EDEN 



1924 



EDINBURGH 



EDEN, e'd'n, GARDEN OF. In the Bible is 

 told the story of the creation by God of a 

 beautiful garden to be the home of the first 

 human beings. Adam and Eve were put into 

 it and were told that it would be their home 

 as long as they did not disobey God by eating 

 of the "tree of knowledge of good and evil." 

 One day the Maker found that they had done 

 what he had told them not to do, so he put 

 them out of the Garden. The story is told in 

 the book of Genesis. Many scientists have tried 

 to locate the place, but probably the Flood 

 materially changed the surface of the earth 

 so it is only guess-work to assume that it was 

 in the valley of the Euphrates River of to-day, 

 as many people assert. 



The Garden of Eden meant a place where 

 everything was joy and happiness, and as such 

 is used figuratively in literature to-day. Shake- 

 speare in Richard II refers to England as 

 This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 

 This other Eden, demi-paradise. 



EDENTATA, edenta'tah, a small group of 

 animals which do not have teeth in the front 

 of their mouth and therefore live on insects 

 and animal substances in a decaying state. The 

 ant-eaters and pangolins have no teeth at all, 

 while the rest in this group, such as the sloth, 

 armadillo and aard-vark, have simple, rootless 

 teeth near the back of their jaws. The ma- 

 jority of these animals live in South America, 

 although, some species are found in Africa and 

 Southern Asia. They are slow in their move- 

 ments, because of the peculiar structure of 

 their limbs; they have large claws, almost like 

 hoofs, and are covered with coarse hairs, which 

 in the case of the pangolin are united into 

 overlapping scales. The edentata are generally 

 ranked as the lowest of mammals, not merely 

 because of the lack of teeth but because the 

 brain is very small and poorly developed. 

 (Each animal named above is described in its 

 place in these volumes.) 



ED'IBLE BIRDS' NESTS, the nests of cer- 

 tain species of swifts, found principally in the 

 Malay Archipelago and regarded as a luxury 

 by the Chinese. The nest has the shape of a 

 common swallow's nest, is found in caves, par- 

 ticularly on the seashore, and has the appear- 

 ance of fibrous, imperfectly-made isinglass. 

 When procured before the eggs are laid, the 

 nests are of a waxy whiteness and are then 

 esteemed most valuable. The best specimens 

 sell in the -Chinese markets for about $12 per 

 pound. They appear to be composed of a 

 mucilaginous substance secreted by special 



glands, and not, as has been previously held, of 

 glutinous seaweed. 



EDICT OF NANTES, nahNt. See NANTES, 

 EDICT OF. 



EDINBURGH, ed'inburo, Scotland's capital 

 and second city, and the center of its intel- 

 lectual and religious life, is a city rich in mem- 

 oriesi Within its boundaries were staged many 

 scenes in the life of Mary Queen of Scots and 

 in the contemporary struggles and success of 

 the great presbyter, John Knox; in one of its 

 churchyards was signed the National Covenant, 

 which established the independence of the 

 Presbyterian Church in Scotland, and in one 

 of its cellars, the Act of Union with England, 

 which ended the independence of the Scottish 

 nation. In later days it was a literary center, 

 the home of the Edinburgh Review, one of 

 whose founders was Sydney Smith and among 

 whose contributors were Carlyle, Hazlitt, 

 Macaulay and Scott; of Blackwood's Edin- 

 burgh Monthly, which published contributions 

 from "Christopher North," De Quincey and 

 Scott, and George Eliot's first stories, Scenes 

 of Clerical Life; and of Chambers 's Edinburgh 

 Journal, whose editors were the publishers of 

 the famous Chambers' Encyclopaedia and the 

 Book of Days. In Edinburgh, Scott spent his 

 early life, Burns enjoyed his first success, 

 Thomas CarlyJe began his career, De Quincey 

 passed twelve of his most active years, and 

 Robert Louis Stevenson grew to manhood. 

 Many scenes in and about the city are familiar 

 to readers of Scott's Waverley Novels and 

 Stevenson's David Baljour. 



Edinburgh to-day is a progressive community 

 of 320,000 people. The city owns its Water 

 supply, its gas, its street lighting system and 

 its street cars. The municipal government 

 elects a majority of the curators of Edinburgh 

 University, which, though the youngest of 

 Scotch universities, was chartered in 1582, fifty- 

 four years before Harvard College, the oldest 

 in America. Edinburgh has established public 

 markets and public slaughter-houses, and has 

 built houses wWch are leased to working peo- 

 ple. It is proud of its educational institutions, 

 one of which, the Royal High School, was 

 founded in the sixteenth century. 



Edinburgh is built on the hills which rise 

 south of the Firth of Forth, from which its 

 business center is about two miles distant. 

 Until the end of the nineteenth century the 

 boundaries of the burgh did not extend to 

 the shore, and its shipping still passes through 

 the port of Leith. The city is divided into the 



