 1530 at Flixborough or Broughton in that county. After studying for a short time at Lincoln College, Oxford, he became in 1550 a student of the Inner Temple. In 1579 he was appointed serjeant-at-law to Queen Elizabeth, and also an assistant judge on circuit. As a reward for his services in the trial of Edmund Campian and his followers (1581), he was, on the death of Sir James Dyer, appointed lord chief justice of the Common Pleas (1582), and was knighted. He took part in all the leading state trials which agitated England during the latter years of Elizabeth's reign. Though a great lawyer and thoroughly impartial in civil cases, he became notorious by his excessive severity and harshness when presiding over the trials of catholics and nonconformists; more markedly so in those of Sir John Perrot, Sir Walter Raleigh, and John Udall the puritan minister. Anderson was also one of the commissioners appointed to try Mary queen of Scots in 1586. He died on the 1st of August 1605 at Eyworth in Bedfordshire. In addition to Reports of Many Principal Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Time of Queen Elizabeth in the Common Bench, published after his death, he drew up several expositions of statutes enacted in Elizabeth's reign which remain in manuscript in the British Museum.

ANDERSON, ELIZABETH GARRETT (1836- ), English medical practitioner, daughter of Newson Garrett, of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, was born in 1836, and educated at home and at a private school. In 1860 she resolved to study medicine, an unheard-of thing for a woman in those days, and one which was regarded by old-fashioned people as almost indecent. Miss Garrett managed to obtain some more or less irregular instruction at the Middlesex hospital, London, but was refused admission as a full student both there and at many other schools to which she applied. Finally she studied anatomy privately at the London hospital, and with some of the professors at St Andrews University, and at the Edinburgh Extra-Mural school. She had no less difficulty in gaining a qualifying diploma to practise medicine. London University, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, and many other examining bodies refused to admit her to their examinations; but in the end the Society of Apothecaries, London, allowed her to enter for the License of Apothecaries' Hall, which she obtained in 1865. In 1866 she was appointed general medical attendant to St Mary's dispensary, a London institution started to enable poor women to obtain medical help from qualified practitioners of their own sex. The dispensary soon developed into the New hospital for women, and there she worked for over twenty years. In 1870 she obtained the Paris degree of M.D. The same year she was elected to the first London School Board, at the head of the poll for Marylebone, and was also made one of the visiting physicians of the East London hospital for children; but the duties of these two positions she found to be incompatible with her principal work, and she soon resigned them. In 1871 she married Mr J. G. S. Anderson (d. 1907), a London shipowner, but did not give up practice. She worked steadily at the development of the New hospital, and (from 1874) at the creation of a complete school of medicine in London for women. Both institutions have since been handsomely and suitably housed and equipped, the New hospital (in the Euston Road) being worked entirely by medical women, and the schools (in Hunter Street, W.C.) having over 200 students, most of them preparing for the medical degree of London University, which was opened to women in 1877. In 1897 Mrs Garrett Anderson was elected president of the East Anglian branch of the British Medical Association. In 1908 she was elected (the first lady) mayor of Aldeburgh. The movement for the admission of women to the medical profession, of which she was the indefatigable pioneer in England, has extended to every civilized country except Spain and Turkey.

ANDERSON, JAMES (1662-1728), Scottish genealogist, antiquary and historian, was born at Edinburgh on the 5th of August 1662. He was educated for the law, and became a writer to the signet in 1691. His profession gave him the opportunity of gratifying his taste for the study of ancient documents; and just before the union the Scottish parliament commissioned him to prepare for publication what remained of the public records of the kingdom, and in their last session voted a sum of L. 1940 sterling to defray his expenses. At this work he laboured for several years with great judgment and perseverance; but it was not completed at his death in 1728. The book was published posthumously in 1739, edited by Thomas Ruddiman, under the title Selectus Diplomatum et Numismatum Scotiae Thesaurus. The preparation of this great national work involved the author in considerable pecuniary loss; and soon after his death, the numerous plates, engraved by Sturt, were sold for L. 530. These plates are now lost, and the book has become exceedingly scarce. After the union of the crowns, Anderson was appointed in 1715 postmaster-general for Scotland, as some compensation for his labours; but in the political struggles of 1717 he was deprived of this office, and never again obtained any reward for his services. He died on the 3rd of April 1728. He published, during the controversy about the union, An Historical Essay showing that the Crown and Kingdom of Scotland is Imperial and Independent (Edin., 1705,), and later Collections relating to the History of Mary Queen of Scotland (in 4 vols., Edin., 1727-1728).

ANDERSON, JAMES (1739-1808), Scottish agriculturist and economist, was born at Hermiston, near Edinburgh, in 1739. While still a boy he undertook the working of a farm in Mid- Lothian which his family had occupied for several generations, and later he rented in Aberdeenshire a farm of 1300 acres of unimproved land. In 1783 he settled in Edinburgh, where in 1791 he projected a weekly publication called The Bee, which was largely written by himself, and of which eighteen volumes were published. In 1797 he began to reside at Isleworth, and from 1799 to 1802 he produced a monthly publication, Recreations in Agriculture, Natural History, Arts and Miscellaneous Literature. He was also the author of many pamphlets on agricultural and economical topics. He died on the 15th of October 1808.

ANDERSON, JOHN (1726-1796), Scottish natural philosopher, was born at Roseneath, Dumbartonshire, in 1726. In 1756 he became professor of oriental languages in the university of Glasgow, where he had finished his education; and in 1760 he was appointed to the more congenial post of professor of natural philosophy. He devoted himself particularly to the application of science to industry, instituting courses of lectures intended especially for artisans, and he bequeathed his property for the foundation of an institution for the furtherance of technical and scientific education in Glasgow, Anderson's College, now merged in the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College. He died in Glasgow on the 13th of January 1796. His Institutes of Physics, published in 1786, went through five editions in ten years.

ANDERSON, MARY (1859- ), American actress, was born at Sacramento, California, on the 28th of July 1859. Her father, an officer in the Confederate service in the Civil War, died in 1863. She was educated in various Roman Catholic institutions, and at the age of thirteen, with the advice of Charlotte Cushman, began to study for the stage, making her first appearance at Louisville, Kentucky, as Juliet in 1875. Her remarkable beauty created an immediate success, and she played in all the large cities of the United States with increasing popularity. Between 1883 and 1889 she had several seasons in London, and was the Rosalind in the performance of As You Like It which opened the Shakespeare Memorial theatre at Stratford-on-Avon. Among her chief parts were Galatea (in W. S. Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea), Clarice (in his Comedy and Tragedy, written for her), Hermione, Perdita, and Julia (in The Hunchback.) In 1889 she retired from the stage and in 1890 married Antonio de Navarro, and settled in England.

See William Winter's Stage Life of Mary Anderson (New York, 1886), and her own A Few Momories (New York, 1896).

ANDERSON, RICHARD HENRY (1821-1879), American soldier, was born in South Carolina on the 7th of October 1821. Graduating at West Point in 1842, he served in the Mexican War (in which he won the brevet of first lieutenant) and in the Kansas troubles of 1856-1857, becoming first lieutenant in 1848 and captain in 1855. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 he resigned his commission in the U.S. army, and entered the Confederate service as a brigadier-general, being promoted major-general in August 1862 and lieutenant-general in May 1864. With the exception of a few months spent with the army under Bragg in 1862, Anderson's service was wholly in the Army of Northern Virginia. Under Lee and Longstreet he served as a divisional commander in nearly every battle from 1862 to 1864, winning especial distinction at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. When Longstreet was wounded at the battle of the Wilderness, Anderson succeeded him in command of the 1st corps, which he led in the subsequent battles. His services at the battle of Spottsylvania (q.v.) were most important. He remained with the army, as a corps commander, to the close of the war, after which he retired into private life. He died at Beaufort S.C. on the 26th of June 1879.

ANDERSON, ROBERT (1750-1830), Scottish author and critic, was born at Carnwath, Lanarkshire, on the 7th of January 1750. He studied first divinity and then medicine at the university of Edinburgh, and subsequently, after some experience as a surgeon, took the degree of M.D. at St Andrews in 1778. He began to practise as a physician at Alnwick, but he became financially independent by his marriage with the daughter of Mr John Gray, and abandoned his profession for a literary life in Edinburgh. For several years his attention was occupied with his edition of The Works of the British Poets, with Prefaces Biographical and Critical (14 vols. 8vo, Edin., 1792-1807). His other publications were, The Miscellaneous Works of Tobias Smollett, M.D., with Memoirs of his Life and Writings (Edin., 1796); Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., with Critical Observations on his Works (Edin., 1815); The Works of John Moore, M.D., with Memoirs of his Life and Writings (Edin., 7 vols., 1820); and The Grave and other Poems, by Robert Blair; to which are prefixed some Account of his Life and Observations on his Writings (Edin., 1826). Dr Anderson died at Edinburgh on the 20th of February 1830.

ANDERSON, a city and the county-seat of Madison county, Indiana, U.S.A., situated on the west fork of the White river, about 35 m. N.E. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1880) 4126; (1890) 10,741; (1900) 20,178, of whom 1081 were foreign-born; (1910, census) 22,476. It is served by the Central Indiana, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Pittsburg, Chicago & St Louis railways, and also by the Indiana Union Traction System (electric), the general offices and central power plant of which are situated there. Its importance as a manufacturing centre is due to its location in the natural gas region. In 1905 Anderson ranked first among the cities of the state in the manufacture of carriage and wagon material, and iron and steel. Among its many other manufactures are glass and glassware, paper, strawboards, crockery and tiles. In 1905 the total factory product was valued at $8,314,760. There is a good public library; much attention has been devoted to public improvements; and the water works and the electric lighting plants are owned and operated by the city. In connexion with the water works there is a good filtration plant. First settled about 1822, Anderson was incorporated in 1865.

ANDERSONVILLE, a village of Sumter county, Georgia, U.S.A., in the S.W. part of the state, about 60 m. S.W. of Macon, on the Central of Georgia railway. Pop. (1910) 174. From November 1863 until the close of the Civil War it was the seat of a Confederate military prison. A tract of 16 1/2 acres of land near the village was cleared of trees and enclosed with a stockade. Prisoners began to arrive in February 1864, before the prison was completed and before adequate supplies had been received, and in May their number amounted to about 12,000. In June the stockade was enlarged so as to include 26 1/2 acres, but the congestion was only temporarily relieved, and in August the number of prisoners exceeded 32,000. No shelter had been provided for the inmates: the first arrivals made rude sheds from the debris of the stockade; the others made tents of blankets and other available pieces of cloth, or dug pits in the ground. Owing to the slender resources of the Confederacy, the prison was frequently short of food, and even when this was sufficient in quantity it was of a poor quality and poorly prepared on account of the lack of cooking utensils. The water supply, deemed ample when the prison was planned, became polluted under the congested conditions. During the summer of 1864 the prisoners suffered greatly from hunger, exposure and disease, and in seven months about a third of them died. In the autumn, after the capture of Atlanta, all the prisoners who could be moved were sent to Millen, Georgia and Florence, South Carolina. At Millen better arrangements prevailed, and when, after Sherman began his march to the sea, the prisoners were returned to Andersonville, the conditions there were somewhat improved. During the war 49,485 prisoners were received at the Andersonville prison, and of these about 13,000 died. The terrible conditions obtaining there were due to the lack of food supplies in the Confederate States, the incompetence of the prison officials, and the refusal of the Federal authorities in 1864 to make exchanges of prisoners, thus filling the stockade with unlooked-for numbers. After the war Henry Wirz, the superintendent, was tried by a court-martial, and on the 10th of November 1865 was hanged, and the revelation of the sufferings of the prisoners was one of the factors that shaped public opinion regarding the South in the Northern states, after the close of the Civil War. The prisoners' burial ground at Andersonville has been made a national cemetery, and contains 13,714 graves of which 921 are marked ``unknown.''

There is an impartial account of the Andersonville prison in James F. Rhodes, History of the United States (vol. v., New York, 1904). The partisan accounts are numerous; see, for instance, A. C. Hamlin, Martyria; or, Andersonville Prison (Boston, 1866); and R. R. Stevenson, The Southern Side; or, Andersonville Prison (Baltimore, 1876).

ANDES, a vast mountain system forming a continuous chain of highland along the western coast of South America. It is roughly 4400 m. long, 100 m. wide in some parts, and of an average height of 13,000 ft.1 The connexion of this system with that of the Rocky Mountains, which has been pointed out by many writers, has received much support from the discovery of the extensive eruptions of granite during Tertiary times, extending from the southern extremity of South America to Alaska. The Andean range is composed of two great principal chains with a deep intermediate depression, in which, and at the sides of the great chains, arise other chains of minor importance, the chief of which is that called the Cordillera de la Costa of Chile. This starts from the southern extremity of the continent, and runs in a northerly direction, parallel with the coast, being broken up at its beginning into a number of islands, and afterwards forming the western boundary of the great central valley of Chile. To the north this coastal chain continues in small ridges or isolated hills along the Pacific as far as Colombia, always leaving the same valley more or less visible to the west of the western great chain.

Tierra del Fuego.

Comments

Log in to leave a comment.

The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia, Volume 1 of 28Chapter CLIX: Act 1875: , but, broadly speaking, they are divided into two (15)

0%37 min left in chapter