ALPENA 



211 



ALPHABET 



wool, and used* for women's dresses, is now 

 widely sold under the name alpaca. The flesh 



ALPACA 



tie animal has a pleasing taste and is a 

 wholesome food. 



ALPENA, alpe'na, MICH., the county seat 

 of Alpena County, in the northeastern part of 

 the state, is situated on both banks of Thunder 

 Bay River and on Thunder Bay, a small arm 

 of Lake Huron. Bay City is 124 miles south, 

 and Saginaw is 152 miles, also south. The 

 population in 1910 was 10,763; in 1914 it was 

 11,234. The area is seven square miles. 



Alpena has an excellent harbor, which has 

 been improved by the Federal government. 

 The surrounding counties, abounding in small 

 lakes, are an agricultural and timber section. 

 Near the city are quantities of limestone, clay 

 and shale. These and the timber supply raw 

 material for two of the largest manufacturing 

 industries, paper (wood pulp) mills and th< 

 cement works. Besides these there are tan- 

 neries, extract works (hemlock), foundries and 

 machine shops, woolen mills, sawmills and ex- 

 celsior mills. Alpena is served by the Detroit 

 A Mackinaw railroad, and there are steamship 

 lines to Detroit 



The city and vicinity arc favorite summer 

 resorts. In the many small lakes are quanti- 

 ties of speckled trout, black bass and p< 

 In some parts partridge, duck, deer and fox 

 are abundant. The city has four parks and 

 among the public buildings an loral 



l>mlding, in front of which stands a cannon 

 from tho battleship Mnn. tin- city hall, a 

 ry and a hospital. 



The site occupied by Alpena is an old Indian 



burying ground. In 1835 a trading post was 

 established, and a permanent settlement was 

 made in 1858. A city charter was obtained in 

 1871. The commission form of government 

 was adopted in 1916. H.M.H. 



ALPHA, a/' fa h, AND OMEGA, o me' ga, an 

 expression often used to convey the idea of 

 completeness, for the two words are the first 

 and last letters of the Greek alphabet. They 

 are used as a symbol of God in Revelations I, 

 8; "I am Alpha and Omega . . which is, 

 and which was and which is to come." At one 

 time the letters were emblematic of Christian- 

 ity, being engraved on the tombs of the early 

 Christians. 



In astronomy Alpha is applied to the chief 

 star of a constellation, and the word has a 

 similar use in other sciences. 



ALPHABET, al 'fa bet. When this word is 

 used to designate the series of characters used 

 in writing a language it means exactly what the 

 child's "A-B-C" means, for Alpha and Beta are 

 the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. As 

 long as civilization was on a low plane and 

 people had little communication with each 

 other except by word of mouth, such a thing 

 as an alphabet was unthought of. Gradually, 

 however, the necessity arose of being able to 

 send word to people at a distance or to record 

 certain events, and a rude form of picture- 

 writing came into existence. This represented 

 words or ideas, however, and not sounds, as 

 does the true alphabet. For instance, if a 

 man in one village wished to send word to a 

 man in another village that he had been 

 attacked by a number of enemies, he might 

 draw a rough picture of a man at a tent door 

 himself being made the target of the numer- 

 ous spears of other crudely drawn men. Kip- 

 ling in his Just-So Stories has two very inter- 

 esting fanciful talcs called The First Letter 

 and The Making of the Alphabet which sho'v 

 the possible origin of such communication. 



But such picture-writing was always likely to 

 be misunderstood, and it gradually became 

 clear ilnt characters representing sounds would 

 furnish the only sure means of communication. 

 So far as is known, the Phoenicians were the 

 first to invent an alphabet, in this true sense of 

 the term, though it Is possible that they 

 received suggestions from the cuneiform writing 

 of the Babylonians or the hieroglyphics of the 

 Egyptians. At any rate, the Greeks, when they 

 came into contact with the Phoenicians, found 

 the latter to possess the very useful art of 

 ing with an alphabet, and that art they 



