173 



ALBATA. 



ALBUMEN. 



174 



ALBATA, is the name given to one of the numerous varieties OL 

 white metal, now so largely used in many branches of manufacture at 

 Birmingham. Different mixtures or alloys will produce a white metal 

 For example, Mr. Parker obtained in 1844 a patent for five such com 

 pounds, all having the properties of whiteness and considerable mallea- 

 bility. ( )ne consists of zinc, tin, iron, and copper, in certain speciflec 

 proportions; another of zinc, tin, and antimony; a third of zinc 

 nickel, iron, and copper ; a fourth of copper, nickel, and silver ; and a 

 fifth of nickel, iron, and copper. It seems evident from the specifica- 

 tion, that many different proportions of the ingredients may be 

 adopted, in each of the above kinds. The mode of making white 

 ini-tal. of zinc 50, tin 48, iron 1, and copper 3, is thus described : the 

 iron and copper are first melted together in a crucible, and while 

 in a fused state, the tin is added in such quantities at a time that the 

 iron ;md copper shall not become solid ; the zinc is then added, and 

 tin- whole well combined by stirring. The flux is composed o( 

 irt of lime, one part of Cumberland ore, and three parts of sal- 

 aminonia. The alloy thus produced may be cast in sand or ingots for 

 rolling. The ' nickel-silver,' which has recently come largely into use. 

 is .-i cheap substitute for silver, superior in many respects to albata 

 I having the metal nickel as one of its components. 

 See further in respect of these compound metals under ALLOT. 

 ALBIGENSES, a religious sect, which appeared in the South oi 

 France in the twelfth century, and was the object of long and cruel 

 persecutions and wars. The denomination of Albigenses has been 

 used by historians and other writers in two senses, and often indiscrimi- 

 nately. In its more restricted and appropriate sense, the Albigenses 

 were a branch of the Panlicians from the East, who, being persecuted 

 by the Greek emperors and clergy, took refuge during the eleventh 

 century in Italy, from whence they spread into the South of France, 

 Siain, and other countries. They were called in Italy, Cathari, or 

 " pure;" a). j o I'aterini, from a place in Milan where they held their 

 meetings; and Gazari, from Gazaria or Lesser Tartary, the country 

 from which they came ; they were called, in France, Bulgares, for a 

 similar reason : and afterwards Albigeuses, from Albiga, Albi, the 

 town where their tenets were condemned by a council in 1176. But the 

 Cathari were divided into two sects, one of which held the old Mani- 

 c-liean d( u-trine of two eternal beings, one the God of Light, who was 

 the Father of Jesus, and the other, the Principle of Darkness, who 

 was the creator of the material world. This sect was also called 

 Albanenses. The other division of the Cathari believed in one eternal 

 principle, the Supreme God and Father of Christ, by whom the first 

 matter was created ; until the Evil Being, after his rebellion against 

 UK! his subsequent fall from heaven, arranged this original 

 matter according to his own fancy, and gave it its present form and 

 attributes. They believed that human bodies in particular were the 

 production of the evil principle. The Albigenses belonged to this 

 latter sect, which was also called Bajolenses or Bagnolenses. They 

 had bishops, vicars, and deacons ; they preached abstinence, mortifica- 

 tion, and celibacy ; their community, however, was divided into two 

 classes, the Consolati, or " comforted," who lived in perpetual celibacy, 

 abstained from meat and wine, and practised other austerities ; and the 

 derates, who, being unable to endure this mode of existence, 

 lived apparently like the rest of the world, but bound themselves to 

 enter before their death into the class of the " Comforted" by a 

 ceremony of inauguration. But, in the more extended sense, the name 

 of Albigenses was given in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, not 

 only to all the Cathari indiscriminately, but also to the other sects 

 which existed in the South of France at the time, including the Wal- 

 denses, who were very distinct in their tenets from the others, and 

 had no taint of Manicheism in them. They all agreed, however, in 

 l"ring the authority assumed by the Popes in spiritual matters, as 

 well as the discipline and ceremonies of the Roman Church, as unlawful 

 and erroneous. Pope Innocent III. sent two legates, Peter of Castelnau, 

 and one Rainier or Raoul, both Cistercian or Bernardino monks, as his 

 legates to France, in order to extirpate all these heresies. Dominic, a 

 Spaniard, and the founder of the order of Preachers, returning from 

 Rome in 1206, fell in with the legates, and volunteered his services in 

 the same cause. These champions, who, without asking for the advice 

 or the concurrence of the local bishops-, and upon the sole authority of 

 >pe, inflicted capital punishment on those heretics whom they 

 not convert by argument, were called, in common discourse, 

 ' In( jiiiaitont ; ' but the famous tribunal of that name was not established 

 until 1233, by Gregory IX., who entrusted it to the Dominicans. In 

 1208, Castelnau, one of the legates, who had become odious by his 

 severities, was murdered near Toulouse ; and Innocent III. on this 

 proclaimed a regular crusade against the Albigenses, and against Ray- 

 iiioiiil VI., Count of Toulouse, who supported them. All the French 

 barons were summoned to take the field ; and Simon, Count of Mont- 

 fort, wan appointed chief of the expedition, under the direction, how- 

 pve.r, of Arnald, Abbot of the Cistercians, and the Pope's new legate. 

 ir began in 1209, and lasted many years, attended by circum- 

 stances of the greatest ferocity. At the taking of Bfeiers a general 

 miuwaere of the inhabitants began. The legate being asked by some of 

 the military leaders how they were to distinguish the Albigenses from 

 : t hodox Catholics, of whom there were many in the town, 

 " Kill them all," was the reply ; " God will find out his own." Mont- 

 life at the siege of Toulouse, in 1218 and Raymond, his 



adversary, died in 1222. The war, however, was resumed by the sons 

 of the two antagonists ; until Pope Honorius III., alarmed at the suc- 

 cesses of Raymond VII., induced Louis VIII., King of France, to take 

 the field in person. At last the Count of Toulouse, pressed on all sides, 

 made peace with the King in 1229. This was a mortal blow to the 

 Albigenses. The Inquisition was now permanently established at 

 Toulouse to try those heretics who had escaped the sword. Raymond 

 himself died some years after ; and in him the house of the Counts of 

 Toulouse became extinct, and ite territories reverted to the Fivm-h 

 crown. The extermination of the Albigenses in the South of France 

 was complete ; the country was devastated ; and the language and 

 poetry of the Troubadours became also extinct, the bards themselves 

 being obliged by the terrors of the Inquisition to fly to other lauds. 

 Langlois, a Jesuit, has written a ' History of the Crusade against the 

 Albigenses ; ' but a better account of them is found in the ' General 

 History of Languedoc,' published at Paris in 1730. 



AL BORAK, the name of an imaginary animal, on which, according 

 to a Mohammedan tradition, considered as a dream by some, the Arabian 

 prophet performed his journey from the temple at Jerusalem through 

 the heavens. It is conceived by them to have been of a middle stature 

 and size between that of a mule and of an ass, and to have received its 

 name in allusion to the shining whiteness of its colour. 



ALBUM, a Latin word, signifying any thing white. The prater's 

 album was probably a board, either having the surface or the letters 

 white, on which the acts and edicts of that functionary were inscribed 

 and publicly exhibited. The opinion of some writers, who have sup- 

 posed that it was the room or place where such notices were hung up, is 

 undoubtedly erroneous. Among the later Latin authors we read of 

 the album of the judges, the album of the senators, and even the 

 album of the citizens, which seem to have been books or registers in 

 which the names of persons of those orders were enrolled. In the 

 middle ages we find album, and albus, and albo (as an indeclinable 

 noun), used for a register of saints, a muster-roll of soldiers, or, in 

 general, any list or catalogue of names. Album also sometimes signifies 

 a letter or epistle, in allusion to the white surface of the paper or parch- 

 ment. (See the ' Glossaries' of Ducange and Carpentier.) An album, 

 in modern times, is a book appropriated usually to receive the auto- 

 graphs or other manuscript contributions of authors, travellers, or any 

 other person of whom it is thought worth while to collect such memo- 

 rials ; but sometimes, also, merely as a repository of drawings, prints, 

 verses, and other miscellaneous fragments. On the Continent, the 

 matriculation list and the black board at the universities have received 

 this name ; and the note-book of a tourist, in which he makes on the 

 spot his memoranda of places and occurrences, is often called his 

 album. 



ALBUMEN. A member of the group of substances known as the 

 albuminoid or protein group. There are albumen, represented by the 

 white of egg and the serum of blood ; fibrin the muscular tissue of 

 animals ; ctuein found in solution in milk, and forming the basis of 

 cheese; and ler/umin, existing in the seeds of all leguminous plants. 

 To these may be added ylobidtn and vitdlin. 



The chemical composition of the varieties of the protein compounds 

 is nearly identical, the ultimate analysis of albumen differing but 

 slightly from that of the others. The following is by Mulder : 



Carbon 

 Hydrogen . 

 Oxygen 



Nitrogen . 

 Phosphorus . 

 Sulphur . 



53-48 



7'02 



22-00 



15-55 



1-55 



0-40 



100-00 



Casein contains no phosphorus. 



Mulder considers that albumen, fibrin, and casein are compounds of 

 a fundamental principle protein with different proportions of phos- 

 phorus and sulphur. This substance, however, to which the formula 



'JjoH^N^O^ has been assigned, has never been obtained free from 

 sulphur. 



As the animal body is composed to a large extent of muscular and 



ibrous tissues (fibrin), so it is impossible for an animal to exist on food 

 that contains no protein principle; and Liebig considers that such 

 azotized matter in the food is assimilated directly in the process of 

 digestion by the animal, constituting muscle, nerves, &c. The proteic 

 are sometimes termed the plastic elements of nutrition, in distinction 



rom the respiratory elements. 



Albumen forms a constituent both of the animal fluids and solids. 

 Of the animal fluids, it forms an essential part of the serum of the 

 blood ; it abounds in the fluid that moistens the surface of the internal 

 cavities of the body and of the organs they contain, and it exists in 



arge quantity in the watery fluid poured out into those cavities in the 

 disease termed dropsy. In some diseases it is met with in the urine. 

 In the animal solids it forms the principal part of all membranes ; of 

 the skin, of fibrin, the basis of muscle or flesh, and of the organs called 



;lands. 



Albumen then exists in the animal body in two state 1 ), in the fluid 

 and the solid form. The. best example of fluid albumen is the white 

 of egg. The white of egg consists entirely of albumen held in solution 



