142 



AMMONIA AMORETTI. 



cleansing the surface of thp metals which they arc 

 ;il)out to cover \vilh lii>. Il is said that twenty tons 

 of MI! ammoniac, tor tin- purpose of soldering, are 

 yearly used in Binningluun. 



AMMONIA, nitrate Of, is formed by saturating 

 diluted nitric acid with carbonate of ammonia, 

 from it is obtained the nitrous oxyde, or exJiiJa rat- 

 ing gas. 



AMMONIA, sulphate of, in the form of stalactites, 

 is found in the fissures of the earth surrounding cer- 

 tain small lakes in Tuscany, also in UK- lav;:s of 

 .Ktnii and Vesuvius, and, dissolved in a .spring, in 

 Dauphinc. It is, of late, obtained in large quanti- 

 ties, as *a secondary product in the distillation of 

 coal for gas-lights. A chaldron of Newcastle coal 

 affords 200 pounds of ammoniacal liquor, which 

 consists chiefly of sulphate of ammonia and car- 

 bonate of ammonia. It is used for the manufacture 

 of sal ammoniac and volatile salt. 



AuMoNirs. There were many learned men 

 and philosophers in Alexandria of this name : 1. 

 A Peripatetic or rather Eclectic philosopher, who 

 was the instructor of Plutarch in the first century 

 after Christ. 2. A., surnamed Saccas, who was a 

 founder of the new Platonic school in Alexandria, 

 193. (See Alexandrians.) 3. A disciple of this 

 school, in the fifth and sixth centuries, son of Her- 

 mias, scholar of Proclus, and master of Simplicius. 



AMMUNITION, a term expressive of the various 

 articles used in war. No ammunition can be im- 

 ported into Britain by way of merchandise, except 

 by license from his majesty ; and such license is to 

 be granted for furnishing his majesty's stores only, 

 er penalty of forfeiture, C Geo. 4, c. 107. His 

 majesty may forbid, by order in council, the expor- 

 tation of any saltpetre, gunpowder, or any sort of A., 

 under a forfeit of 100. (29 Geo. 2, c. 16.) 



AMNESTY, (Greek-, from priv. and ftiatficu, to 

 remember), in law ; ^n act of oblivion ; the entire 

 freedom from penalty, granted to those who have 

 been guilty of any neglect or crime, usually on con- 

 dition tliat they return to their duty within a certain 

 period. An amnesty is often declared in case of the 

 rebellion of whole districts or countries, because it 

 is not possible to exercise on them the severity of 

 the law, and it is often considered sufficient to 

 punish the leaders. In domestic disturbances and 

 civil \vars, oblivion of the past is a necessary pre- 

 lude to peace. But amnesties are often only de- 

 ceitful assurances, of which modern history affords 

 many instances. The amnesty, or the religious 

 peace, of 1570, in France, was followed, in 1572, by 

 the shocking spectacle of a government causing a 

 part of its subjects to be murdered. (See St 

 Bartholomew, massacre of.) The terms of the re- 

 ligious peace concluded at Passau, 1552, contain an 

 amnesty, in which the campaign of the elector, 

 Maurice, of Saxony, against the emperor Charles V. 

 is mildly termed an excursion for the sake of mili- 

 tary exercise, and full forgiveness is promised to all 

 who had taken part in the war. Also in the peace 

 of Westphalia (art. 2.), after much difficulty, a full 

 nnd general amnesty, from the beginning of the 

 disturbances in Bohemia, was granted. A general 

 amnesty was proclaimed in England, 1660, at the 

 restoration of Charles IL, from which the king 

 excepted no one, and the parliament only the 

 Judges of Charles I. The French revolution is rich 

 in amnesties ; the victorious party promising them 

 to their opponents, or securing themselves in this 

 way from punislunent. At the restoration, a formal 

 amnesty was not thought expedient; but in the 

 Charte Constitntionelle, (art. 11), all prosecutions on 

 account of political offences are forbidden. Not- 

 withstanding his abdication, Napoleon Bonaparte 



ronsidend those \vlui had conspired, in 1814, to 

 ovirtuni his throne, as Male traitors, and, March 

 12, 1815, granted them an amnesty Jit Lyons, from 

 whieli only thirteen men (prince Talleyrand, Bouri- 

 enne, the duke ofDalberg, &c.) were excluded. At 

 the second restoration, Jan. lil, 181(3, all who had 

 taken an immediate part in the usurpation of 

 Bonaparte were pardoned, with the exception of 

 only nineteen persons, \\lio were prostrutul under 

 the decree of July 24, 1815 (Ney, Labedoyere, 

 Lavalette, Bertrnnd, Kovigo, &c.), lu-^idi > thirty- 

 eight others, whom the king v as lo have the rijjit 

 of banishing any time within two months, (Soult, 

 Bassano, Vundamme, Carnot, Hullin, Merlin, &c.), 

 and, in fine, all those who had voud for the death 

 of Louis XVI. (regicides), and such as had taken 

 office during the "hundred days." These, as well 

 as all the members of the Bonaparte family, w< n- 

 banished from France. Many of them have In-en 

 permitted to return. Also, in the Italian and Por- 

 tuguese revolutions and counter-revolutions, such 

 political amnesties have been proclaimed, with more 

 or fewer restrictions. An article of this nature is 

 to be found in the peace signed at Vienna between 

 Prussia and Saxony. For amnesties in Spain, .MT 

 Spain. Of all the instances of amnesties which 

 history affords, there liave been few in which the 

 promise of forgiveness has been strictly kept by the 

 ruling party, when seated in secure possession of 

 power. Generally, governments liave found means 

 to punish their opponents without openly violating 

 their promise of pardon. 



AMOR, with the Romans ; with the Greeks, 

 Egus ; the god of love. According to the later 

 mythology, A. is the son of Venus and Mars, the 

 most beautiful of all the gods ; a winged lx>y, with 

 bow and arrows, sometimes represented blind-folded. 

 His arrows inflict the wounds of love, and his power 

 is formidable to gods and men. He is not always a 

 playful child in the arms of his mother, but appears 

 sometimes in the bloom of youth, e. g., as the lover 

 of Psyche. He is brother to Hymen, the god of 

 marriage, whom he troubles much by his thought- 

 lessness. (See Hymen and Cupid.) Accord!: 

 the earlier mythology (that of Hesiod and Orpheus), 

 he is the eldest of all the gods, and existed before; 

 any created being. By his means the sterile Cluios 

 brought forth Nox, from whom issued Day and 

 Light. This eldest A. is the lofty idea of the all- 

 exciting and all-fructifying love. To him, accord- 

 ing to some writers, Hate is opposed. In English, 

 the god of love is less frequently called A. than 

 Cupid; yet, with the ancients, Cupido denoted, pro- 

 perly, only the animal desire, which the Greeks ex- 

 pressed by the word lW$. 



AMORETTI, Abbate Carlo; a great mineralogist, 

 and, since the year 1797, one of the conservator} of 

 the Ambrosian library, was born at Oneglia, March 

 13, 1741 ; died at Milan, in 1816. Till 177-V, h 

 was professor of canon law at Parma. Being well 

 versed in modern languages, he endeavoured to 

 make known to his countrymen the progress of 

 other nations in the arts and sciences. A. was a- 

 member of many learned societies in Italy. Be- 

 tween 1775 and 1788, he published, at Milan, 

 twenty-seven vols. in quarto, with engnr 

 Nwjva scclta d'Opuscoli Internssanti suite Scienze e 

 suite Arti, in connexion with several friends. His 

 knowledge of the art of mining obtained him a seal, 

 in 1808, in the Consiglio delle Minicre. He first 

 encouraged a careful examination of the treasures 

 of the Ambro-ian library, in which Maio has since 

 exerted himself so successfully. By his means, the 

 following works were printed : the firsf, voyage. 

 round the world of Pfgafetta of Vicenza, from 1519 



