628 



HELIGOLAND 



HELIOGRAPHY 



formerly connected by land, but tbe inroads of the 

 sea have gradually isolated it. The same agent, 

 together with the heavy rainfall, the variations in 

 the weather, and the disintegrating power of the 

 frost, are still reducing the size of Heligoland 

 itself. The western cliff has, according to Linde- 

 mann, receded 7 feet in the forty years preceding 

 1888. The soil on the flat top of the rock of 



Heligoland. 



Heligoland suffices for a little pasture-land, and 

 for growing potatoes and cabbages. There are 

 some sheep on the island, and a few cows. Wheel- 

 barrows are the only wheeled vehicles. The spit 

 of the Unterland gives partial shelter to two har- 

 bours, one to the north, the other to the south. 

 The inhabitants are supported chiefly by the lobster 

 and other fisheries, and by the summer visitors, 

 pilotage having almost ceased, and the public 

 gaming-tables, established in 1830, having been 

 suppressed in 1871. There is practically no poverty, 

 disease, or crime, and the people are very long 

 lived. A lighthouse stands on the cliff near the 

 village. The island, which was taken by the Brit- 

 ish from the Danes in 1807, was formally ceded to 

 England in 1814, by whom it was held till 1890. 

 Heligolandish, a dialectic variety of North Frisian, 

 is the native tongue, but German is currently 

 spoken, and English is also taught in the school. 

 There is no garrison. Steamboats run to and from 

 the North Frisian islands of Sylt and Fo'hr, and 

 Hamburg. Heligoland was anciently sacred to 

 the goddess Hertha. According to tradition, the 

 island was once vastly larger, great tracts of 

 country having been swallowed up by the sea 

 between 700 A.D. and the end of the 17th century. 

 Christianity was first preached here by St Willi- 

 brod in the 7th century, after whose time the 

 island received its present name of Holy Land. 

 The inhabitants of Heligoland are divided into 

 two classes, differing both in race arid occupation 

 the one being fishers, the other tradespeople, small 

 shopkeepers, &c. The first are Frisians, a tall and 

 muscular race of hardy seamen, simple and primi- 

 tive in their habits, and holding land-labour and 

 soldiers in contempt. The merchant class consists 

 of immigrants from Hamburg and other places on the 

 mainland, or their descendants. There is a curious 

 and picturesque church, on the roof of which is still 

 the Dannebrog painted by the Danish authorities 

 when the island belonged to Denmark. The 

 people, though they had oeen very loyal to Great 

 Britain, accepted without opposition the annexa- 

 tion to Germany ; and after a visit from the 



A.D. 



Emperor, Heligoland was formally incorporated 

 with the kingdom of Prussia and the province 

 of Sleswick-Holstein. See Black's Heligoland 

 (1888); German books by Lindemann (1889) and 

 Lipsius (1892); and H. Gatke, Heligoland as an 

 Ornithological Observatory (trans. 1895). Under 

 the early kings of Norway ( 10th century onwards) 

 the name Helgeland was given to a district north 



of Throndhjem, extending from about 65 N. 



lat. to the neighbourhood of Svartisen glacier. 



Heliocentric, in Astronomy, having 

 the sun ( Gr. helios ) as centre of reference ; 

 the heliocentric place of a planet being 

 opposed to its geocentric ( Gr. ge, ' earth ' ), 

 its place as seen from the earth. 



IIHioiloriis. the earliest and best of 

 the Greek romance writers, was born at 

 Emesa, in Syria. He was a sophist of the 

 second half of the 3d century A.D., but has 

 sometimes been confounded with a bishop 

 of Trikka, in Thessaly (circa 390). The 

 work by which he is known is entitled 

 JEthiopicM, in ten books, narrating in 

 poetic prose, at times with almost epic 

 beauty and simplicity, the loves of Thea- 

 genes and Chariclea. The work is distin- 

 guished from the later Greek romances by 

 its vigour and its pure morality. See 

 Rohde, Der Griechische Roman (1876). 

 There are editions by Bekker (1855) and 

 Hirschig in Scriptores Erotici (1856). 



Helioga'balus, or ELAGABALUS, em- 

 peror of Rome, was born at Emesa in 204 

 His real name was Varius Avitus Bassianus, 

 but having, when a mere child, been appointed 

 high-priest of the Syro-Phcenician sun-god Elaga- 

 bal, he assumed the name of that deity. Soon 

 after the death of his cousin Caracalla, Helioga- 

 balus was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers, in 

 opposition to the legitimate sovereign, Macrinus, 

 who had become obnoxious to the troops from 

 his parsimony and the severity of his discipline. 

 The rivals met in battle on the borders of Syria 

 and Phoenicia in 218 A.D. Macrinus was defeated, 

 and Heliogabalus, proceeding to Rome, quietly 

 assumed the purple. His reign, which lasted 

 rather more than three years and nine months, 

 was infamous for the gluttony and the nearly 

 unparalleled debaucheries of every kind in which 

 he indulged. He was murdered in an insurrec- 

 tion of the praetorians in 222 A.D., and was suc- 

 ceeded by his cousin and adopted son, Alexander 

 Severus. 



Heliography, a method of communicating 

 swiftly between distant points by means of the 

 sun's rays reflected from mirrors. Either successive 

 flashes or obscurations of a continuous reflection 

 of the sun's light may be combined so as to read 

 like Morse's telegraphic system (see TELEGRAPH). 

 Heliography may be used for geodetic measure- 

 ment, or for military and other signalling. The 

 instruments which contain the mirrors are vari- 

 ously called heliograph and heliostat. The instru- 

 ments have been so perfectly contrived as to be 

 available at a distance of over 190 miles (in 

 California) ; French engineers in Algeria have 

 found the signals serviceable at a distance of 170 

 miles. As early as the llth century A.D. Algeria 

 possessed a system of heliographs : ' At the summit 

 of this tower was an apparatus of mirrors-, corre- 

 sponding to similar ones established in different 

 directions, by aid of which one could communicate 

 rapidly with all the towns from one end of the 

 empire to the other' (Athenceum, 28th January 

 1882). Recently there has been a great develop- 

 ment in heliography, or sun-telegraphy, for signal- 

 ling messages between the sections of an army in the 



