stockings, iron and steel wares, leather, &c. The stock of cattle in 1831 was composed of 1901 horses, 8201 horned cattle, 4386 sheep, 2811 goats, and 1837 swine.

ELBERFELD, the chief town of the circle, lies in a romantic situation upon the right bank of the Wupper, which is 200 feet higher at this spot than at its junction with the Rhine below Opladen: in 51° 16' N. lat. and 7° 8' E. long. It is an open well-built town, and stands at an elevation of 405 feet above the level of the sea. The streets are long, but few of them are of any great breadth, as the place is built partly between hills and partly upon them. It is divided into two quarters, the Island and the Liberty, and contains three churches, one of which is Roman Catholic, a gymnasium, a school of trade, a mechanics' school, 15 elementary schools, two orphan asylums, three hospitals and infirmaries, about 650 manufactories, large and small, 2500 private houses, and about 24,200 inhabitants. This is a great increase since the year 1801, when their numbers were 11,720: from which they rose to 15,595 in The population in 1817 was 18,534, of whom 225 were 1819; 21,027 in 1828, and 23,398 in 1831. Among other Jews; in 1831 it was 17,761, of whom 3500 were Roman establishments in Elberfeld are a museum, a society of the Catholics, 350 Menonites, and 380 Jews, besides the gararts and sciences, a bible, a missionary, and a tract society, rison. The inhabitants carry on manufactures of tobacco, a savings' bank and loan bank, and a German American sail-cloth, soap, starch, caviar, stockings, oil, and linen; mining society. There is no town in the Prussian domi- there are also tan-yards, ship-building, &c. It has a brisk nions which carries on such extensive manufactures and trade with Poland, from which corn, potash, woad, linen, none which has a more flourishing trade. The chief wood, tallow, and wax are obtained; and iron, wine, manumanufactures are thread-lace, of which above 20,000l. in factured and colonial goods, &c., are sent in exchange. The value are annually made; silks, for the weaving of which shipping business too is considerable; the townsmen are with upwards of 1100 looms more than 28,000l. a year are owners of a great number of large vessels and coasters; paid in wages; cotton cloths, plain and printed, in which 45 and many vessels are built here. By the Kraffuhl canal factories and above 3600 looms are employed; coverlids to small vessels can come up to the wharfs, but the larger ones the extent of 30,000 per annum; thread linens, damask are obliged to unlade in the depth of Pillau, which is the cloths, tapes, iron-ware and cutlery, ribbons, stockings, harbour of Elbing. About 1400 vessels enter the port every leather, potashes, furniture, &c. There are several bleach-year; but the greater portion of these are vessels of small grounds and establishments for dyeing; nearly 300 merburden. There is likewise a considerable fishery, particuchants and manufacturers; and the yearly amount of bills larly in sturgeon. passed on the exchange of the town is said to be upwards of 1,500,000l. sterling, in which sum the large manufacturing districts of Barmen, Kronenberg, Langenberg, &c., are comprised.

and two water gates, five Lutheran churches, one reformed, and one Roman Catholic, one synagogue, five hospitals, one convent for elderly females, an orphan asylum, workhouse, house of correction, house of industry, the Pott and Cowle Institute, founded by Richard Cowle, who died in 1821, a savings' bank, a Lutheran gymnasium, with a large library, besides other establishments for the education of the poor. The various benevolent institutions are admirably conducted.

Elbing was founded by the Teutonic knights about the year 1229; in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was a member of the Hanseatic league, but afterwards declined when Danzig engrossed the trade with Poland, and the frequent wars between Poland, Prussia, and Sweden, stopped the intercourse. It however revived during the occupation of West Prussia by Frederick II., and now | ranks in the second class of towns in the Prussian monarchy.

The earliest historical record of Elberfeld is of the twelfth century, when a burg occupied a small portion of its site, which belonged to the Elverfelds, a family whose descendants established the first manufactures. The Reformation was introduced here in the year 1552. It is the seat of a tribunal of commerce and two courts of arbitration. Elberfeld is also a township (Bürgermeisterei) with 32 hamlets, and contained, at the close of the year 1836, 34,257 inhabitants. In that year the births were 1650, the deaths 1132, and the marriages 353. It lies about 19 miles east of Düsseldorf.

ELBING, a circle of the county or administrative circle of Danzig, in Western Prussia, is bounded on the north by the Frisches Haff, the south and west by the circle of Marienburg, and the east by the province of East Prussia. It contains about 268 square miles, two towns, 222 villages, and 5532 dwelling-houses, and had in 1831 a population of 44,406. The north-western part is traversed by a chain of hills, which are connected with East Prussia. The soil is exceedingly fertile, and has luxuriant pastures; it produces an abundance of grain, and fruits and vegetables of the finest sorts, especially in the south-western part. Elbing is well watered by the navigable rivers the Nogat and the Elbing, besides numerous smaller streams and canals. The fishery is productive. Owing to the great scarcity of wood, except in the forest near the town of Elbing, the inhabitants are obliged to use turf. Next to Danzig, Elbing has the most manufactures in the government; the chief are those of tobacco, soap, sugar, vitriol, woad, &c. It also carries on a considerable trade in corn, wood from the Upper Vistula districts, horse-hair bristles, packing cloth, fustian, butter, fruits, woad, potash, &c The circle, besides Elbing, contains the town of Tolkemit, on the Haff, with 1800 inhabitants.

ELBING (Elbinga, Polish Elbiag or Elblag, also called Urbs Drusinia), chief town of the circle, and a place of considerable commercial importance, is situated on the navigable river of the same name, which is united to the Nogat by the Kraffuhl canal about four miles north of the town. It lies in 54° 10' N. lat., and in 19° 25′ E. long., in a very fertile valley, and is surrounded by high walls, towers, and ditches. It is divided into the old and new town, three inner and eleven outer suburbs, and has five land

ELBOEUF, a town in France, in the department of Seine Inférieure. It is on the left bank of the Seine, seventy-nine miles from Paris by Mantes, Vernon, Louviers, and Pont de l'Arche. The town is situated in a pleasant valley, and may be recognized afar off by the chimneys of its numerous steam-engines. Elbœuf appears to possess little that is worthy of notice, except the choir of the church of St. Etienne. The population of the town in 1832 was 9951, that of the whole commune 10,258: the inhabitants have been engaged since the latter part of the seventeenth century in the manufacture of woollen goods; tapestries were long included in their productions, but this branch of industry has been nearly or quite given up; woollen cloths are now the staple manufacture; and Elboeuf is the centre of a prosperous branch of industry. There were at the publication of M. Dupin's 'Forces Productives et Commerciales de la France,' (Paris, 1827,) in and round the town 1200 looms, furnishing employment to 2700 weavers, and 4300 workmen of other kinds employed in the various branches of the woollen trade. The cloth is purchased of the small manufacturers by wholesale houses of extensive business (by which the cloths of Louviers are also purchased), and by them sold and sent into various parts of France, especially to Paris, Lyon, Limoges, and Bordeaux. The wool formerly employed by the clothiers of Elbœuf was Spanish; latterly, the wool of the neighbouring country, owing to the improvement of the native sheep by crossing the breed with the Merinos, has to a considerable extent replaced that of Spain. Elbeuf has a large charity-school, in which, in 1823, 400 girls were taught.

ELBORUS, ELBURZ, or ELBROOZ. [CAUCASUS, p. 382.]

ELČAJA, an Arabian plant, whose fruit is said to possess emetic properties. Botanists call it Trichilia emetica Forskahl describes it as a large tree, with villous shoots, pinnated leaves, with entire oval-oblong pedicellate leaflets, clustered flowers with five greenish-yellow petals, ten monadelphous stamens, and a downy capsular fruit about an inch long, with three valves, three angles, and three cells, having two plano-convex seeds in each cell. The tree is said to be called Roka, and to be common on the mountains of Yemen. The fruit is sold at Beit el fakih, for mixing with fragrant materials with which the Arab women wash their hair. The fruit called Djour elkai is reputed an emetic. The ripe seeds mixed with Sesamum oil are formed into an ointment as a cure for the itch. ELCHE, the Illici of the Romans, is a considerable town 2 U 2

in the kingdom of Valencia in Spain, situated on the river
Segura, in a fertile plain covered with vines and palm-trees.
The latter is the date-palm, with a thick wood of which the
town is surrounded to the distance of half a league. Though
there are several good streets and squares, the town has on
the whole a melancholy aspect. Among the most remark-
able buildings is a ducal palace, which is evidently the work
of a very remote age. The great church is a beautiful edi- |
fice, with a noble dome. The barracks are well built and
extensive. There are besides many convents and charitable
institutions for the poor. Population, 15,000.
ELDEN HOLE. [DERBYSHIRE.]
ELDER TREE. [SAMBUCUS.]

EL DORA'DO, literally the golden country, was the
name given by the Spaniards in the 16th century to an
imaginary region somewhere in the interior of South
America, south of the Orinoco and between that and the
Amazon river, where gold and precious stones were sup-
posed to be as common as rocks and pebbles in other coun-
tries, and to be had for merely picking them up. The first
notion of this story was communicated by an Indian Cacique
to Gonzalo Pizarro, brother of the conqueror, who sent his
companion, Francisco Orellana, down the Amazon river to
discover this wonderful land. Orellana followed the course of
the Amazon down to the sea; but though he did not find El
Dorado, still he countenanced the report of its existence. The
temper of mind of the Spanish conquerors and discoverers of
America seems to have been singularly fitted for credulous
belief in all wonderful reports. The story of El Dorado
continued to be accredited; a Spanish adventurer was said
to have reached the capital of this enchanted region, called
Manoa, and wonderful tales were told of its splendour and
its wealth, far surpassing those of Peru. The Spanish go-
vernor of Guiana was also styled governor of El Dorado,
because the latter country was reckoned to belong to his
jurisdiction. Raleigh was so persuaded, or pretended to be
persuaded, of the existence of this wonderful country, that
he fitted out several expeditions for the purpose of disco-
vering and conquering it for England: his last attempt in
1617 involved him in hostilities with the Spaniards of
Guiana, which ultimately led to his death on the scaffold.
[RALEIGH, WALTER.]

ELEATIC PHILOSOPHY has its name from Elea
(called by the Romans, Velia), a Grecian colony on the
western coast of Lower Italy, where Xenophanes of Co-
lophon settled in his old age (about 530 B.C.), and founded
a school distinguished by its bold attempt to construct
a system of the universe upon metaphysical principles.
The theory was brought to perfection by Parmenides, but
it also reckons among its members Zeno, Melissus, and
Empedocles, who however only gave a further development
to particular principles; the labour of Melissus being mainly
confined to the defence of those positions which were
opposed to the Ionian physics, while Zeno and Empedocles
exhibit the opposite aspects of the theory, the former con-
fining himself to its doctrine of the supra-sensible, the
latter to a detailed application of its physiological views.
In its formation it was subsequent to the Ionian and
Pythagorean schools, and was so far a consequence of them
as it thought necessary to submit to investigation the legiti-
macy of the principles upon which they had proceeded. The
problem which they had proposed to themselves was, as-
suming the possibility of a beginning of motion and of pro-
duction and decay, to determine the first ground or grounds
of all that comes into being. This assumption the Eleatæ
attacked as irreconcilable with that idea of the reason
which involves the law of causality, the Eleatic expression
for which was, out of non-being being cannot come,"
and its later and more general formula, ex nihilo nihil;'
and as no distinction had as yet been made between the
efficient and material causes, they necessarily arrived at the
conclusion that the world had not a beginning.

With the founder of the school religious considerations predominated, and in order to refute the unworthy conceptions of the Deity to which polytheism had given rise, he showed from the very notion of God that he is necessarily one. The notion of Deity, he argued, implies his infinity and eternity, but there cannot be many infinite beings; the eternal and infinite God is therefore one. But from the denial of production it followed that the world is eternal. Now an eternal world would equally limit the eternal God: the co-existence, therefore, of the two, separately and independently of each other, is impossible: con

| sequently the world and the Deity are one. This result is the foundation of the so-called error of Pantheism; but it was only by such an error that man could arrive at a right and worthy conception of the Deity, which it is the merit of the Eleata to have distinctly propounded.

From the position that God or the world is one, it necessarily followed that our conceptions of sensible things singly are imperfect and insufficient to bring us to a knowledge of the All or of God. Man, consequently, is placed in a painful situation, desiring on the one hand to know God, on the other to look to individual phenomena. Attention was thus awakened to the opposition which exists between the pure truth and the sensible appearance, and the Eleata were the first to advance a systematic theory of human knowledge; and although its object was to deny the validity of the testimony of sense and experience, and to ascribe to the reason exclusively the merit of arriving at the truth without any attempt to reconcile appearance and reality, it nevertheless constituted a most important advancement of the philosophy of the period, and so completed its edifice as a system by contributing the dialectical or logical portion; the Ionians and Pythagoreans having respectively constructed the physical and moral parts.

In conclusion, we must observe that the history of this as well as of the other early schools of Grecian philosophy is both obscure and imperfect, since of the written works of its several members we only possess a few and unconnected fragments.

ELECAMPANE, the herbalist's name of the plant called Inula Helenium. Mr. Burnett speaks of it thusIt is by some persons esteemed as a grateful stomachic; its leaves are aromatic and bitter, but its root much more so. The former were used by the Romans as pot-herbs, and it would appear were held in no mean repute in after times, from the monkish line, Enula campana, reddit præcordia sana.' When preserved, it is still eaten as a cordial by Eastern nations, and the root is used in Europe to flavour certain sorts of confectionary that bear its name; and it enters into the composition of several continental carminatives. It is seldom used in England except in veterinary practice, or by fraudulent druggists to make an emetic powder, by the addition of tartrate of antimony, and then sold as a substitute for ipecacuanha. A peculiar proximate principle, something resembling starch, was first detected in the roots of this plant, and hence called Inulin; it has since been dis covered in the tubers of the Jerusalem artichoke, the roots of the common pellitory, the angelicum, the cormus of the colchicum, &c. [INULA.]

ELECTION (Lat. electio), in divinity, is a doctrine which, on the authority of Scripture, and as a consequence of the omniscient and prescient attributes of God, teaches that from all eternity the destiny of every individual of mankind was determined by an immutable decree, some (the elect) being ordained to eternal salvation, while others (the reprobate) are left to inevitable and eternal damnation The term election is often considered as but another name for the doctrine of predestination, both implying that man is subject to a certain predetermined fate. This doctrine in modern times is associated constantly with the name of Calvin, though similar notions were maintained or opposed among the philosophical and religious sects of the antient Gentiles, Jews, and Christians. The Essenes were believers in absolute preordination. The Sadduces rejected it, and adopted the doctrine of moral freedom. The Pharisees, in a theory of syncretism, endeavoured to reconcile and combine the two extremes. (Josephus, Antiq. Jud.) The Stoics insisted upon the doctrine of predestination or necessarianism; while the rival sect of Epicureans maintained that of the perfect free agency of man and the contingent nature of events. The Gnostics taught that human souls, according as they emanated from the good or bad principle, were destined to happiness or misery. In the systems of Manes (Manichæism), Marcion, Cerdon, and others of the second century, similar doctrines were enforced concerning the fixed inevitable fate of men. Throughout the first four centuries the pagan philosophers, especially those of the Stoical school, opposed the dogmas and miracles of Christianity by alleging the principle of necessity as exhibited in the immutable series of causes and effects, or antecedents and consequents, in the physical and mental phenomena of nature, and the ignorant populace were confirmed believers in the influence of fortune and

fatality. Justin Martyr, Irenæus, and most of the Greek | and not by possibility antecedent to, his decrees. 2. Atonefathers, in defending the Christian system, resorted there- ment was made by Christ only for the sins of the elect. His fore to arguments tending to establish anti-predestinarian death did not make the salvation of all possible, and dedoctrines. Origen, in the third century, had taught that pendent on the performance of certain conditions; for if God man, in his moral and religious agency, is not necessitated intended salvation for all, doubtless all must be saved; and by omniprescient decrees of God. His tenets were adopted if Christ died for all, he died in vain for many, which in Palestine, and throughout the East, especially by Chry- is a supposition absurd and impious. 3. By original sin, sostom, Isidorus, Theodoret, and the other Greek fathers; that is, the imputation of Adam's guilt, all are by nature in and Pelagius, an English monk, proceeding on their autho- total depravity, which justifies the consignment of the whole rity, promulgated in the first half of the fifth century the human race to eternal misery, and makes the election of sectarian theory designated Pelagianism, which asserts free some to happiness an act of God's especial grace and good agency, moral responsibility and perfectibility, making good pleasure. 4. All the elect are effectually called at some works meritorious, and denouncing the predestinarian doc- point of time in life when the influence of the divine grace trine of imputed guilt and inherited depravity. (Pelagius is first communicated. 5. As all who are not elected must in Pluquet's Dict. des Hérésies.) St. Augustin was among be damned, so all those who are elected must be saved: irthe most strenuous opponents of Pelagius, and adduced remissible grace necessitates all their actions, and inevitablė abundance of scriptural authority to show the absolute salvation must terminate their final perseverance.' omnipotence, the omniprescience, and consequently the The following are some of the scriptural authorities al preordination of God, with respect to the characters and leged in support of these doctrines: Ephesians i. 4, 5, 11, destiny of men; showing some to be elected by the di- some chosen before the foundation of the world; predesti vine will as objects of especial grace, and others to nated according to God's pleasure: Acts xv. 18. God's forebe abandoned to the perdition which through Adam is knowledge: Rom. viii. 29, 30, 33, those foreknown, predes merited by all. (St. Augustin, De Gratia, De Peccat. tinated, called, justified, and glorified, are God's elect orig., De lib. arbitr., De Ďono Perseverantiæ.) The ar- Math. xxv. 34, to inherit a kingdom eternally prepared for guments of St. Augustin occasioned the formation in the them: Acts xiii. 48, those ordained to eternal life believe fifth century of a sect in Africa called Predestinarians, the Rom. ix. 11, 18, 21, 22, 23, election before birth, and not tenets of which were zealously propagated in Gaul by a according to works; God's power absolute; mercifully fapriest named Lucidus, who was excommunicated and ana- vours some and hardens others. Divine election is conthematized by the church in council. (See the treatise of sidered to be shown in the acceptance of Abel, and the re Père Sirmond on this heresy, and the replies of the Janse-jection of Cain; in God's love of Jacob, and hatred of Esau nists and divines of Port Royal.) In the ninth century, the (Malachi i. 2, 3); in the two men in the field; the two Predestinarian controversy was revived with great enthu- women at the mill; and the two in a bed, of whom one was siasm by Gottescalque, a French Benedictine monk, who was taken and the other left (Luke xvii. 34; Matth. xxiv. 40). condemned, and terminated his life in a dungeon, for teach- Arminius, a professor in the University of Leyden, being the 'five points' concerning election, which subse- came, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, quently gained for Calvin so much celebrity. Gottescalque the chief of Calvin's opponents, who were thence called was answered by Scotus Erigena, and many others. (Du- Arminians, and Remonstrants, from the remonstrance fresnoy, Tablettes Chronolog.) This incomprehensible sub- which they addressed to the Dutch government against ject formed one of the great points of subtle disputation in Calvinistic intolerance. But the rigid Calvinists, headed the scholastic theology; it was discussed by the Angelie by Goar (Goarites), being by far the most powerful party, Doctor,' Thomas Aquinas, and others, in the thirteenth Arminius and his adherents were condemned at the general century. Whether God's election was before or after the synod of Dordrecht, convened for the purpose in 1619. prevision of human merits was a standard thesis for the (Scott's Synod of Dort, pp. 112-124.) At this synod the exercise of syllogistic skill (electio ante vel post prævisa standard points of strict Calvinism, with respect to election, merita). Aquinas sustained the doctrines of Augustin, were determined upon and established. That the homilies and the controversy was subsequently carried on in the and articles of the English church, especially the sevensixteenth century between his followers (the Thomists) teenth, are confirmatory of the Calvinistic views of election, and the adherents of Louis Molina (the Molinists). When is beyond dispute, though many Arminian expositors have Luther began to form his opinions, he perceived that no-made laborious efforts to explain away their obvious original thing could so effectually demolish the Catholic doctrine purport. Bishop Burnet, in his exposition of the articles, of justification by works as the predestinarian theory of St. observes, that the seventeenth, on Election and Predestina Augustin, which he therefore enforced in his writings; but tion, has given occasion to one of the longest, the subtilest, finally he was induced by Melanchthon to mitigate the and the most intricate of all the questions in divinity.' It rigour of his opinions concerning man's passive subjection to displays in fact the medulla of Calvin's Institutes, precisely God's eternal decrees. By the Socinians the certain pre- involving all the doctrinal particulars of his 'five points,' science of future events by the Deity is denied, and the and asserting that, to the elect predestination is full of divine decrees are maintained to be merely general, and not sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort; while to the respecially relative to particular persons. The system of Calvin probate it is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the devil is set forth in his great work entitled 'Institutes of the doth thrust them into desperation and wretchedness.' Baxter Christian Religion' (Institutiones, &c.), in which he states endeavoured to reconcile the doctrines of Calvin and Armithat no one desirous of the credit of piety can dare to nius. Arnauld, in his treatise on the subject, contends that deny God's predestination of some to eternal happiness, the Calvinistic predestination directly overthrows all the and of others to eternal damnation;' that every man is principles of morality; though many others, including Dr. created for one or the other of these purposes,' God having Chalmers, in his recent course of lectures on Predestination, from all eternity fixed the destiny of every individual of assert the contrary. To enumerate the various modificathe human race, all of whom, in consequence of Adam's tions of this doctrine, which at different times have been offence, have been, are, and to the end of time will be, under maintained by distinguished theologians, would be endless. the curse and wrath of God, and justly subject to everlast- Some, as Origen and the Catabaptists, have denied that ing punishment; that salvation depends wholly on God's any one is predestined to perdition, and contended that will; that particular persons, without any regard what- salvation will be finally extended to every one of God's ever to their merits or demerits, are elected, or rejected for creatures, including the devil and all his angels. (Bullinger, ever; and that God is an absolute, tremendous, and in- Contra Catabap.) The following references, in addition comprehensible Judge. Such propositions, it must be con- to those already given, may be useful to the studious infessed, are sufficiently mysterious and fearful to overwhelm quirer.the timid with despair, and excite the bold to inquire if they are founded in truth. One of the ablest works in confutation of Calvin is Dr. Whitby's discourse on the five points of his system, which are as follows:-1. God, before the creation, was pleased to choose, without prevision of merit, some of mankind to enjoy everlasting happiness, and others to suffer everlasting misery. What was certainly foreseen must certainly come to pass, as the prescience of the omnipotent and omniscient Being must be coincident with,

(Cudworth's Free Thoughts on Election; Diderot, Encyclop., articles Predestination, &c.; Bossuet, Hist. des Variations, liv. 14; Westminster Assembly's Confession of Faith (Calvinistic); Mosheim's Eccles. Hist., vols. iii. and iv.; Authentic Documents relating to the Predestinarian Controversy under Queen Mary, by Archbishop Lawrence, 1819; Finch's Examination of Cudworth's Free Thoughts on Elect., 1755. A list of numerous treatises on Election, written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and of

sermons for and against the doctrine, may be seen in Watt's | to those we have described that electricity obtained its Bibliotheca, and Du Pin's Study of Divinity.)

ELECTION (law) is when a man is left to his own free will to take or do one thing or another which he pleases Termes de la Ley); and he who is to do the first act shall have the election. As, if A covenants to pay B a pound of pepper or saffron before Whitsuntide, it is at the election of A at all times before Whitsuntide which of them he will pay; but if he does not pay either before the time fixed, then it is at the election of B to sue for which he pleases. So, if a man give to another one of his horses, the donee may take which he chooses; but if the donation be that he will give one of his horses (in the future tense), then the election is in the donor.

Courts of equity frequently apply the principle of election in cases where a party has inconsistent rights, and compel him to elect which he will enforce: as, if A by his will assumes to give an estate belonging to B to C, and gives other benefits to B, B cannot obtain the benefits given to him by the will unless he gives effect to the testator's disposition to C. It does not appear to be quite settled whether the party electing to retain his own property in opposition to the instrument is bound to relinquish only so much of the property given to him as will be sufficient to compensate the disappointed parties, or whether his election will be followed by absolute forfeiture of the whole. The arguments on both sides are ably stated 1 Roper, Husb. and Wife, 566 n.; 1 Swanst. Reports, 441; 2 Coke's Repts., 35 b., Thomas's note. The principle of election is equally recognized in courts of law, though they are seldom called to adjudicate upon it, except where the alternative is very distinct, or the party has already elected. Indeed this principle is of universal application, and prevails in the laws of all countries; it is applicable to all interests, whether of married women or of infants; to interests immediate, remote, or contingent; to copy hold as well as to freehold estates; to personalty as well as to realty; to deeds as well as to wills.

Courts of equity also will compel a plaintiff suing at law as well as in equity, or in a foreign court as well as in the court in England, for the same matter, at the same time, to elect in which court he will proceed, and will restrain him from pursuing his rights in all others. There are some exceptions to this doctrine, as in the case of a mortgagee, who may proceed in equity for a foreclosure, and on his bond or covenant at law at the same time; but this arises from the difference of the remedy, and from the original agreement to give the concurrent remedies: and even in such a case a court of equity will restrain a mortgagee from enforcing his judgment at law upon the bond or covenant, if he is not prepared to deliver up the mortgaged property and the title-deeds belonging to it.

On Election under a will in the Roman Law see Dig. xxxiii. tit. 5, De Optione vel Electione Legata: and as to the French Law, see the Code Napoléon, art. 1189, &c., Des Obligations Alternatives.

ELECTOR. [BOROUGHS OF ENGLAND; COMMONS, HOUSE OF.]

ELECTRA. [CELLARIA, vol. vi. p. 401.]

ELECTRICITY (EKTрov, amber). The electric phenomena, connected as they are now known to be by certain well-ascertained laws, form together the most complete and important addition to the physical sciences which has been made since the time of Newton.

The simplest and most usual mode of producing electricity is by friction. When any two substances are rubbed against each other briskly it is always produced; but it is only a particular description of bodies called non-conductors that retain it after it is thus produced so as to exhibit its primary effects of attraction and repulsion.

The production of electricity may be observed in a very familiar manner thus:-Tear up a piece of paper into small fragments, and place them on a table; then take a stick of sealing-wax, and rub it briskly with a piece of flannel, or against the sleeve of a cloth coat, and immediately after hold it near the fragments of paper; these small pieces will be soon observed to be agitated and the smaller to fly with considerable velocity to the wax, to which having adhered for some time, some will suddenly jump off, others which have touched the stick edgeways will dangle from it a considerable interval, and then fall off by their own gravitation when the electrical force has sufficiently subsided. It was by observing amber produce similar effects after friction

name.

Glass is now more commonly employed to produce electricity than any wax or gum; and there is a striking dif ference in the kind of electricity then generated, which we shall afterwards notice more at length. These bodies are non-conductors, as they manifestly retain their electricity beyond the moment of its production, and they are isolators, because a conducting substance will also retain its electricity when communication with the earth, or other conducting substances, is cut off by means of non-conducting supports or envelopes.

Water is a conductor of electricity; for if you immerse a conducting isolated and electrised substance in water, it will completely lose its electrical properties. Perfectly dry airs or gases, on the other hand, are non-conductors; for if not, none of the phenomena mentioned could have been observed, as the experiments are not made in vacuo. We are not aware that it has yet been established whether the vapours of all substances are conductors (or all the gases non-conductors). Aqueous vapour certainly is a conductor; and therefore when the air is impregnated with moisture it is difficult to perform any electrical experiments which require duration.

Hence a conductor constitutes a channel by which the electricity produced on a non-conductor will gradually escape, and a non-conductor constitutes an isolator by which the electricity communicated to a conductor may be retained.

Thus, place an electrified glass tube on a tin stand, and the metals being conductors, the electricity will be gradually dissipated; on the contrary, place an electrised tin cylinder on a glass support in dry air, and the electricity will be retained for a very long time.

Nevertheless it is far from improbable that this is a question only of degree; that all substances are conductors; and that the usual terms conductor and non-conductor strictly mean quick conductor and slow conductor.

When an electrised body is brought near the skin where the power of touch is delicate, a sensation is produced which has been compared to that produced by the touch of a cobweb; but instruments founded on the laws of electric action have been constructed, which indicate the presence of elec tricity in its most feeble state, and measure its tension. [ELECTROMETER.]

Previous to our study of the properties of electricity, on which the construction of the best machines for procuring it in large quantities depends, it will be useful to describe a simple apparatus, and one easily constructed or procured, by which we may learn the first laws of electrical action.

B

A represents a glass cylinder of which the axis is supported on a frame, and which is pressed against by a cushion stuffed with horse-hair, and covered by an amalgam of zinc and mercury spread over its surface; this cushion is attached to a conducting bar C, such as a lamina of iron connected with the frame, and with it communicating with a table or the ground.

At one extremity of the axis of the cylinder is attached a handle by which it may be rapidly turned round, and the friction which is generated against the cushion will produce electricity on the surface of the glass, to guard which

That the law of force in this case is, as in gravitation, expressed by the inverse square of the distance, was satisThe next phenomenon to notice is the limit to the quan-factorily demonstrated by Coulomb by means of his torsion tity of electricity we can communicate to a perfect con- balance, the principle of which we have before explained ductor. If, from different sources of electricity, we charge [ELASTICITY], and has been lately confirmed by Mr. Harris's a metallic ball, and so continue to charge, we shall find experiments: and a remarkable fact arises from it, namely, that there is a limit beyond which we cannot communicate if the electrised pith-ball A be placed any where within the more; for on attempting so to do, the ball will discharge concavity of a spherical shell, it will not be moved in any di itself through the air into the nearest conducting body, rection by the repulsion of the electricity on the surface of when a spark, describing apparently a zigzag course, will the shell; for the electricity being then uniformly dis be observed, the colour of the light being dependent on the tributed, the intensity of the force of any small portion DC medium it traverses. This spark travels with immense is at its extent, or proportional to the square of the arc DC, velocity, and is accompanied by a very audible sound; and and is therefore destroyed by the action of an opposite por if received by the body of a man or animal, it produces tion dc, cut off by a conical surface having A as vertex, through a part or the whole of the system an instantaneous and DC as base; for DC: dc:: DA: c A, that is, what muscular contraction, which may be rendered sufficiently the portion gains in extent it loses in its distance from A. strong to cause death, but in more moderation has been used This law was first demonstrated by Newton (Principia, book in some diseases, as deafness, though its use has become by 12), and it was afterwards shown by other analysts, that for no means general no other law of force but that stated could the same mutual