. u 



ATHY. 



ATLANTIC OCEAN. 



aflbrd at the Mont* Santo end a good watering-place for Rhipping ; 

 the water (except in very dry weather) runs out in a good stream. 

 The distance across is 2500 van!*, which agrees very well with the 

 breadth of 12 stadia assigned by Herodotus. The width of the canal 

 appear* to hare been about 18 or 80 feet; the level of the earth 

 nowhere exceeds 15 feet above the aea ; the soil is a light clay. It is 

 on the whole a very remarkable isthmus, for the land on each side 

 (but more especially to the westward) rises abruptly to an elevation 

 of 800 to 1000 feet. 



About a mile and a half to the westward of the north end of the canal 

 is the modern village of Erao, which gives name to the bay, uml ii 

 situated on an eminence overhanging the beach : this is crowned 

 by a remarkable mound forming a small natural citadel. On the 

 Hide facing the sea in still visible part of an ancient Hellenic wall, 

 about ISO yards in length, and from 20 to 25 feet in height ; but 

 there are no other vestiges of antiquity except the large square blocks 

 of stone lying about the village, and forming foundations for their 

 miserable hovels. These ruins can be no other than the ancient 

 Acanthus. The great mound would appear to be that mentioned in 

 Herodotus (vii. 117), where he saya that the Persian Artachaies, the 

 superintendent of the canal, died while Xerxes was at Acanthus, and 

 " the whole army raised a mound for him." 



ATHY, county of Kildare, Ireland, in the parishes of Athy St. 

 John, Athy St. Michael, and Churchtown, and barony of Namagh and 

 Rheban West; a municipal borough, alternately with Naas the 

 county town of Kildare, and the seat of a Poor-Law Union. It is 

 (situated on the river Barrow, which is here navigable for barges, in 

 63 0' N. lat, 6 57' W. long. ; distant 831 miles S.W. from Dublin by 

 road, and 44] miles by the Carlow branch of the Great Southern and 

 Western railway, and by the same route 11 miles N. from < 

 the population in 1851 was 8908, besides 1202 persons in the Union 

 Workh.mse. The affairs of the town are administered by town 

 commissioners. Athy Poor-Law Union comprises 88 electoral divi- 

 sions, with an area of 160,254 acres, and a population in 1851 of 

 37,671. 



Athy consists principally of two main street*, on the left bank of 

 the Barrow, intersecting one another on the line of the leading roads 

 from Dublin to Kilkenny, and from Monasterevan to Carlow. The 

 former road here crosses the Barrow by a bridge, marking the site of 

 the ancient ford from which the town derives its name. The bridge 

 was formerly defended by a castle built here by Gerald, earl of Kildare, 

 in 1506. Of this castle one tower is still standing, which was till 

 lately used as a county jail, jointly with the prison at Naas. On the 

 right bank of the river there is a considerable suburb. The court- 

 house, church, and new jail are in the street leading from Carlow to 

 Monasterevan. The town has an open and cheerful appearance, but 

 wants compactness. The streets are well paved, and partially lighted 

 with gas. A fever hospital was established in 1841. Although well 

 circumstanced for trade, Athy has not much manufacturing or com- 

 mercial activity. There is a small manufactory of stuffs, coarse 

 cloths, and hate ; but the principal trade is in the export of corn. A 

 branch of the Grand Canal unites with the river Barrow about a 

 quarter of a mile from the town. 



(Statiilical Account of Kildare; Ordnance Survey Map; Thorn's 

 IriA Almanac.) 



ATKHA. [At-KfTUN ISLANDS.] 



ATLANTIC OCEAN is the name given to that part of the ocean 

 which separates the Old from the New World. It washes the eastern 

 short-* of the Americas, and the western shores of Europe and Africa. 

 Kature not having fixed any boundary between it and those seas 

 which are adjacent to and communicate with it, we shall suppose 

 that it is divided from the Pacific Ocean by a straight line drawn 

 from Cape Horn, the southern extremity of America, to the antarctic 

 aid from the Indian 8ea by another drawn from the Cape of 

 Uood Rope to the same pole. On the north we may say that its 

 boundaries are fixed by nature*, in that continuous barrier 

 which extends between 80 and 82 N. lat. from the coast of Green- 

 land to the island of Nova-Zombla. By fixing these boundaries a 

 part of lip- Northern Polar or Icy Sea as well as of the Antarctic 

 Ocean is included in the Atlantic, but these contiguous parts cannot 

 Well be separated in a description of the Atlantic. 



Though the Atlantic Ocean extends from pole to pole, its breadth 

 is comparatively not great The two continent* which form its 

 bores approach nearest one another between 69 and 71* N. lat, 

 where the coasts of Greenland are only 800 geographical miles from 

 those of Norway. Between ' |uc in Brazil, about 5 S. lat., 



and the coast of Sierra Leone in Africa, between 5 and 8 N. lat, the 

 continent* are not above 1500 geographical miles from one at 

 or about as far as the North Cape from the Nore. These are the two 

 parts where the width of the Atlantic Ocean is least Ite greatest 

 breadth is under 30 N. lat, where the peninsula of Florida and the 

 western coast of Marocco in Africa are separated by upwards of 8600 

 geographical miles, or 60 degrees of latitude. 



Humboldt compares the form of the Atlantic Ocean to that of a 

 longitudinal valley, whose projecting and retiring angles correspond 

 to one another. He supposes ft to be formed by a very violent rush 

 of the waters from the south, which being repulsed by the mountains 

 along the coast of Brazil, took a direction towards th coast of Afritn, 



and formed the Gulf of Guinea ; here being stopped by the high 

 coast of Upper Guinea, and obliged to run again to the wt 

 stream gave origin to the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexii 

 issuing thence ran between the mountains of we.-' 

 those of North America, until it gradually diminish 

 force, and at length subsided. In confirmation of this hypothesis he 

 observes that the primitive mountains in the ]<rar.ilian provinces of 

 Rio, Minas Geraea, Bahia, and Pernambucco are under the same degree 

 of latitude as those of Congo, and that the immense plain along the 

 banks of the Amawnaa River corresponds to that traversed by the 

 Quorra : further, that the mountains in America lie 



opposite to those of Upper Guinea, and that the great plains w hii-h 

 before this catastrophe, according to his hypothesis, extended to the 

 south of the present mouth of the Mississippi, and by the Htibmeraion 

 of which the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico were formed, are 

 under the same parallel as the great desert of the Sahara. 



The South Atlantic Ocean does not offer any other peculiarity in 

 its formation, but the Northern is distinguished by sevi i-.il. 



First, we may observe the formation of its islands lying within tin- 

 polar circle. They are countries of considerable extent, hut ili\i>l. <1 

 by extremely narrow, long, and winding straits, of v. iy dittii-uh 

 gation, which is increased by their being only a few weeks in the year 

 free from ice. For instance, the group of Nova-Zeinbla consists of at 

 least two larger ones; that of Spitzbergcn of three larger ami m.my 

 smaller ones ; and it is probable that the extensive country kn 

 the name of Greenland is composed of a number of large i- 

 divided from one another by narrow, long, and winding straits. This 

 peculiarity in the formation is repeated, though on a less wnle. in the 

 islands which skirt the coasts of Norway, where in some instances the 

 straits which once divided them from the continent have been filled 

 up by earthy matter, and now resemble exactly Glen More in s, .,!!:, nd. 

 In no other part of the seas has such a disposition of inlands been 

 observed, except in those on the south-west coast of America, and 

 probably those on the north-west, about the latitude of Admiralty 

 Island. 



But a still more remarkable and more iinporfcu; 

 North Atlantic is its connection with mediterranean, or ' close' seas of 

 great extent. Such ore the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea in 

 the old continent, and Hudson's Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, with 

 the Caribbean Sea, in the New World. These seas doubtle- - 

 part of the Atlantic Ocean ; but they cannot be considered as bays or 

 gulfs, the connection between them and the Atlantic being effect.-! l.y 

 narrow straits, and not by an open sea ; and besides they extend so 

 far into the continents that some of them, as the Mediterranean Sea, 

 affords by itself a navigation of 8000 geographical miles. Similar seas 

 indeed exist in the Indian Ocean, where the gulfs of Persia mid of 

 Arabia resemble rather the Mediterranean and the Baltic seas, than 

 the Gulf of Bengal or that of Guinea ; but they are of much less 

 extent This peculiarity in its form brings the Atlantic Ocean and ite 

 appendages into immediate contact with a much greater extent of 

 country than the other seas that wash both continents. We accord- 

 ingly find that the continental shores of the Atlantic exceed in extent 

 those of the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Sea, the two other great 

 divisions of the ocean, taken together, though the latter cover at 

 least three times the surface of the former. 



The continental coasta of Europe from the strait of Wai).' 

 that of Cans, (the entrance of the Sea of Aroff) are about IT.unn 

 geographical miles; those of Asia along the Black Sea, the >- 

 Marmara, and the Mediterranean Sea, are nearly 8000 miles ; and the 

 coasts of Africa, along the Mediterranean Sea, are upwards of 2000 

 geographical miles. Add to these the western shores of Africa from 

 the .Strait of Gibraltar to the Cape of Good Hope, which com| 

 about 6000 geographical miles, and the whole eastern shores < 

 Atlantic Ocean amount to 28,000 geographical miles. In computing 

 its western shores we shall consider Greenland as a p.o f tli> 

 nont, though it probably is not strictly true ; and on this supposition 

 we find that the eastern shores of America comprehend about : 

 geographical miles. Consequently the shores of the Atlantic Ocean 

 have an extent of about 48,000 geographical miles. The coasts of Asia 

 are upwards of 80,000 geographical miles; but nearly 3ouu of H,,.,,, 

 belong to the Mediterranean Sea, and consequently to the Atlantic 

 Ocean. The eastern coast of Africa may be computed at 6000 geogra- 

 phir.d miles, and the western coast of America at upwards of 11,000. 

 Thus the coasts of the Pacific Ocean and those of the Indian Sea 

 taken together do not amount to much more than 44,000 geographloal 

 miles, or nearly 4000 miles less than those of the Atlantic Ocean. 

 We shall observe that in thin calculation the northern shores of Amu 

 along the Polar Sea are included, and as they amount to upwards of 

 1400 ge i !i.< J nfl tni Meomri i tffl marc in fin..ur of tin' 

 Atlantic Ocean if this length is subtracted. We need not enlarge on 

 the advantages which such a peculiar form of the Atlantic mil.- 

 for the progress of civilisation. 



These advantages would extend to a great distance into the interior 

 of both continents if the number and magnitude of tin rivii which 

 flow into the Atlantic were proportionate to the extent of its shores. 

 On the eastern hide the surface whose drainage falls into the Atlantic 

 is comparatively limited, and does not comprehend even the whole of 

 Europe : the greatest river of this part of the world, the Volga, carries 



