ALPUJARRAS. 



ALSTON. 



251 



accompanied by the disappearance of certain trees, the absence of 

 which, as producing a striking effect upon the scenery, is one of the 

 first circumstances that is usually noticed. At the foot of the Alps, 

 for instance, are rich vineyards, and wine is one of the staple products 

 of the country ; the forests consist of most of the common European 

 trees, especially of sweet chestnuts, oaks, birches, spruce firs, and many 

 sorts of pines, while the usual proportion of bushes is scattered among 

 them. But at the low elevation of 1950 feet, the vine is no longer 

 capable of existing; at 1000 feet higher sweet chestnuts disappear; 

 1000 feet farther, and the oak is unable to maintain itself; at the 

 elevation of 4680 feet, less than one-third of the height of Mont-Blanc, 

 the birch as well as almost every other deciduous tree ceases ; the 

 spruce-fir alone exists at the height of 5900 feet, after which the 

 growth of all trees is arrested, not by perpetual snow, which does not 

 occur for more than 3000 feet higher, but by the peculiar state of the 

 soil and air. At the line where the spruce-fir disappears, the moun- 

 tains are ornamented by the Rhododendron ferruyincuin, which covers 

 immense tracts like our English heath and furze ; but even this hardy 

 mountaineer cannot ascend beyond "SOIrieet. The herbaceous willow 

 creeps two or three hundred feet higher, accompanied by little except 

 a few saxifrages and gentians and grasses, which struggle up to the 

 line of perpetual snow, on whose border lichens and musses and the 

 most stunted and imperfect forms of vegetation alone exist. 



Changes of a less striking but not less important kind simultaneously 

 occur in the herbage of the Alps ; their limits are, however, far from 

 being so well defined as those of the trees, neither have they in the 

 same degree occupied the attention of botanists. The middle region 

 of vegetation on the sides of the Alps is that which is richest in the 

 peculiar flora of such regions ; it is here that the numerous species of 

 laris, the gentians with their vivid blue, the white or purple 

 saxifrages, with the gay-flowering euphrasies, and the Alpine com- 

 posite find their principal station ; what lowland forms are there 

 associated with them gradually cease to grow as the snow ig ap- 

 proached, till at last the region is occupied by strictly mountain 

 plants alone. 



The causes of this difference between the vegetation of the foot and 

 of the summit of the Alps is doubtless owing to several circumstances 

 combined. By many writers diminished atmospheric pressure has 

 been thought a principal cause of the effects we have described ; that it 

 is a powerful concurring cause is highly probable, but, unconnected 

 with others equally important, it is difficult to suppose that it can 

 produce any very great effect ; for the only way in which we can 

 understand it to act is, firstly, to augment evaporation, in conse- 

 quence of the rarity of the air, and, secondly, to diminish the supply 

 of oxygen. 



Temperature is doubtless here, as in everything else, second to 

 nothing in its influence. At the foot of Mont-Blanc, the mean 

 temperature of the year is 53 Fahr. ; at the height of 6695 feet it is 

 32 ; and between these points, as well as beyond the latter, the 

 temperature of the year is in due proportion. By this plants are 

 essentially affected ; and the vine and chestnut, for instance, are 

 probably stopped by it alone. 



Light, again, is a third agent, to which the peculiar nature of Alpine 

 vegetation is due ; for it is under the action of light that plants feed 

 (that is, decompose their carbonic acid), and the quantity of food they 

 are able to digest is in proportion to the intensity of the light to which 

 they are exposed. Constant darkness during the state of rest is a 

 condition to which Alpine plants are periodically subject : buried in 

 snow they remain cut off from every ray of light during the whole 

 of the winter, and it is only when the snow melts, and the spring has 

 really commenced, that they again emerge into day. Now light, 

 among other things, is the great stimulator of the vital actions of 

 plants : if applied when they are able to execute their functions, it is 

 of the most essential service to them ; but if its influence is exercised 

 only at intervals and at unfit seasons, plants are alternately stimulated 

 and checked till their very excitability is itself destroyed, and thus 

 they perish ; or they are excited prematurely into growth, and are cut 

 off by succeeding cold. Plants of the plains accustomed always to a 

 certain amount of light are not very excitable, and therefore do not 

 suffer from constant exposure to the weak light of winter ; but those 

 of the mountains, never feeling a ray of the sun during the whole of 

 their long winter, are excitable in the highest degree. 



Humidity of the soil, gentle, but perpetual, never stagnant, but in a 

 constant state of renewal by the melting of the snow, is the fourth 

 circumstance that may be supposed to cause the peculiar appearance 

 of the flora of the Alps. Under such circumstances no drought can 

 be known, and a flood sweeps only over the surface, leaving nothing 

 but its nutriment behind. 



ALPC.IAKIiAS. [ANDAI.IJCIA.] 



ALRESFORD, Hampshire, a market-town, and the seat of a Poor- 

 Law Union, in the parish of New Alresford and hundred of Alton, is 

 situated on the river Itchin, in 51 6' N. lat., 1" 10' W. long, 64 miles 

 E. by N. from Winchester, and 574 miles W.8.W. from London : the 

 population in 1851 was 1618. The living is a rectory in the arch- 

 deaconry and diocese of Winchester. Alresford Poor-Law Uuion 

 contains 18 parishes, with an area of 39,761 acres, and a population, 

 in 1851, of 7418. The town was formerly of greater importance than 

 at present, and sent a representative to Parliament. It probably owed 



ita prosperity to the circumstance of the river having been rendered 

 navigable by a head or pond of 200 acres, formed by Godfrey de Lacy, 

 bishop of Winchester, early in the 13th century. At present the 

 navigation does not extend above Winchester, and is there confined 

 to a few barges. The town has no manufactures. The church is a 

 plain structure : the Independents have a place of worship. At 

 Titchbourne, about 2 miles S.S.W. from the town, is a Roman Catholic 

 chapel. Peron's Free grammar-school, founded in 1698, had 56 

 scholars in 1851. There are National schools and a savings' bank. 

 The market, on Thursday, is chiefly for corn. During the summer of 

 1833 a large quantity of English silver coins, of the reign of William 

 the Conqueror, were found in a leaden box in a field a short distance 

 from this town. About 7000 of these coins are now in the British 

 Museum. (Communication from Alresford.) 



ALSACE, a former province of France, which now forms the 

 departments of Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin, was bounded E. by the 

 Rhine, W. by the Vosges Mountains, which separated it from Lorraine, 

 N. by the Palatinate, and S. by Switzerland. It is a pretty country, 

 fertile, and well cultivated, sloping eastward from the crest of the 

 Vosges to the left bank of the Rhine. The mountain-slopes are 

 covered with fine forests ; the plain, which is diversified by hills, is 

 watered by various feeders of the Rhine ; but none of these attain 

 any considerable size except the 111, which has a course of about 

 80 miles. 



Alsace is a fruitful country. Corn, wine, flax, tobacco, and madder 

 are produced. The forests in the Vosges produce firs in abundance, 

 with beech, oak, and hornbeam. The mountains on the side of 

 Switzerland are lower and well wooded. The horses are suited for 

 cavalry and posting. 



The wealth of the country chiefly arises from its mines and 

 manufactures. It yields copper, iron, lead, and coal ; and near 

 Soultz-sousrForete, in the northern part, is an important salt-spring, 

 from which a considerable quantity of salt is obtained. Seltz, another 

 town in Alsace, exports many thousand casks of mineral-waters to 

 Paris and elsewhere. The staple manufacture is cotton ; linen and 

 woollen goods are also extensively made ; and the mineral riches of 

 the district have made it the seat of a considerable manufacture of 

 swords, fire-arms, and other hardwares. 



The province is traversed by the Paris-Strasbourg railway, and by 

 the Strasbourg-Bale railway, which passes through Miihlhausen 

 (whence a branch runs to Thunn). At Bale these French railroads 

 are connected with the line that runs along the right bank of the 

 Rhine. 



The inhabitants are distinguished by their adherence to a peculiar 

 dress, and to old customs and manners. The chief towns are Stras- 

 bourg, Colmar, Miihlhausen, and Schelestadt. 



The province was divided into Upper and Lower Alsace. Upper 

 Alsace comprised the Landgraviate of Upper Alsace, chief town 

 Colmar ; the Huntgau which contained the towns of BcSfort, Miihl- 

 hausen, and Altkirch ; and the Principalities of Montbclliard and 

 Mandeure, now included chiefly hi the department of Doubs. Lower 

 Alsace comprised the Wasgau, the chief town of which was Weissem- 

 bourg ; the county of Lichtenberg, to the west of the Wasgau ; the 

 Principality of Lutzelstein in the north-west of the department of 

 Bas-Rhiu, chief town Petite-Pierre ; the Bailiwick of Hagueneau, of 

 which the capital was Hagueneau ; and the Landgraviate of Lower 

 Alsace, containing Strasbourg, Hochfelden, and several other towns. 

 [Rum, BAS ; Rmx, HAUT.] 



The territory called Alsace formed part of Celtic Gaul. The 

 Rauraci, the Tribocci, and the Nemetes occupied it when it passed 

 with the rest of Gaul under the Roman yoke. The Franks seized it 

 under Clovis, and after his dismembered territories were re-united 

 under Charlemagne it was included in the empire of that prince. 

 From 940 till 1648 Alsace was subject to the house of Austria. By 

 the treaty of Munster in 1648 a considerable part of it was ceded to 

 France, and nearly the whole of the remainder by the peace of 

 Ryswick in 1697. The territories of Montbelliard and Muhlhausen 

 have been acquired by France since the revolution of 1789. German 

 is the common language of the country, but French is generally under- 

 stood and is spoken in the towns and among the more educated 



ALSEN, a email island in the Baltic, belonging to the duchy of 

 Schleswig and the kingdom of Denmark. It lies in the Little Belt, 

 and is separated from the mainland only by a narrow channel. It is 

 about 20 miles long, from 3 to 8 broad, and has an area of about 

 125 square miles, with a population of 22,500. The 55th parallel of 

 N. Int. and 10th meridian of E. long, pass through the island. The 

 soil is very fertile, and produces grain, fruit, rape-seed, potatoes, and 

 flax, some of which form articles of exportation. The island is one 

 of the most pleasant in the Baltic, containing some fine woods and 

 small fresh-water lakes well stocked with fish. 



Sonderborg, the chief town, is on the south-west coast of the island, 

 situated on the slope of a hill, and is a place of some antiquity. It 

 has one of the best ports in Denmark, and about 3300 inhabitants. 

 .\itnllinrij, on the north side of the island, is a small place with 1100 

 inhabitants. 



ALSTON, or'ALDSTON, Cumberland, a market-town in Loath 

 Ward, in the parish of Alston, stands on a declivity on the right bank 



