ACTINOMETER. 



ACTION AT LAW. 



78 



news there was no deficiency. Not a gazette appears, says Seneca, 

 without its divorce, BO that our matrons, from constantly hearing of 

 them, soon learn to follow the example. The due supply of informa- 

 tion on political and judicial affairs was to be obtained, as now, by 

 reporters (actu.arii\. In the celebrated debate of the Roman Senate, 

 upon the punishment of those who had been concerned in the 

 Catilinarian Conspiracy, we find the first mention of short-hand 

 writers, who were specially employed by Cicero to take down the 

 speech of his friend Cato ; and it is interesting to observe that this was 

 the only speech of that extraordinary man which still existed in the 

 age of Plutarch. But it must_not be inferred, from this fact, that these 

 reporters or any other persons were at liberty to publish an account 

 i if any proceedings in the senate. Until the first consulship of Julius 

 Csesar the senate was a close court. This great man, by a ludicrously 

 distorted view of Roman history, has been generally represented as the 

 destroyer of his country's liberties ; yet he no sooner entered upon his 

 office than he made provision for giving the same publicity to all the 

 proceedings of the senate which already existed for the more popular 

 assemblies ; and this single act was perhaps the most fatal blow which 

 Cwsar gave to the aristocratic interest. (Suetonius, ' Life of Julius 

 C'sesar,' c. 20.) Under the despotism of Augustus such an institution 

 was inconvenient, and therefore repealed. The Ada of the senate, 

 though, of course, still registered, were no longer published ; and, as all 

 the popular assemblies were now deprived of real authority, the ' Acta 

 Diurna ' henceforward cm have had little 'political interest. What 

 disgraceful news they sometimes recorded, Suetonius tells us, in his 

 Lif" of Caligula,' c. 30. Even in ita best days this state-gazette was 

 no doubt, an extremely meagre document, conducted as it was on 

 government authority, without the advantages of competition, and 

 what is still more important, without the possibility of extensive 

 circulation ; for what could a newspaper have been before the art of 

 printing was discovered '! Yet , with all these disadvantages, the ' Acta 

 Diurna ' were often consulted and appealed to by the historians of 

 after tunes, a documents of the highest authority, whilst in the 

 Imperial times they were placed on an equality with the Fasti. "Sic 

 mini in fastos Actaque publica relatum est," says Suetonius (Nero, 6). 

 ( For a more minute account, see Lipsius in his Excursus on the AnnaU 

 i if Tnritnl. Lib. V. c. 4.) 



ACTINO'METER (from acrln, a sunbeam ; and farfov, a measure) 

 i - an instrument employed for the purpose of ascertaining the intensity 

 of the heat of the direct rays of the eun. It consists of a hollow 

 cylinder of glass, united at one end to a thermometer-tube, the latter 

 being terminated at the upper extremity by a ball which is drawn to 

 a point and broken off so as to leave a very small orifice, which is 

 closed with wax : to this tube is applied a scale of equal part*. The 

 other end of the cylinder is cloned by a metal cap furnished with a 

 silver screw, which turns tightly in a collar of leathers; the cylinder is 

 filled with ammonia-sulphate of copper (a deep blue fluid), and the 

 actual temperature of this fluid (on which its dilatability depends) is 

 ascertained by an interior thermometer. The cylindrical portion, 

 v liich acts as a bulb to the graduated stem, is inclosed in a box which 

 u blackened within on three sides. The box has a thick glass in front, 

 and the use of the screw is to diminish or increase the capacity of the 

 cylinder. The instrument was invented by Sir John Herschel, who 

 described it in the ' Edinburgh Journal of Science ' for 1825. Hi 

 objection to the indications of the thermometer as a means for indi- 

 cating the heating power of the solar rays, is, that the various radiating 

 effects of surrounding objects greatly interfere with the success of such 

 observations, and that time ought to be considered as an element in the 

 observations. 



In making the observations with the actinometer, the instrument is 

 disposed so that the mm may shine on its glass face, when the liquid 

 will mount rapidly in the thermometer-tube. At the end of three or four 

 minutes the extremity of the liquid is brought to the zero pf the scale 

 by turning the screw; after which, at the end of one minute, two 

 minutes, and three minutes respectively, the observer registers the 

 number of the graduation corresponding to the top of the column of 

 fluid as it continues to rise. The instrument being then covered with 

 a screen, three observations are made ta before, at intervals of one 

 minute, as the liquid descends in the tube. The instrument is again 

 placed so that the sun may shine upon it, and afterwards in the shade, 

 when two other seta of observations are made, and so on. 



A mean of the two differences between the readings at two nearest 

 observations while the sun was shining on the instrument, added to the 

 difference between the readings at the intermediate observations while 

 the instrument was in the shade, is taken as a measure of the intensity 

 i if the sun's radiation at the middle time between the first and third 

 observations ; and a mean of such results for all the triplets of 

 observation* is considered as the general mean. 



The length of a degree on the thermometric scale u at present arbi- 

 trary, and the relative values of the degrees on the scales of different 

 instrument* are determined by comparing together the indications 

 made in like circumstances. Sir J. Herschel proposed to establish, as 

 a unit for the intensity of solar heat, that value which would, in one 

 minute nf time, dissolve a thickness equal to one millionth part of a 

 metre of a horizontal sheet of ice when the sun's light falls vertically 

 up<>n it. Tliis he calls an actine ; and, from experiments made by 

 him ,it the Cnpe of Or**! Hope, he determined the value of a 



degree on the scale of one of his actmometers to be equivalent to 6'093 

 actines. 



The actinometer is useful in determining the quantity of solar heat 

 which is absorbed in passing through different strata of the atmosphere, 

 for which purpose the observations must be made at stations differently 

 elevated above the general level of the earth or sea. It may also be 

 employed to determine the diminution of heat which takes place during 

 eclipses of the sun. 



The reader interested in the subject, will find full details respecting 

 this instrument in the ' Manual of Scientific Enquiry," published by 

 the Board of Admiralty. 



ACTION is a Roman term (nelM, and signifies the legal process by 

 which a man claims possession of some specific thing to which he has 

 ,1 right, or requires another to do something which he has agreed to do, 

 or to make pecuniary compensation for neglecting to do it ; or by 

 which he claims pecuniary satisfaction for the illegal act of another to 

 his person or property. It is necessary here to notice briefly that 

 celebrated division of Roman Actions, viz., those in rein (rindicationes), 

 and those inpe rsnn a m, generally termed condietiones, though this word 

 is strictly applicable to such actions as arose from unilateral trans- 

 actions, and were brought for the recovery of property. 



The Roman A ctio in, Jtcni was the action in which a man claimed a 

 thing from another as his property, or some use of a thing ; and the 

 action might be against any person who disputed his right. To this 

 class belonged all those actions which by their nature could, as a 

 general rule, be instituted hit a person merely by virtue of some right 

 vested in him against any one who disputed or obstructed such right, 

 and for the purpose of compelling him to respect it. On the other 

 hand, the Roman Actio in Personum was against some determinate 

 person, who made himself liable to the action by not performing his; 

 contract, or by doing some illegal act to another man's person or 

 his property, (Gaius iv. 1 ; ' Instit.' iv. tit. 6) ; and all these personal 

 actions presupposed circumstances giving rise to some special duty in the 

 defendant. The distinction between the Uyo, however, is more clearly 

 shown in the mode in which the demandant asserted his right, for in 

 the actio in rem he stated it in general terms, without the name of any 

 defendant being given (e. </., " Si paret, fundum ex-jure Quiritium Titii 

 esse " ). In the actio in personam the defendant was individually pointed 



out ("Si paret Numerium Negidium dare oportere"). What 



were called interdicts in the Roman law, may also be referred to the 

 class of actions in perionam ; but the term interclictum, when considered 

 in opposition to actio, denoted a kind of action in which the procedure 

 might be more quick and summary than the aclin. The right of action 

 is nothing more than the right actively to exercise, with the aid of a 

 judge, that power of compelling the performance of, or forbearance 

 from, some positive act with which every right is accompanied, as 

 expressed in the maxim, " Ubi Jus ibi remedium," and in the Roman 

 definition of ' action,' " Nihil aliud quam jus persequendi in judicio 

 quod sibi debetur" (J. 4, C pr.) 



The English division of actions bears some analogy to the Roman 

 division, but it is much less clearly conceived. 



rule by judicial proceeding that which is his due." The general 

 object of every action is thus" to put one party in possession of a right 

 of which he has been injuriously deprived by another. This may be 

 effected, where lands or goods are wrongfully withheld, by the actual 

 delivery of them to the proprietor. In the case of assaults, slander, 

 breaches of contract, or other personal wrongs, the only remedy is to 

 award to the sufferer pecuniary compensation for the injury. For one 

 and all of these purposes the law of England appoints specific forms, by 

 which alone can be obtained those legal remedies, which the law affords 

 the injured party in the infinite variety of disputes and controversies 

 that arise between individuals. Where the wrong is of such a nature 

 that there is detriment to the public as well as injury to the individual, 

 it becomes the subject of a criminal prosecution. For those wrongs in 

 general done by one individual to another, which do not amount to 

 legal crimes, the proper remedy is by action at law. It is true, that in 

 some cases the legal remedy is insufficient, and that the injured party, 

 to obtain proper redress must resort to a suit in Chancery. But the 

 circumstances in which these courts (which administer that branch of 

 our law called equity) must be applied to will be more appropriately 

 considered under another head. [EQUITY.] 



Actions in England are usually divided into three kinds, according 

 to the subjects of them ; namely, real, personal, and mixed. 



Real Actions are so called because they exclusively refer to real pro- 

 perty, or subjects connected with land. The word real here signifies 

 that the action is in respect of a thing (res). In the Roman juris- 

 prudence the expression in rem did not mean that the action was in 

 respect of a thing (ret), but it was a technical mode of expressing the 

 generality of the action, as opposed to in personam, which had reference 

 to a particular person or persons. Real actions, then, are brought for 

 the recovery of lands, advowsons, or other hereditaments. They were, 

 in the earlier periods of our history, of constant occurrence ; and our 

 ancient books of reports are principally occupied with cases of pleas of 

 [and, which, before this country had attained to commercial import- 

 ance, was the most valuable species of property, and, consequently, the 



