APHELION APOCALYPSE. 



205 



high. The Apennines are covered with snow in 

 winter, which sometimes melts late, and, congealing, 

 forms ice, indispensable in a warm climate like Italy. 

 In tne Apennines are some large valleys, a few lakes 

 :md rivers, and many marshes at the foot of the hills. 

 The internal construction of the chain shows great 

 uniformity, the prevailing mineral, a thick, white 

 limestone, being found in the same position in many 

 places. The northern part deviates from this forma- 

 tion where it unites with the Alps, as well as the ex- 

 treme south : both exhibit a great variety of elder for- 

 mations. The lower elevations between the plain 

 and the central chain display considerable diversity 

 of construction. Primitive formations are wanting 

 entirely in the next range of heights. . In the highest 

 of all, they are not abundant. Yet, in the southern 

 part, granite, gneiss, and mica slate are considerably 

 diffused. The transition rocks, however, are widely 

 spread, and abundant in various parts of the chain ; 

 e. g., grey wacke, clay slate, limestone (e. g., the 

 Carrara marble) and gabbro. Very widely diffused, 

 also, is the compact floetz limestone, known under the 

 name of Apennine limestone, which probably belongs 

 to the limestone formation of the Jura. These moun- 

 tains also are rich in recent formations, and in the 

 vulcanic tufa, which is an aggregate of volcanic sub- 

 stances transported and deposited by water. Proper 

 volcanic and trapp formations, as they are called, are 

 foreign to the principal chain of the Apennines. 

 These are confined to the south eastern part of Italy. 

 Only Vesuvius, the extinct volcanoes of Nemi and 

 Albano, and the lava stream of Borghetto, approach 

 the borders of the chain. 



APHELION (Greek, a<ra from, and *<, the sun) ; 

 that part of the orbit of the earth, or any other pla- 

 net, in which it is at the point remotest from the sun. 

 This also applies to a satellite ; for the moon has her 

 aphelion as well as the planets. 



APHRODITE; the goddess of love among the 

 Greeks ; synonymous with Aphrogeneia,that is, born 

 of the foam of the sea : Aphrodisia ; a festival sacred 

 to Venus, which was celebrated in various parts of 

 Greece, but with the greatest solemnity in the is- 

 land of Cyprus. See Venus, 



APICIUS, M. Gabius ; an epicure in the time of Au- 

 gustus and Tiberius. He had the most delicate table 

 in Rome, proved his genius for cookery by the inven- 

 tion of new dishes, and at last, when he had exhaust- 

 ed his vast fortune, he poisoned himself, that he 

 might not die with hunger. There were two other 

 notorious epicures of the same name at Rome. The 

 book of cookery, however, De Arte Coquinaria, pub- 

 lished under the name of Apicius, was written by 

 one Caelius, who assumed the proverbial nickname 

 Apicius. The latest edition was by Bernhold, Ans- 

 pach, 1806. 



APIS ; a bull to which divine honours were paid by 

 the Egyptians, chiefly at Memphis. According to the 

 belief of the people, a cow became pregnant ot him by 

 a beam of light from heaven, coming particularly 

 from the moon. It was necessary that he should be 

 black, with a triangle of white on the forehead, a 

 white spot, in the form of a crescent, on the right 

 side, and a sort of knot, like a beetle under nis 

 tongue. When a bull of this description was found, 

 he was fed four months in a building facing the east. 

 At the new moon, he was led to a splendid ship, 

 with great solemnity, and conveyed to Heliopolis, 

 where he was fed 40 days more by priests and wo- 

 men, who performed before him various indecent 

 ceremonies. After this, no one was suffered to ap- 

 proach him. From Heliopolis the priests carried him 

 to Memphis, where he had a temple, two chapels to 

 dwell in, and a larg court for exercise. He had the 

 gift of prophecy, which he imparted to the children 



about him. The omen is good or bad, according as 

 he goes into one chapel or the other. His birth-day 

 was celebrated every year, when the Nile began to 

 rise; the festival continued for 7 days ; a golden shell 

 was thrown into the Nile, and the crocodile was al- 

 ways tame as long as the feast continued. Not- 

 withstanding all this veneration, the bull was not 

 suffered to live beyond 25 years ; the reason ot which 

 is probably to be found in the astronomical theology 

 of the Egyptians. He was buried in a fountain. Bel- 

 zoni thought he had discovered a tomb of Apis in one 

 of the stone sepulchres among the mountains of Up- 

 per Egypt, which enclose the valley of tombs, or the 

 gates of the kings. In the same place, he found a 

 colossal sarcophagus of alabaster, transparent and 

 sonorous (now in the British museum), ornamented 

 within and without by carved hieroglyphics and fi- 

 gures. In the interior of the apartment was found 

 the lx>dy of a bull, embalmed with asphaltum. The 

 death of Apis excited universal mourning, which con- 

 tinued till the priests had found a successor to him. 

 As it was extremely difficult to find one with all tl.e 

 above distinctions, fraud was often practised by the 

 priests. 



APOCALYPSE (Greek ; from avrazaiu-rra, I reveal) ; 

 the name of the last book of the New Testament, 

 containing an account of the visions of St John the 

 evangelist. It is generally believed, that the Apo- 

 calypse was written by John, in his old age, at the 

 end of the first century, in the isle of Patmos, 

 whither he had been banished by the Roman empe- 

 ror Domitian. Though the book was commonly re- 

 garded as genuine in the first centuries of Christian- 

 ity, critics have not been wanting, who have doubted 

 the evidence of its being the work of St John. Its 

 genuineness seems to have been first questioned in 

 the 3d century ; but archdeacon Woodhouse, in his 

 Dissertation on the divine origin of this book, in 

 answer to the objections of Michaelis, has, we think, 

 set this question pretty well at rest. The Apocalypse, 

 on account of its metaphorical language, has been 

 explained differently by almost every writer who has 

 ventured to interpret it ; and, for the same reason, 

 it is one of those parts of the Bible which has fur- 

 nished all sorts of sects and fanatics with quotations 

 to support their creeds or pretensions. Even at the 

 present time, people who have no clear and simple 

 views of religion, but make it a mere matter of feel- 

 ing and passion, refer more to this mysterious book, 

 and to some parts of the Old Testament, than to the 

 Gospels, and the other comparatively intelligible por- 

 tions of the Scriptures. In the metaphors and sym- 

 bolical expressions with which the Apocalypse 

 abounds, the author seems to have had in view, the 

 then existing state of the church of Christ, and its 

 future prospects. The Apocalypse contains 22 chap- 

 ters, which may be divided into two principal parts. 

 The first, after the title of the book, (ch. i. 13.), 

 comprises " the things which are," that is, the then 

 present state of the Christian church, including the 

 epistolary instructions and admonitions to the angels 

 or bishops of the seven churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, 

 Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Lao- 

 dicea, situated in Asia Minor. The second part com- 

 prehends a prediction of " the things which shall 

 be hereafter," referring either to the future state of 

 the church through succeeding ages, from the time 

 when the apostle beheld the apocalyptic visions, to 

 the grand consummation of all things, or the state of 

 the souls of men after the great resurrection of the 

 dead. The millennium, which is spoken of in the 

 Apocalypse, has, at different times, seduced people 

 into the strangest expectations respecting the end of 

 the world, particularly hi the earlier times of Chris- 

 tianity ; nay, the expectation of a speedy destruction 



