ALVARADO 



219 



AMARANTH 



indeed were his methods. He carried before 

 his "Council of Blood" all who presumed t*o 

 question his deeds, and all who had property 

 which he coveted, and their condemnation was 

 sure and speedy. He had Egmont and Horn 

 ited, compelled William of Orange to flee 

 to Germany, and made life in the Netherlands 

 so unendurable that many merchants and 

 mechanics emigrated to England. But his 

 tyranny worked its own defeat, for Holland 

 and X . i land rose against him, his fleet was 

 destroyed, and finally ho was recalled to Spain 

 at his own request. In Spain he was given a 

 genuine ovation, and later he confirmed him- 

 self in the good graces of his king by defeat- 

 ing the Portuguese in a decisive campaign. 



ALVARADO, a/i/ varah' tho, PEDRO DE (about 

 1499-1541), one of the early Spaniards in 

 America, in search of gold and adventure, 

 whom circumstances made the conqueror of 

 Guatemala. He was born at Badajoz, Spain, 

 and in his youth began a more or less excit- 

 ing career in the New World. He was the 

 companion of Cortez in the latter's conquest 

 of Mexico (1519-1521), and in 1523 was ordered 

 to subdue the tribes of Guatemala. On the 

 completion of this task he returned to Spain 

 to receive from Charles V the appointment 

 of governor of Guatemala. Later he made a 

 dash across the Andes Mountains, with a 

 force of 500 soldiers to conquer Quito, but 

 found Pizarro and Almagro ahead of him in 

 field. In 1537 Alvarado was made gov- 

 ernor of Honduras. In 1541 he was crushed 

 under his fallen horse during a fight with the 

 Indians. 



AL ' VERSTONE, Lord (formerly Sir Rich- 

 Webster, 1842-1915), a distinguished Eng- 

 li.-h jurist, formerly attorney general of the 

 United Kingdom, and since 1900 Lord Chief 

 Justice. He acted for Great Britain in the 

 ng Sea arbitration of 1893, and in the 

 boundary dispute between British Guiana and 

 Venezuela in 1898. In 1903 Lord Alverstone 

 was president of the commission chosen to set- 

 tle the boundary dispute between Alaska and 

 Canada, and cast his vote in favor of the 

 United States, securing for that country control 

 of the Pacific coast. 



ALYSSUM, SWEET, See SWEET ALYSBUM. 



AMALEKITES. am' alckitei, a wan 



of Arabs with whom, from the sixteenth 



-event h century B.C., the Israelites 



came into fierce conflict, both during their 



Wilderness (Exodu* \\ 11 s-16), 



ami i- settlement in Canaan. 



was more bitterly hated by the Israelites, who 

 determined to exterminate them. Saul almost 

 succeeded in doing this (7 Samuel XV, 2) but 

 there remained a strong and desperate band, 

 against whom David later fought successfully 

 (/ Samuel, XXX. 1-20). In tho days of Heze- 

 kiah tho utter destruction of the Amalekites 

 was finally achieved (/ Chronicles IV, 43). 



AMALGAM, a mal' gam. When mercury is 

 brought in contact with some other metal, 

 what is known as amalgam is formed. In min- 

 ing operations mercury is used to extract free 

 gold and silver from their ores. Tin amalgam 

 was formerly used for silvering mirrors, but 

 real silver is now invariably used. To fill the 

 cavities in decaying teeth, dentists mix mer- 

 cury with alloys of silver with other metals. 

 In the tooth the soft amalgam soon sets to a 

 hard, durable filling. The zinc plates of elec- 

 tric batteries are sometimes "amalgamated" 

 by rubbing the surface with mercury. This 

 prevents the zinc from dissolving in the bat- 

 tery liquids when the cells are not in use. Tho 

 word amalgam is probably derived from the 

 Greek malagmos, meaning soft. See ALLOY. 



AMANA, amah' na, a German religious 

 society founded in 1714, by Eberhard Gruber, 

 at Wetterau, and now centered at Amana, 

 Iowa, a community of seven villages twenty- 

 right miles west of Iowa City. The members 

 came to the United States in 1843, began the 

 settlement in Iowa in 1855, and the society was 

 incorporated under its present name in 1859. 

 Amana is the name of a mountain mentioned 

 in Songs of Solomon, IV, 8, and means true 

 or /?. 



The community is directed by a president 

 and a board of thirteen, each village having its 

 own board of elders. Though family life is 

 maintained, meals are prepared and served in 

 ' kit dun-houses," and the society as a whole 

 carries on manufacturing, agriculture and other 

 work. In 1913 there were about 1,800 persons 

 in the community. They own about 26,000 

 acres of land, having a value of $1,800.000. 

 All of these people dress plainly and in sober 

 colors. 



AMARANTH, am' aranth, a word which 

 means unfading, and is therefore used as the 

 name of various flowers which have dry, scaly 

 petals that keep their color a long time after 

 they are plucked. So well known arc the flow- 

 era and so celebrated their quality that they 

 have given to the English language the adjec- 

 !g undying. Thus 

 Wordsworth speaks of "the amaranthine flower 



