472 A T L 
In the pofture of a barrel railed or tilted behind, to make 
it run out.—Such a man is always atilt ; iris favours come 
hardly from him. Spectator. 
ATI'NO, a town of Italy, in the kingdom of Naples, 
and country of Lavora, once the fee of abilhop, fupprelf- 
ed by Leo III. three leagues north of Aquino. 
AT'KINS (Sir Robert), lord chief baron of the ex¬ 
chequer, was born in 1621, and educated at the univerlity 
of Oxford, from whence he removed to the inns of court, 
and became eminent in the law. He was made knight of 
the Bath, with many other perfons of tire firlt diftin&ion, 
at the coronation of Charles II. In 1672, he was appoint¬ 
ed one of the judges of the Common Pleas; in which ho¬ 
nourable dation he continued till 1679, when, forefeeing 
the troubles that foon after enfued, he thought fit to re- 
fign, and retire into the country. In 1689, he was made 
by king W a m lord chief baron of the exchequer ,; and 
about the e time executed the office of fpeaker to the 
houfe of 1 , which had been previoully refufed by the 
marquis of Halifax. He di 11 inguifiled himfelf by an un- 
Ihaken zeal for the laws and liberties of his country. He 
wrote feveral pieces, which have been collected into one 
volume 8vo, under the title of Parliamentary and Politi¬ 
cal Tracts. He died in 1709, aged eighty-eight. 
Atkins (Sir Robert), foil of the preceding, was born 
in 1646, and was eminent for all the virtues that could 
adorn an Englifh gentleman. He wrote The Ancient and 
Prefent State of Gloucellerlhire, in one large volume fo¬ 
lio; and died OClober 29, 1711. 
ATLAN'TES,/. in architecture, images of men bear¬ 
ing pillars, or fupporting the pile of a building. 
ATLAN'TIC OCEAN, a name given to the fea which 
lies between Europe and Africa to the eafl, and America 
to the weft. 
ATL ANT PEES, f. a denomination given to the Pleia¬ 
des, or feven liars, fometimes alfo called Vergillue. They 
are thus called, as being fuppofed by the poets to have 
been tiie daughters either of Atlas or his brother Hefpe- 
rus, who were tranllated into heaven. 
ATLAN'TII, a people of Africa, near mount Atlas, 
on the European fide. They were, according to Diodorus, 
the politeft people in all Africa; and they pretended that 
the gods were born among them, as alfo that Uranus w as 
their firlt king. 
ATI.AN'TIS, Atatan'tis, or Atlan'tic A, anilland 
mentioned by Plato and fome others of the ancients, con¬ 
cerning the real exiftence of which many difputes have 
been railed. Homer, Horace, and the other poets, make 
two Atlanticas, calling them Hij'perides , and Elyjian Fields , 
the habitations of the blelfed. The molt dillinCt account 
of this illand we have in Plato’s Timaeus, of which Mr. 
Chambers gives the following abridgement. “The At¬ 
lantis was a large illand in the weftern ocean, lituated be¬ 
fore or oppolite to the (traits of Gades. Out of this illand 
there was an eafy palfage into fome others, which lay near 
a large continent exceeding in bignefs all Europe and Alia. 
Neptune fettled in this illand (from whole Ion Atlas its 
lame was derived), and divided it among his ten fons. 
To the youngeft fell the extremity of the illand, called 
Gadir, which in the language of the country fignifies ‘ fer¬ 
tile’ or ‘ abundant in Iheep.’ The defendants of Neptune 
reigned here from father to fon for a great number of ge¬ 
nerations in the order of primogeniture, during the fpace 
of 9000 years. They alio polfelled feveral other iflands; 
and, palling into Europe and Africa, fubdued all Libyans 
far as Egypt, and all Europe to Alia Minor. At length 
the illand funk under water; and for a long time after¬ 
wards the fea thereabouts was full of rocks and (helves.” 
Many of the moderns alfo are of opinion, that the ex¬ 
iftence of the Atlantis is not to be looked upon as entirely 
fabulous. Some take it to have been America ; and from 
thence, as well as from a palfage in Seneca’s Medea, they 
imagine that the new world was not unknown to the an¬ 
cients. But, allowing this to be the cafe, the above-men¬ 
tioned continent, which was faid to lie beyond Atlantis, 
ATM 
would feem rather to have been the continent of America 
than Atlantis itfelf. The learned Rudbeck, profelfor in 
the univerlity of Upfal, in a work intitled Atlantica five 
Manheim, endeavours to prove that Sweden and Norway 
are the Atlantis of the ancients; but this its fituation will 
by no means allow us to believe. By Kircher it is fuppo¬ 
fed to have been an illand extending from the Canaries 
quite to the Azores; that it was really (wallowed up by 
the ocean as Plato alferts; and that tliefe fmall iflands are 
only the (battered remains which were left (landing. 
Atlantis (New), is the name of a fictitious philofo- 
phical commonwealth, of which a defeription has been 
given by lord Bacon. The New Atlantis is fuppofed to 
be an illand in the South Sea, to which the author was 
driven in a voyage from Peru to Japan, The compofition 
is an ingenious fable, formed after the manner of the Uto¬ 
pia of Sir Thomas More, or Campanella’s City of the Sun. 
Its chief delign is to exhibit a model or defeription of a 
college, inftituted for the interpretation of nature, and the 
production of great and marvellous works, for the benefit 
of men, under the name of Solomon's Houfe , or the “col¬ 
lege of the fix days work.” 
AT'LAS,yi [from a-rAaa, to fuftain, or to car¬ 
ry.] In anatomy, is the firft vertebrae of the neck ; fo 
called, becaufe it fuftains the head, as Atlas was fuppofed 
to fuftain the celeftial globe. It is a bony ring, and in its 
back part it receives the procelfus dentatus of the fecond 
vertebra. 
Atlas, king of Mauritania, a great aftronomer, co¬ 
temporary with Moles. From his taking obfervations of 
the liars from a mountain, the poets feigned him to have 
been turned into a mountain, and to fuftain the heavens 
on his fhoulders. Being an excellent aftronomer, and the 
firft who taught the doCtrine of the fphere, they tell us 
that his daughters were turned into liars; feven of them 
forming the Pleiades, and the other feven the Hyades. 
Atlas (Great and Little), mountains of Africa. The 
Great Allas extends from the delert of Barca, about eigh¬ 
ty leagues weft of Alexandria, to the coaft of the Atlan¬ 
tic fea, to which it gives name, but often changes its name., 
according to the multitude of countries it runs through, 
and the plains and vallies by which it is interfered; it is 
called by the natives Ayduacal. The Little Atlas extends 
from the ftraits of Gibraltar to Bona, in the country of 
Algiers, and is called by the natives F.rriff. Both thefe 
are of Inch vaft height, and for the mod part covered with 
fnow, as to be feen at a great diftance oft' at fea. The 
higheft parts and molt difficult of accefs are thofe which 
run along the confines of the kingdom of Tremecen, and 
the coldeft thofe that bound the dominions of Morocco. 
As to the generality of the reft, they enjoy a much kinder 
climate, and are not only inhabited by various tribes of 
Berebers, Arabs, and other African people, but, in many 
places, well cultivated and ‘fertilized, and a number of 
towns and villages difperfed in them, well inhabited, and 
ftored with abundance of cattle; though in many of theie 
they are obliged not only to retire into their caverns all the 
winter feafon, which is there very long, but to take in 
with them all their numerous herds, which would other- 
wife perifh with cold. 
Atlas, in literature, denotes a book of univerfal geo¬ 
graphy, containing maps of all the known parts of the world. 
Atlas, in commerce, a filk fatin, manufactured in the 
Eaft Indies. There are fome plain, fome ftriped, and fome 
flowered, the flowers of which are either gold or only filk. 
The manufacture of them is admirable. In the Chinefe 
manufactures of this fort, they gild paper on one fide with 
leaf-gold ; then cut it in long flips, and weave it into 
their filks; which makes them, with but little coll, look 
very rich and fine. The fame long flips are twilled or 
turned about filk threads, fo artificially, as to look fine's 
than gold thread, though it be of no greater value. 
AT'LENBURG, or At'tei.nburg, a town of Ger¬ 
many, in the circle of Lower Saxony, and duchy of Lau- 
enburg, on the Elbe: four miles weft of Lauenburg. 
AT'LIM. 
