His father, Dudley Emerson, was a schoolmaster, and is said to have been a tolerable proficient in the mathematics of that time: this circumstance furnished his son with ample means of cultivating his taste for the same science, both by means of a good mathematical library which his father possessed, and the good mathematical tuition which he received in his earlier years. A young clergyman, then curate of Hurworth, also lodged in his father's house, and from him he received all requisite assistance in the study of the Greek and Roman classics, in which he became well versed.

the north-western part of the province of Aurich, formerly | philosopher, and mechanist, was born at Hurworth, a East Friesland, in the kingdom of Hanover. It lies in village about three miles from Darlington, in June. 1701· 53° 22′ N. lat. and 7° 12′ E. long., a little below the efflux he died May 20th, 1782, at his native place, aged nearly of the Ems into the Dollart, a bay of the German Ocean, eighty-one years. and is connected with that river by a canal about two miles long, called the Delf Canal, which was constructed at the expense of the town in 1769. Emden is surrounded with walls and towers, and consists of Faldern, the old town, and two suburbs, which contain about 2250 houses and 12,500 inhabitants, of whom about 450 are Jews. It has all the appearance of a Dutch town, and is intersected by canals, over which there are thirty bridges. Its spacious townhall, with an old armoury and library, is one of the finest buildings in East Friesland. There are six churches, of which three belong to the Dutch form of worship, one to the French Protestant, one to the Lutheran, and one to the Roman Catholic; there are also a synagogue and Mennonite chapel, a gymnasium, schools of navigation and design, elementary schools, a richly-endowed orphan asylum, a castle and custom-house, and societies of the fine arts and national antiquities.

Emden owes its prosperity to a colony of Dutchmen, who sought refuge in it, and communicated so great an impulse to its commercial enterprize that in the year 1652 the population amounted to 20,000, and owned upwards of 600 vessels. A century afterwards viz., in 1749, the town had so much declined that the population did not exceed 8000. It came into the hands of Holland in 1808, was made the chief town of the French department of Ostem in 1810, and on the 15th of December, 1815, was, with the whole of East Friesland, incorporated with the kingdom of Hanover. It would rival Hamburg and Bremen in trade but for the shallowness of its harbour. It has been a free port cver since the year 1751; but the Delf canal, which unites the harbour with the town, and is drained and cleansed by means of five inland canals, has frequently no water in it, and can be entered at high water only; and even then it is not navigable by vessels which draw more than 13 or 14 feet of water. All ships of greater draught are obliged to discharge their cargoes in the fine roadstead called Delf, into which the canal opens. There is a treckshuyt, or towing canal, about 14 miles in length, between Emden and Aurich. Emden is the chief commercial place in Hanover; and ship-building is carried on to a considerable extent. As early as the year 1682 it had an African trading company, and in the middle of the last century an East India company. The herring fishery off Scotland, which is a source of great profit to the place, is carried on by four companies, who send out be tween fifty and sixty ships. This branch of its fishery alone employs above 1500 individuals, and produces annually from 12,000 to 13,000 tons of fish. Emden has brandy distilleries and sawing and oil-crushing mills, besides manufactures of fustian, cottons, stockings, sail-cloth, cordage, needles, leather, soap, tobacco, &c. It has considerable trade in linens, thread, grain, butter, and cheese (Embder kacse), the last of which is in much repute. Between 900 and 1000 vessels enter the port every year. The dykes and sluices, which protect the neighbouring country from inundation, are a cause of great expense to the municipality; it is estimated that they gain about two miles square of soil every forty years by pushing out the embankments into the Dollart. Emden is the birthplace of Backhuysen, the celebrated marine painter. Opposite the harbour, in the Dollart, are the small remains of the Island of Nessa, or Nesserland. It is separated from Delf by a swampy arm of the Ems, and previously to the inundations which overwhelmed it between the years 1277 and 1287, formed a beautiful spot of about 80 square miles, with a town called Torum, 2 market-towns, numerous villages, and several monasteries and convents. All that is left of it at the present day is a church and five or six houses, built on high mounds of earth, but protected by dams so slight that they are in imminent danger from the sea.

The bailiwic of Emden has an area of about 78 square miles, and contains 1 town, 1 market-village, Oldersum, on the Ems, with about 820 inhabitants, 4 villages, and 30 parishes. The population amounts to about 11,500. EMERALD. [BERYL.]

EME'RITA. (Zoology.) [HIPPA.] EMERSION (Astronomy), the reappearance of one heavenly body from behind another after an eclipse or occultation.

EMERSON, WILLIAM, an eminent mathematician,

After the death of his father, Emerson attempted to continue the school, which however he soon relinquished; but whether it arose from the impetuosity of his temper which rendered him unfit for such an occupation, or that a small competence left him by his father (he being an only child) rendered it a matter of indifference to him to increase his income, cannot be ascertained. He devoted his long life to writing a series of mathematical works, which, except those of Simpson, were, till a comparatively recent time, the very best in our language. He also cotributed largely to the different mathematical periodicals of his time, though almost always under some fanciful name, as Merones, Philofluentimecanalgegeomastrolongo, &c. Mr. Emerson was in person rather short, but strong and well-formed, with an open honest countenance and ruddy complexion. A portrait of him, by Sykes, was painted and engraved in the latter part of his life; but it is not often to be met with, as only a few copies of it were circulated. Ilis health was generally excellent till near the latter part of his life, when he became a great sufferer from the stone. Emerson was in many respects a very eccentric person, fancifully coarse in his dress, and uncourteous in his conversation. He was, nevertheless, when in his happier moods, a delightful companion, and his discourse full of instruction, deep thought, and startling originality of opinion.

All his books were published in London; and it was his invariable practice to walk to town and shut himself up in some obscure lodging to devote himself sedulously to the correction of the successive sheets of his works with a care never exceeded even by Hamilton or Cruden; and certainly, of all the mathematical works that have ever been published, those of Emerson are the freest from errata.

Emerson was married, but had no children. He amused himself with fishing, a diversion to which he was much attached, and would frequently stand up to his middle in the water for hours together when he found it gave him a better position for the use of his fly or his angle. He was an excellent practical mechanic, and of most of the ma chines described in his work on mechanics he had made very good models. The spinning-wheel delineated in that work was the one on which his wife employed her leisure hours. He had also a very profound knowledge of the musical scales, both antient and modern, although he was but a poor performer: still he was dextrous in the repair of musical instruments, and was generally employed to tune the harpsichords and clean the clocks throughout the district in which he resided.

The bold and frank manner in which Emerson spoke on all subjects has led some persons to affirm that he was a sceptic in religion. Of this however there is not the slightest evidence; but it appears to have arisen from the insinuations of his scientific opponents, who thus attempted to crush his reputation with the world, and thereby weaken his authority in matters connected with science-a course too often adopted in our own day by those who contend for victory rather than truth. Emerson was through a long life universally accounted a man of integrity; but his honesty often led to dogmatism, and his indignation at error to an expression of feeling that gave his controversial writings an air of ungracious severity.

A considerable number of Emerson's processes are marked with peculiar elegance and considerable powers of invention; still there is apparent in all of them a want of that power of generalisation which distinguishes the highest order of minds. His Method of Increments is the most original of his works; and his Doctrine of Fluxions is perhaps the most elegant. His Mechanics is the work by

which he is most generally known, a circumstance probably owing to its containing descriptions of so many of the more usual and useful machines: but it is a work singularly crude and ill-digested, and not less singularly incomplete in even the enunciation of the most important principles of mechanical science.

The following is a list of his works, all in 8vo., except his Mechanics and Increments in 4to., and his Navigation in

1. Doctrine of Fluxions. 2. Projection of the Sphere, Orthographic, Stereographic, and Gnomonic. 3. The Elements of Trigonometry. 4. Principles of Mechanics. 5. A Treatise on Navigation. 6. A Treatise on Arithmetic. 7. A Treatise on Geometry. 8. A Treatise on Algebra. 9. The Method of Increments. 10. Arithmetic of Infinities, and the Conic Sections, with other curve lines. 11. Elements of Optics and Perspective. 12. Astronomy. 13. Mechanics, with Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces. 14. Mathematical Principles of Geography, Navigation, and Dialling. 15. Commentary on the Principia, with a Defence of Newton. 16. Miscellanies.

Few agents are more useful in hooping-cough than emetics; and in many cases of indigestion, especially if accompanied with sick headache or hypochondriasis, emetics give effectual relief.

Emetics are very improper where there is a disposition to apoplexy, or tendency of blood to the head, or where the patient is liable to hæmorrhage from any organ, or is subject to hernia. They are also to be avoided during pregnancy. EMIGRATION, may be defined to be a man's leaving his native country with all his property to settle perma

nently in another. Emigration is therefore necessarily implied in the word colonization, and it is by the terms of our definition easily distinguished from a man's temporary absence from his native country and from the kind of absence specially called absenteeism.

Though a man may be properly called an emigrant who leaves Great Britain or Ireland, for instance, and settles in France or Germany or elsewhere in Europe, the term has in modern times come to have a more restricted and particular sense. By the term emigrant we generally understand one who leaves an old and thickly peopled country to settle in a country where there is abundance of land that has never been cultivated before, and where the native population is thinly scattered, and the foreign settlers are yet either few compared with the surface, or none at all. The countries to which emigration is mainly directed at present are the British possessions in North America, the United States of North America, and the great island of Australia with Van Diemen's Land.

One cannot well conceive why a state, or any section or part of a nation, should make any contribution or raise any fund for the purpose of aiding emigration, except it be with the view of bettering the condition of some who cannot find employment at home, and at the same time adopting some systematic plan for improving the condition of those who are left behind. Yet any system of emigration thus conducted by government, or by societies, or by the inhabitants of particular districts, would fail in its primary object, relief to the emigrants, unless a corresponding amount of capital should be taken out of the country by other emigrants who might settle in the same place to which the emigrant labourers were sent. To effect such an adjustment between capital and labour, not only should both these elements of wealth in due proportion be transported to the new country, but such proportion should, for some time at least, be maintained by the body which superintends such system of emigration; an arrangement which seems impracticable, except by some such provisions as are hereinafter mentioned.

An emigrant to any of these remote countries must be either a capitalist or a labourer, or he may combine in him- It is further to be observed that, as no persons can ever self both conditions; but even a mere labourer cannot emi- succeed as emigrants who are not sober, intelligent, and grate without some capital, though the amount may be industrious, and as such alone are consequently fit people only enough to convey him to the spot where his labour to go to a new country, such alone should be sent out by a and skill will be in demand. It was long a prevalent notion state or a society, if it interferes in the matter of emigration. among nations, or perhaps we may rather say with those But if a large number of the most industrious labourers possessed of power at the head of nations (who have gene- should emigrate from a given district, and leave behind ally been slower in learning any great practical truth than them the worthless and idle, though the emigrants might he mass of the people, whose understanding is sharpened better their condition and improve the settlement of which by a nearer view of their own interest), that emigration they go to form a part, the mother country would be no should be discouraged or prevented, as tending to weaken gainer by this change. We are not inclined to consider a nation. The objection, we believe, was generally founded that any advantage, at all commensurate to the expense, rather on a notion that the nation lost by its diminished would result from any emigration, however extensive, from population, than that it suffered from the abstraction of districts where there is a superabundant and pauperized, or capital. As to the matter of population, however, some a pauperized and not superabundant population. If the observers even then could not fail to remark, that emigra- idle, the ignorant, and the vicious, were exported wholesale, tion did not seem to diminish the population, but that on the they would only die a few years sooner in the land of their contrary it seemed to be soon followed by an increase. This new settlement, without conferring any benefit on it, and was observed with respect to Portugal at the time when she those of the same kind who were left behind would hardly was extending her conquests and colonies, and is a fact con- be more susceptible of improvement for the absence of any firmed by more recent experience, the explanation of which part of their numbers which did not amount to pretty nearly presents no difficulty. The abstraction of capital, skill, and the whole number; while the industrious and the intelliindustry might seem, and indeed is primarily, so much good gent, who, by the supposition, remain at home and are wiltaken from the mother country; but inasmuch as the emi-ling to labour whenever it is in their power, would hardly grants retain in their new settlements, through the medium derive any benefit by this removal of the bad from among of commercial exchange which is daily becoming more rapid them, at all commensurate to the amount of capital which and easy, a connexion with the parent state, it may be must be expended on such wholesale exportations. Besides, and often is the fact, that they ultimately contribute more as already observed, unless a proper supply of emigrant to the wealth of the mother country when in the new capitalists can be secured, all general plans for the emigrasettlements than they could have done at home. Many of tion of labourers can only lead to disappointment and starthose, for example, who settle in the western States of vation. Any plan therefore which shall have for its object America or in Canada with no capital beyond their hands, the amelioration of a population sunk in ignorance or deby their industry become the possessors of a well-cultivated based by pauperism, must be one of an internal character, piece of land, and ultimately consume more of the products one which must gradually and on certain fixed principles of British industry, for which they must give something in aim at removing the evils which exist in the social system. exchange, than if they had remained in their native country. Emigration must be left to the free choice of individuals, And as, in order that emigration to new countries may be and must be recommended to the young, the sober, and a successful undertaking to those who emigrate, and ulti-industrious solely on the grounds of offering to them a mately advantageous to the mother country, there must be reasonable prospect of bettering their condition in a new an emigration both of capitalists and labourers, it would country. seem to follow that a state, if it consult the happiness of its citizens, should place no impediments to the emigration either of capitalists of all kinds or of labourers or artizans of any kind, but should on the contrary give reasonable facilities. The objections that have been made and the legislative obstacles that once existed to the exportation of numerous articles from this country, and still exist with reference to some descriptions of machinery (for instance), are founded on a total misconception of the state and condition of newly settled countries, as to their capabilities for manufactures, and on an absurd notion that the exportation of anything can be prevented whenever the demand for it is sufficiently great to cover the risk of evading an absurd enactment. [CONTRABAND.]

If a state then should be wise enough not to discourage emigration, it may be asked, should it aid and direct it? So far as a state should aid and direct emigration, there must be two distinct objects kept in view by the state; one must be to benefit the parent country, the other to benefit those who emigrate. On the contrary, as to the individual who emigrates, whether he emigrates under the protection and direction of the government or not, his sole object is of course to better his own condition.

The disadvantages of emigration however, when there is no plan, no controlling or directing power, are obvious. Emigrants often go to a new country without any definite or clear notion of what they are going to. Dissatisfied or unhappy at home, imagination pictures to them a remote and unknown country as an asylum from all the evils of life; or if they have any distinct idea of the new kind of existence which they are going to adopt, they often underrate the difficulties of the undertaking, or form a false estimate of their own capabilities to meet them. It is no wonder then that so many, on landing in the New World, are startled at the obstacles which then stare them in the face, and shut their eyes to the real advantages, such as they are, which a fertile unoccupied soil presents to a hardworking industrious man.

We have stated that any system of emigration for labourers without a corresponding emigration of capitalists would be fruitless; it is also obvious that if capitalists only were to emigrate without being able to secure a supply of labour, the result would be equally unfortunate. And further, it is clear that any system of emigration of labourers to Canada or the United States could produce no good effect, because voluntary emigration of labourers is still going on,

It seems that considerations like these have recently led to the formation of a scheme of emigration which is original in its design. We allude to the South Australian Colony, the first Annual Report of the Commissioners for which was ordered to be printed by the House of Commons, 28th July, 1836. To adopt the language of this Report, the distinguishing and cardinal principles of the colony of South Australia are, that all public lands shall be sold, and that the proceeds of the sale shall be employed in conveying labourers to the colony.' Further: it is essential to the prosperity of a new colony in which there are neither slaves nor convicts, that there should be a constant supply of free labourers willing to be employed for wages. No productive industry worthy of the name can be undertaken, unless several hands can be put on the same work at the same time; and if there be not, in a colony in which the compulsory services of slaves or convicts cannot be obtained, a constant supply of labour for hire, no extensive farm can be cultivated, no large and continuous work can be carried on, and the capital imported must perish for want of hands to render it reproductive.'

The above statement is almost necessarily defective, because many persons proceed from the United Kingdom as emigrants on board vessels which are not wholly devoted to the conveyance of passengers, and of whom no record is kept at the Custom House. The following statement, giving the number of emigrants who landed at Quebec and Montreal, at New York, and in New South Wales, in each year from 1829 to 1835, is compiled from returns made by the government agents, and is probably correct as regards those particular places, which are the principal points to which the tide of emigration from this country is continually tending:

Eng. and Wales

Ireland

Scotland

It is also the object of the Commissioners to prevent the labourers, for some time after their arrival in the colony, from purchasing land. It is proposed to effect this by fixing the price of land sufficiently high to prevent the labourer from being tempted too soon to exchange that condition which is for the time the most profitable both to himself and the body of emigrants for the apparently West Ind., &c. higher character of a land-owner.

It is justly remarked in the Report that the result of such premature purchases would be alike disastrous to the capitalist and to the labourer; as the supply of labour for hire being thus diminished, improvements requiring the co-operation of many hands would be suspended, and capital would waste and perish for want of means to use it; and the labouring population becoming separated upon small patches of land, each family would be obliged to perform every species of work for themselves; and the absence of all division of employment and combination of labour would so reduce the efficacy of their industry, that instead of advancing in wealth and civilization, they would fall back to a semi-barbarous state.' Such a result has already been witnessed in numerous new settlements, and such a result must inevitably follow the dispersion of small capitalists and labourers who aspire to be land-holders over a large uncultivated surface, however rich it may naturally be. The practical problem which the Commissioners have undertaken to solve is not without its difficulties, and time alone can show how far they will succeed. In the mean time we recommend to the reader the perusal of the First Report, together with the other publications that have appeared on this interesting subject.

We know no recent publication which is better adapted to give a correct notion of the kind of difficulties which an emigrant has to meet, even under circumstances not the most unfavourable, than a little work entitled the 'Backwoods of Canada,' published under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

The number of persons who, according to the Custom House accounts, have emigrated from the United Kingdom to the British colonies in North America, the United States, the Cape of Good Hope, and the British settlements in Australia, in each year from 1820 to 1836, has been as follows:

Hamburg and
Gibraltar
Nova Scotia,
Newfoundland.

Havre de Grace
(Swiss and
Bavarians).

15,945 28,000 50,254 51,746 21,752 30,935 12,527 27,722

The arrivals at New York in the four years from 1829 to 1832, since which time this information has not been afforded, were~

From England
Ireland
Scotland

11,501 21,433 22,607 28,283

A large proportion of English emigrants who land at New York have no intention of remaining in the United States, but take that route in preference to the Saint Lawrence, the navigation of which is tedious and dangerous, and proceed to Upper Canada: it is not possible however to state precisely their ultimate destination. The distribution of those emigrants who landed at Quebec and Montreal during the last three years is given by the agent for emigration in Canada as follows-:

LOWER CANADA,
City and District of Quebec
District of Three Rivers
District of St. Francis and East-
ern Townships
City and District of Montreal
Ottawa District

UPPER CANADA.
Ottawa, Bathurst, Midland, and
Eastern Districts to Kingston
included

200

6,000

District of Newcastle and Town
ships in the vicinity of the Bay
of Quinte
Toronto and Home District, and

Males

1836. 14,447

The emigrants who arrived at Quebec and Montreal in | led him back to Bagdad, and compelled him to resign each of the years 1835 and 1836 were divided, as regards the throne in favour of Mostakfi billah. In A. Heg. sex, &c., as follows:334 (A.D. 945) Tûzûn died, and the Turkish guards at Bagdad chose Zairat, son of Shîrzâd, as his successor, in which capacity he was confirmed by the caliph Mostakfi. 7,833 But before the end of the year Moëzz-ed-daulah, the Buide 5,448 (Bawaihide) prince of Ahwaz, entered Bagdad at the head 27.728 of an army; Zairak and the Turkish guards fled to Mosul, and the caliph created Moëzz-ed-daulah his emîr-al-omara. Of this appointment he had soon reason to repent; for Moëzzed-daulah dethroned him, and made Al-Moti-lillah caliph in his stead. The caliphat,' observes Abulfeda, which was

1835.

Females

Children under 14 years of age

5,597 3,866 3,064 12,527

Of these there were sent out by parochial aid
Went at their own expense

1,043 11,484

12,527

4,640 23,088

27.728

The parochial emigrants in 1836 were sent from Hamp-conferred upon Moti-lillah, was divested of nearly every shire, Wiltshire, Norfolk, and Kent.

The following list of Reports may be useful.-
Report from Select Committee on Emigration from the
United Kingdom, 1826. Three Reports from same Com-
mittee, 1826-27. Report to Colonial Department by Col.
Cockburn, on the subject of Emigration, January, 1827.
Reports from Commissioners for Emigration to the Colonial
Secretary, 1832. Annual Reports from the Agent for
Emigration in Canada, 1833 to 1836.

prerogative of sovereignty: the officers of Moëzz-ed-daulah ruled throughout Irak, and to the caliph nothing was left but what Moëzz-ed-daulah out of his own free will conceded to him.' The authority of Moëzz-ed-daulah was for a time contested by Naser-ed-daulah of Mosul; but in A. Heg. 337 (A.D. 948) Moëzz-ed-daulah took Mosul, and his opponent fled to Nisibis. Moëzz-ed-daulah now continued undisturbed in the possession of his high authority till his death, which took place A. Heg. 356 (A.D. 966). How great his power was cannot perhaps be better shown than by mentioning the fact, that he was the first Mohammedan prince who sold an appointment of judge (for 200,000 dirhems), and that in a Sunnite country he, a Shiite, lirected a public mourning in memory of the death of the caliph Hossain [ALI BEN ABI TALEB]. He was succeeded by his son Bakhtiar Azz-ed-daulah, an indolent and volup tuous prince, between whom and the chiefs of the Turkish body-guard, Sebuktekin and Aftekin, frequent dissensions and at last open hostilities took place. Bakhtiar was obliged to quit Bagdad, and to apply for assistance to his cousin Adad-ed-daulah. The latter conducted him back to the capital, but induced him to resign his office, which he himself assumed, till compelled by his father Rokn-eddaulah to restore it to Bakhtiar. At the suggestion of Sebuktekin, Mosti-lillah had, in A. Heg. 363 (A.D. 973), abdicated the caliphat in favor of Tayi-lillah his son. In A. Heg. 366 (A.D. 976), Rokn-ed-daulah died, and Adaded-daulah, who succeeded him as sovereign of Persia Proper, Arjan and Kerman, now for the second time prevailed on Bakhtiar to surrender to him his post as emîr-al-omarâ: a war followed, in which Bakhtiar was taken prisoner and executed. Bardas, a rebel governor under the Greek empire, applied to Adad-ed-daulah for support; to prevent which Nicephorus was sent twice as ambassador from the court of Constantinople to that of the emir. Adad-ed-daulah remained emîr-al-omarâ till his death, A. Heg. 372 (A.D. 982). He encouraged literature and science, and was himself an accomplished poet. He restored and embellished the principal towns of the empire, which had been damaged during the civil wars: at Bagdad he erected an hospital; and in Persia Proper he inclosed the river Cyrus [BEND-EMIR] with extensive dykes. After his death, his son Samsamed-daulah was chosen emir; but in A. Heg. 376 (A.D. 986) his brother Sharf-ed-daulah forced the caliph to confer that dignity upon him, and Samsam-ed-daulah was blinded. Sharf-ed-daulah died A. Heg. 379 (A.D. 989-990), and was succeeded by his brother Behâ-ed-daulah, who remained emîr-al-omarâ till his death; but was obliged to make concessions to the Turkish body-guards, and thereby dimi nished his power. He induced the caliph Tayi-lillah to resign in favor of Kader-billah, A. Heg. 381 (A.D. 991). Behâ-ed-daulah was, in A. Heg. 403 (A.D. 1012) followed by his son Soltan-ed-daulah, who was compelled by a military insurrection, in A. Heg. 411 (A.D. 1020), to appoint his brother Mushrif-ed-daulah commander-in-chief of the army, by whom he was subsequently deprived of his office. Soltaned-daulah died in A. Heg. 415 (a.d. 1024); Mushrif-eddaulah in the following year. After an interval of two years, during which Bagdad seems to have suffered much from the insolence of the Turkish guards, Jelâl-ed-daulah, · another son of Behâ-ed-daulah, was invited by the army to come from Basra to the capital; and the caliph confirmed his election as emîr-al-omarâ. During his administration the caliph Kader-billah died, A. Heg. 422 (A.D. 1031), after a nominal reign of forty-one lunar years, and was followed by his son Kâyim-bi-amr-allah. The latter, instead of seeking an intimate union with Jelâl-ed-daulah, whom he considered to be of little influence, made a treaty with another Buide prince, Fîrûz Abû-Kâlenjâr of Shiraz. Insurrections at Bagdad, and predatory incursions of bands

EMIR-AL-OMRAH, or more correctly emir-al-omara, i. e. 'the prince of princes,' or 'chief of chiefs,' is the designation of an office under the caliphat, endowed with almost unlimited authority, which was created in the year of the Hegira 324 (A.D. 935), became hereditary in the year 333 (A.D. 944), and continued till near the middle of the following century. The disturbed state of the empire, in which the governors of the provinces frequently broke their allegiance to the sovereign, induced the caliph Al-Radhi, who had ascended the throne in the year 322 of the Hegira (A.D. 934), to seek for stronger aid in the manage ment of public affairs than the previously existing office of a vizier, or prime minister, was able to afford; and with this view he sent for one of the refractory vassals, Mohammed ben Râyek, the governor of Waset, invited him to come to Bagdad, appointed him commander-in-chief of the army, and entrusted to him the superintendence of all his dominions, conferring upon him at the same time the title of emîr-al-omarâ, and directing his name to be inserted in the public prayers in the mosques throughout the empire, next to that of the caliph himself. The vizier Ebn Moklah, known as the reputed inventor of the Neskhi character, or Arabic current hand, was dismissed, and severely punished for an attempt to recover his station. Mohammed ben Rayek himself appointed a vizier in the person of Fadhl ben Jaafar, the governor of Egypt and Syria. Not two years elapsed after the elevation of Mohammed ben Râyek, before he was obliged to yield his place to the Turk Yahkam (called by Abulfeda, Balıkam), a freed slave, who had raised himself into power, and had been appointed governor of Ahwaz by Mohammed ben Râyek This post he had been obliged to relinquish on account of the rising power of the Buides (Bawaihides) in Persia: he had in consequence taken possession of Waset, and now marched to Bagdad, and forced the caliph to submit to his dictation. Mohammed ben Râyek quitted the capital, but soon returned with an army, when a contest followed, which terminated in his being appointed governor of Harran, Roha (Edessa), Kinnesrin, and Awasim, and subsequently of nearly the whole of Syria. Bahkam remained emir-alomara till his death, which took place shortly after the accession of Mottaki billah to the caliphat (A. Heg. 330, A.D. 941): he was, according to some, killed by the Curds on a hunting excursion; according to others, he was assassinated by order of Mottaki, whom his arrogant behaviour had exasperated against him. Abdallah al-Baridi, governor of Basra, made an unsuccessful attempt to possess himself of the office of emîr-al-omarâ. Kurtekîn, another Turkish chief, who succeeded him, held the office during eighty days, at the expiration of which Mohammed ben Rayek returned from Syria to Bagdad, took Kurtekîn prisoner, and was re-appointed emîr-al-omarâ by the caliph. But after a very short time Mohammed was assassinated by the order of Naser-ed-daulah, the governor of Mosul, who succeeded him during a period of three months. In A. Heg. 331 (A.D. 942), Mottaki appointed Tûzûn emîr-al-omara. In the ensuing year the caliph quitted Bagdad, and fled towards Mosul in consequence of a disagreement with Tûzûn; the latter followed him, as the caliph had offered terms for a reconciliation; but when they had met, Tûzûn ordered both the eyes of the caliph to be put out,