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ALLOWANCE. 
founded on the possession of lands and tenements 
in the parish, townland, or other district in which 
the divided common is situated. 
ALLOWANCE. A deduction from rent, either 
on account of the total or partial loss of the sub- 
ject let, or for the repair of farm-buildings, the 
improvement of land, or any other special pur- 
pose. It is also known as Deduction or Abate- 
ment. The following summary of principles ap- 
plicable to this subject is taken from Myr. Hun- 
ter’s ‘Treatise on the Law of Landlord and Ten- 
ant:’ 
Ist, Where the loss is occasioned by natural or 
artificial causes, which the lessee could not contem- 
plate at all, or which are contrary to probability, or 
which may be accidentally inherent in the subject, 
the lessee will be entitled to exemption or deduction. 
These causes may be natural, as—with relation to 
agricultural subjects, permanent sterility, storm or 
inundation—to fisheries, a change of the stream, or 
migration of the fish—in minerals, exhaustion, or the 
occurrence of impenetrable strata; or they may be 
artificial, as fire, the fall of a neighbouring house, a 
foreign enemy, or a mob. 
2dly, Exemption or deduction may be claimed, al- 
though the sterility or vastation be not total; if it 
be what is termed plus quam tolerabile. No defini- 
| tion of this phraseology is given either in the Roman 
or Scotch law; but the common opinion’ is said to 
be, that the tenant will be lable for the rent, if the 
produce exceed the expense of production. On this 
topic there is much learning in the works of the civi- 
lians, but too subtle to be useful. 
3dly, The cause of loss must not be such as, though 
natural, can be deemed to have been in the contem- 
plation of the lessee when he contracted. The gra- 
| dual deterioration of the soil, short of sterility, blight, 
insects, injury by rain after reaping, decay of fruit- 
trees, or similar causes, will not operate, although 
they may not only prevent profit, but exhaust capi- 
tal. Increase of depth, or accumulation of water in 
a mine, will not give liberation or abatement to the 
lessee, although the addition to the expense of work- 
ing should create positive loss. A lessee of fisheries 
will not be exempted although the adjoining pro- 
prietors, exercising their known legal rights, erect 
works which may injure the fishery. 
4thly, Loss arising from the abandonment of a 
neighbouring market, or, conversely, from a greater 
supply, or from a supervenient law or judicial de- 
termination, does not come within the exemption. 
There is a series of decisions in accordance with these 
maxims. 
ALLOXAN and Atnoxantine, Chemical com- 
pounds formed by the action of nitric acid on 
uric acid. They contain the same elements as 
gluten, but in different proportions; and are con- 
vertible into each other simply by the abstraction 
or addition of one equivalent of hydrogen,—al- 
loxantine being in all respects the same as alloxan 
with the addition of one equivalent of hydrogen. 
Alloxan is formed from alloxantine by oxidizing 
substances; and alloxantine is formed from al- 
loxan by deoxidizing substances. The mutual 
relation of gluten and ferment—an obscure and 
difficult yet considerably important question—is 
supposed to be exactly analogous to this very 
close mutual relation of alloxan and alloxantine. 
See articles Guuren and Fermentation. 
ALL-SAINTS. See Aut-Haunows. 
ALLUVIUM. 125 
ALL-SPICH (Carorina)—hbotanically Calycan- 
thus. A genus of small, deciduous, North Ameri- 
can shrubs, the type of the natural order Caly- 
canthee. Three species are cultivated in this 
country, floridus, fertelis, and levigatus ; and two 
others have not been introduced. Their calyxes 
are odoriferous and chocolate-coloured, and have 
the appearance of corolle or flowers; and hence 
the name of the genus Calycanthus or Calyx- 
flower. The most popular species Calycanthus 
Floridus, yields a fragrance like that of true all- 
Spice or pimenta; and always bears the name of 
all-spice in its native country, Carolina. It sel- 
dom, in Great Britain, attains a height of more 
than five feet. 
stem near the ground; they are numerous, irre- 
gular, and of a brown colour; and when bruised, 
they emit an agreeable aromatic odour. Its leaves 
are nearly four inches long and two and a half 
inches broad; they have a pointed oval outline; 
and they stand in pairs, opposite one another, 
along the branches. The flowers stand single on 
short footstalks, and bloom in May and June. 
Young plants of Carolina all-spice are easily 
though slowly obtained by layering; and they 
require to be nursed with care till they acquire 
some strength and hardiness. 
ALL-SPICE-TREE—botanically Prmenta. A 
handsome, evergreen tree, of the myrtle tribe. 
It is a native of the West Indies, abounds in the 
hilly parts of the north side of Jamaica, and pro- 
duces the well-known pepper-berry, popularly 
called all-spice or Jamaica pepper. It is a stove 
plant in Great Britain; but grows indigenously 
to the height of thirty feet in the West Indies. 
Its berries are spherical and purple; they are 
gathered before being ripe, and carefully dried 
on mats, or terraced-floors, or in kilns; and they 
bear the name of all-spice in consequence of their 
aroma having some resemblance to that of a good 
mixture of all other sorts of spices. Only one 
species is known,—Pimenta vulgaris; and this 
was treated by the older botanists as a myrtle, 
and called Myrtus pimenta. 
ALLUVIUM. Aqueous deposits of gravel, 
sand, earth, silt, marl, and the miscellaneous 
matters which result from the disintegration of 
rocks and the comminution of diluvium, detritus, 
and organic remains. Alluvium, though a term 
of strictly scientific use, and of very frequent 
occurrence in works upon geology and physical 
geography, is employed by different writers in 
very different senses, and sometimes has great 
looseness and variety of meaning in even a single 
treatise. Some writers employ it to denote all 
aqueous deposits of every age and character, and 
so make it include all the sedimentary or strati- 
fied rocks; others employ it to denote all aque- 
ous deposits which retain their original consti- 
tution, or have not been modified or altered by 
igneous action, and so make it include all the 
great divisions of rocks usually called tertiary 
and secondary, and some of those usually called 
Its branches deflect from the 
Se 
