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AUYOT, JAQUES. 



IN 



treth, a TlvMiooe. toapsramspt. social heart, great erudition, and acute 

 r*Mm>l* power* : oo tbe other hand. Chalmera, in his Biographical 

 Dictionary,' call* them th* sffuaion* of a mind evidently deranged. 



** * , * . . * . s ri'.* _ _ _J *>. 



. th* prophst, wss a native of the town of Thekoa, which was 

 about six mile* sooth of Bethlehem. H* wss not a prophet's son, but 

 herdsman, and a gatherer of sveamore fruit, and the Lord took him 

 s* h* followed th* flock, to prophesy unto Israel. (Amos vii. 14, 15.) 

 Amos saw hi* visions eonoerniag Israel in the days of Uuiah, king of 

 Judah. and in tbs days of Jeroboam II, king of Israel, two years 

 before tbs earthquake. (Amo* L 1.) This earthquake is mentioned 

 by Kacharuh (liv. S). sad happened, according to the opinions of the 

 later J*w, when Uxiiah went into the temple to burn incense upon 

 tbs altar; and Asariah. th* pri**t, went in after him, and with him 

 fotresors priests, valiant men, who withstood Uniah, and said, It 

 appertained not onto thee to burn incense, but to the priest* that are 

 ' : go out of the sanctuary. Then Uuiah wa* wroth, 

 in his forehead, and the priest* thrust him out from 

 (8 Chron. xxvl) It is probable that the prophecies of Amos 

 wen delivered between the yean 708-784 before Christ 



Many having repeated St. Jerome's saying, that Amos was " rude in 

 speech, but not in knowledge," Bishop Louth, in his twenty-first lecture, 

 hows that Amo* wa* not behind tbe chief prophets in eloquence. The 

 book of Amo* is written in an excellent Hebrew style, but the ortho- 

 graphy differs occasionally from the usual standard. Amos, the herds- 

 man, has taken many figures from pastoral life, but he allude* also 

 to klrtory, geography, and astronomy. 



AMTERK, ANDRE MARIE, was one of the many scientific men 

 who since the commencement of the present century have distinguished 

 themselves by tbs application of the highest branches of mathematical 

 analysts to physical propositions, and particularly to such as relate to 

 electricity, magnetism, and light 



Of hi* private life little is known ; and his history, like that of most 

 of the men who have passed their days in scientific pursuits, consists 

 merely in statement* of his birth and death, with a list of the works 

 which he composed. He wa* born at Lyon in 1775 ; and it appears 

 that h* rwidr.l in or near that city till about the year 1804, when he 

 removed to Paris, where be died in 1836. Before this removal he was 

 professor of physic* in the central school of the department of Aiu, 

 and subsequently he held the appointment of professor of analysis in 

 th* Polytechnic School of Pun'. 



Hi* first publication is entitled 'Con-idcmtions sur la Thoorie 

 Mathe'matiqtie du Jeu' (Lyon, 1802), in which it is satisfactorily proved 

 that, if a person play habitually in society, he must infallibly, even 

 though he play on equal term*, be ruined ; since he is, as it were, 

 playing with finite means against an opponent who may be considered 

 a* infinitely rich, and who therefore may continue the game indefi- 

 nitely. In 1805 Ampere presented to the Class of Physical and Mathe- 

 matical .Science* of the National Institute a paper entitled ' Recherche*. 

 sur I' Application de* Formules Qe'ne'rales dn Calcul des Variations mix 

 Problemts de Moohanique ;' and in the 'Anuales de Chimie' (1814), 

 there it published hi* letter to Berthollet on the subject of ' Definite 

 Proportions, or tbs Atomic Theory.' 



Borne connection between the electric, galvanic, and magnetic powers 

 in nature had been long suspected, on account of the observed effects 

 of lightning on the directive property of a magnetised needle ; and iu 

 1819 M. Oersted observed that the wire connecting the opposite poles 

 of s galvanic or voltaic battery caused a magnetised needle, suspended 

 near it, to deviate from that position which it assumes when beyond 

 the influence of any disturbing power. This remarkable phenomenon 

 bring made public, the philosophers both of this country and of the 

 aootineot repeated the experiment in various ways ; and airnost imme- 

 diately, by th* discoveries to which their researches led, rained up a 

 new branch of Misuse. Among the earliest of these philosophers was 

 Ampere, who in September, 1820, read before the Academic Royale 

 e>s Msnoes a paper in which it wa* stated that the voltaic pile, or 

 galvanic trough iteelf, produced a like effect on a needle luspended 

 ear it, when ite opposite poles are connected by a wire ; and *oon 

 afterwards be sommuuicaUd an important discovery which proved 

 that some, at Isset, of th* phenomena of magnetism could be repre- 

 rated by sUetrloity alone. H* showed that if two wires connect the 

 opposite poles of a battery, they attract one another when so disposed 

 that the current, psss along them in the same direction, and repel one 

 Bother when tbe narrate flow in contrary directions ; ami he con- 

 totfed a delicate apparatus by which the phenomena were exhibited. 



Faraday having discovered that if s wire be suspended over one pole 



or 



magnet IB th* other, would revolve about the fixed 

 I ; Ampere, to wbom th* discovery wss communicated, immedi- 

 ately repeated th* experiment, and canssquently contrived an appa- 

 ra.u. m which th* suspended magnet was, by the influence of the wire, 

 *. ** H slso Invented the well known 

 ' ft ttypptf CTliDaiT mrrouoding 0110 of niuc 

 d seJphuri* sold, both of which cylinder* being 



vertical peeKtoo, revolve about th* magnet ; from right to left IT th* 



north end be uppermost, and in a contrary direction if the south end 

 l>* uppermost, M. Arago afterward*, in conjunction with or at the 

 suggestion of Ampere, succeeded in communicating magnetism to a 

 neodl* by placing it within a helix of copper wire, the extremities of 

 which were connected with the pole* of a battery. 



From th* mutual attractions and repulsions existing apparently in 

 electrical, or, a* they may be called, electro-magnetic current*, Am per* 

 inferred that .-ui-h currents revolve continually about a magnet; at 

 first he supposed that the centres of their revolutions were in the axis 

 of tbe magnet, but be was subsequently led to consider that currents 

 revolve about each atom in planes a little inclined to the general axis 

 of the magnet: setting out witli this principle, he satisfactorily 

 deduced, by analytical processes, the phenomenon of electro-magnetism, 

 or, a* he designated the science, electro-dynamics. He conceived more- 

 over that the magnetic action of the earth is the result of current* 

 circulating within it, or at ita surface, from east to west in planes 

 parallel to the magnetic equator : he also imagined that these current* 

 act on balanced or suspended bodies which, like magnetised needle*, 

 contain electric current*, causing them to place themselves in such 

 positions that the currents on their under sides may flow in the same 

 directions as those of the earth. He contrived several ingenious 

 machines in which terrestrial magnetism was an agent : among other*, 

 he disposed a wire, bent in the form of a rectangle or a spiral, so that 

 the plane might turn on a vertical axis ; and, placing it in the po-iii 01 

 of the magnetic meridian, he allowed the electric current to enter at 

 either extremity, when, exactly as a magnetised needle would do, it 

 turned till it became at right angles to that meridian. He also exhi- 

 bited to the Royal Academy of Sciences a copper wire bent in the 

 form of a helix which possessed the properties of a magnet; the two 

 extremities of the wire returned along the axis of the helix, each way, 

 to the middle, whence they passed out in opposite directions, and 

 served as pivots on which the spiral might turn. When the pivots were 

 connected with the poles of a battery, each end. of tha helix, on a pole 

 of a common magnet being presented to it, was attracted or repelled. 



Ampere published at Paris, in 1822, a work entitled ' Kecucil 

 d'Observations Electro-lJyuamiques ;' iu 1S24, one which was desig- 

 nated ' Prdcia de la Thdoiie des Phdnouienes Klectro-Dyuauiiques ' 

 (both of these are in Svo.) ; and iu 1S26, in 4 to, ' Theorie des Phdno- 

 menes Klectro-Dynamiques.' Two years afterwards be published a 

 ' Mrmoire sur la Determination de la Surface Courbe des Omles 

 Lurnineuses,' itc. ; and i-ix years subsequently an ' Kssai sur la Philo- 

 sophic des Sciences,' &c. fce<ides these works there were puhli-ii' -1 

 separately several memoirs relating to his experiments in electro- 

 dynamics; also, iu the ' MiSuioires de I'lnstitut,' iti the 'Journal de 

 1'Ecole Polytechnique,' and in other works, are many papers relating to 

 Mechanics, Optics, and Natural History. 



(Addrea of H. K. II. the Duke of Sattex to the Royal Soci 

 London, 183d; Barlow, >ay on Magnetic Attraction!; Turner, 

 Urmtntt of Chcmittry.) 



AMURATH. [MuiiAD.] 



AMVOT, JAQUES, is chiefly known in our times for the high 

 merit which belongs to him as having been one of the most distin- 

 guished among those early writers of French prose whose works gave 

 consistency aud elegance to tho modern language. He waa born at 

 Mehm in 1513; and overcoming, it is said, formidable- obstacles inlrr- 

 posed by poverty, studied successively at Paris and at Uourges. His 

 first preferment was the professorship of Qreek and Latin in the uni- 

 versity of Bourges, an appointment obtained for him through tin- 

 patronage of Francis I.'s sister, the Priucess Marguerite. While he 

 held tliat office he extended his literary reputation by translations 

 from Heliodorus and Plutarch, aud having apparently by this time 

 entered the church, he was intrusted iu 1651 with a delicate mission 

 to the Council of Trent, which he discharged with so happy a mixture 

 of boldness and dexterity a* to earn the character of a skilful diplo- 

 matist and man of business. Possessing such a combination of ncmin- 

 plishmenta, he had excellent claims to the ai'iiuintim'iil which ho 

 received about the year 1558 as tutor to Henry I I.'s sons (afterwards 

 Charles IX. and Henry III.) ; and contriving to retain the favour of 

 bis royal pupils as they successively ascended the throne, he coiitinmd 

 during the remainder of hu life to receive one lucrative and di^niiii'd 

 office after another. His most considerable preferments were the 

 post of Grand Almoner of France, conferred upon him in 1560; .m.l 

 the bishopric of Auxerre, to which he was raised in 1570. During this 

 most prosperous period of his life he is represented a* having exhibited 

 a rapacity in seeking wealth, and a parsimony in using it, which, as 

 well as bis readiness of wit, the memoirs of the time depict in several 

 characteristic anecdotes. Upon one occasion, when he asked from 

 Charles IX. a new abbacy, in addition to several which he had already 

 held, the king demurred to granting the application. " Did you not 

 once amure me," he asked, " that your ambition would be quite satis- 

 fied with a revenue of a thousand crowns ? " " True, sire," i 

 th* bishop ; " but there are some appetites which grow as you feed 

 them." Amyot died at the seat of bis diocese in 1503, leaving a fortune 

 which for the times was very considerable. 



A* a literary man, Amyot stands very high. His translation of 

 Plutarch'* ' Lives,' which wa* made from the Latin, is spirited and 

 elegant, and is still read in modern edition*. It is remarkable that 

 what w* may call th* best translation of Plutarch in English, North' s 



