it. As an architect he was strongly under Roman and Italian
influences, and his style and aims were exotic rather than
native. But this does not detract from their merit, nor
need it diminish our estimate of his genius. It was,
indeed, the most signal triumph of that genius that he was
able so to mould and adapt classical models as to create
a new manner of the highest charm and distinction. Out of
simple curvilinear forms, of which he principally preferred
the oval, he evolved combinations of extraordinary grace
and variety, and these entered into every detail of his
work. In his view the architect was intimately concerned
with the furniture and the decorations of a building, as well
as with its form and construction, and this view he carried
rigorously into practice, and with astonishing success.
Nothing was too small and unimportant for him--summer-houses
and dog-kennels came as readily to him as the vast facades
of a terrace in town or a great country house. But he never
permitted minute details to obscure the main lines of a noble
design. Whatever care he might have expended upon the flowing
curves of a moulding or a decoration, it was strictly kept in
its place; it contributed its share and no more to the total
effect. He made a distinct step forward in giving shape to
the idea of imparting the unity of a single imposing structure
to a number of private houses grouped in a block which is
so characteristic a feature of modern town building, and
though at times he failed in the breadth of grasp needful
to carry out such an idea on a large scale, he has left
us some fine examples of what can be accomplished in this
direction. A delightful but theoretically undesirable
characteristic of his work is the use of stucco. Upon it he
moulded delicate forms in subtle and beautiful proportions.
His ``compo'' was used so successfully that the patent was
infringed: many of his moulds still exist and are in constant
use. That most difficult feature, the column, he handled
with enthusiasm and perfect mastery; he studied and wrote of
it with minute pains, while his practice showed his graslp of
the subject by all avoidance of bare imitation of the classic
masters who first brought it to perfection. His work might
be classic in form, but it was independently developed by
himself. It would be impossible here to give a list of the
innumerable works which he executed. In London, of course,
the Adelphi stands pre-eminent; the screen and gate of the
Admiralty and part of Fitzroy Square are by him, Portland
Place, and much of the older portion of Finsbury Circus,
besides whole streets of houses in the west end. There are the
famous country houses of Lord Mansfield at Caen Wood, Highgate
and Luton Hoo, and decorations and additions to many more.
Robert Adam--with, there is reason to suspect, some help
from his brother James--has left as deep and enduring a mark
upon English furniture as upon English architecture. Down
to his time carving was the dominant characteristic of the
mobiliary art, but thenceforward the wood-worker declined in
importance. French influence disposed Robert Adam to the
development of painted furniture with inlays of beautiful exotic
woods, and many of his designs, especially for sideboards,
are extremely attractive, mainly by reason of their austere
simplicity. Robert Adam was no doubt at first led to turn
his thoughts towards furniture by his desire to see his
light, delicate, graceful interiors, with their large sense
of atmosphere and their refined and finished detail, filled
with plenishings which fitted naturally into his scheme.
His own taste developed as he went on, but he was usually
extremely successful, and cabinetmakers are still reproducing
his most effective designs. In his furniture he made lavish
use of his favourite decorative motives---wreaths and paterae,
the honeysuckle, and that fan ornament which he used so
constantly. Thus an Adam house is a unique product of English
art. From facade to fire-irons, from the chimneys to the
carpets, everything originated in the same order of ideas,
and to this day an Adam drawing-room is to English what
a Louis Seize room is to French art. In nothing were the
Adams more successful than in mantelpieces and doors. The
former, by reason of their simplicity and the readiness with
which the ``compo'' ornaments can be applied and painted,
are still made in cheap forms in great number. The latter
were most commonly executed in a rich mahogany and are now
greatly sought after. The extent to which the brothers
worked together is by no means clear--indeed, there is an
astonishing dearth of information regarding this remarkable
family, and it is a reproach to English art literature that
no biography of Robert Adam has ever been published. John
Adam succeeded to his father's practice as an architect in
Edinburgh. James Adam studied in Rome, and eventually
was closely associated with Robert; William is variously
said to have been a banker and an architect. (J. P.-B.)
ADAM, WILLIAM (1751--1839), British lawyer and politician,
eldest son of John Adam of Blair-Adam, Kinross-shire, and
nephew of the architect noticed above, was born on the 2nd
of August 1751, studied at the universities of Edinburgh
and Glasgow, and passed at the Scottish bar in 1773. Soon
afterwards he removed to England, where he entered parliament
in 1774, and in 1782 was called to the common law bar. He
withdrew from parliament in 1795, entered it again in 1806
as representative of the united counties of Clackmannan and
Kinross, and continued a member, with some interruptions, till
1811. He was a Whig and a supporter of the policy of Fox. At
the English bar he obtained a very considerable practice. He
was successively attorney and solicitor-general to the prince
of Wales, one of the managers of the impeachment of Warren
Hastings, and one of the counsel who defended the first Lord
Melville when impeached. During his party's brief tenure of
office in 1806 he was chancellor of the duchy of Cornwall,
and was afterwards a privy councillor and lord-lieutenant of
Kinrossshire. In 1814 he became a baron of Exchequer
in Scotland, and was chief commissioner of the newly
established jury-court for the trial of civil causes, from
1815 to 1830, when it was merged in the permanent supreme
tribunal. He died at Edinburgh on the 17th of February 1839.
ADAMANT (from Gr. adamas, untameable), the modern diamond
(q.v.), but also a name given to any very hard substance. The
Greek word is used by Homer as a personal epithet, and by Hesiod
for the hard metal in armour, while Theophrastus applies it
to the hardest crystal. By an etymological confusion with the
Lat. adamare, to have an attraction for, it also came to be
associated with the loadstone; but since the term was displaced
by ``diamond'' it has had only a figurative and poetical use.
ADAMAWA, a country of West Africa, which lies roughly
between 6 deg. and 11 deg. N., and 11 deg. and 15 deg. E., about midway
between the Bight of Biafra and Lake Chad. It is now divided
between the British protectorate of Nigeria (which includes
the chief town Yola, q.v.) and the German colony of
Cameroon. This region is watered by the Benue, the chief
affluent of the Niger, and its tributary the Faro. Another
stream, the Yedseram, flows north-east to Lake Chad. The
most fertile parts of the country are the plains near the
Benue, about 800 ft. above the sea. South and east of the
river the land rises to an elevation of 1600 ft., and is
diversified by numerous hills and groups of mountains.
These ranges contain remarkable rock formations, towers,
battlements and pinnacles crowning the hills. Chief of these
formations is a gigantic pillar some 450 ft. high and 150 ft.
thick at the base. It stands on the summit of a high conical
hill. Mount Alantika, about 25 miles south-south-east of
Yola, rises from the plain, an isolated granite mass, to
the height of 6000 ft. The country, which is very fertile
and is covered with luxuriant herbage, has many villages
and a considerable population. Durra, ground-nuts, yams and
cotton are the principal products, and the palm and banana
abound. Elephants are numerous and ivory is exported. In
the eastern part of the country the rhinoceros is met with,
and the rivers swarm with crocodiles and with a curious
mammal called the ayu, bearing some resemblance to the seal.
Adamawa is named after a Fula Emir Adama, who in the early
years of the 19th century conquered the country. To the
Hausa and Bornuese it was previously known as Fumbina (or
South-land). The inhabitants are mainly pure negroes such
as the Durra, Batta and Dekka, speaking different languages,
and all fetish-worshippers. They are often of a very low
type, and some of the tribes are cannibals. Slave-trading
was still active among them in the early years of the 20th
century. The Fula (q.v.), who first came into the country
about the 15th century as nomad herdsmen, are found chiefly
in the valleys, the pagan tribes holding the mountainous
districts. There are also in the country numbers of Hausa,
who are chiefly traders, as well as Arabs and Kanuri from
Bornu. The emir of Yola, in the period of Fula lordship, claimed
rights of suzerainty over the whole of Adamawa, but the country,
since the subjection of the Fula (e. 1900), has consisted of
a number of small states under the control of the British and
Germans. Garua on the upper Benne, 65 m. east of Yola, is
the headquarters of the German administration for the region
and the chief trade centre in the north of Adamawa. Yoko is
one of the principal towns in the south of the country, and in
the centre is the important town of Ngaundere. After Heinrich
Barth, who explored the country in 1851, the first traveller
to penetrate Adamawa was the German, E. R. Flegel (1882). It
has since been traversed by many expeditions, notably that of
Baron von Uechtritz and Dr Siegfried Passarge (1893--1894).
An interesting account of Adamawa, its peoples and history, is
given by Heinrich Barth in his Travels in North and Central
Africa (new edition, London, 1890), and later information is
contained in S. Passarge's Adamawa (Berlin, 1895). (See also
CAMEROON and NIGERIA, and the bibliographies there given.)
ADAMITES, or ADAMIANS, a sect of heretics that flourished
in North Africa in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Basing itself
probably on a union of certain gnostic and ascetic doctrines,
this sect pretended that its members were re-established
in Adam's state of original innocency. They accordingly
rejected the form of marriage, which, they said, would never
have existed but for sin, and lived in absolute lawlessness,
holding that, whatever they did, their actions could be neither
good nor bad. During the middle ages the doctrines of this
obscure sect, which did not itself exist long, were revived
in Europe by the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit.
ADAMNAN, or ADOMNAN (c. 624-704), Irish saint and
historian, was born at Raphoe, Donegal, Ireland, about the
year 624. In 679 he was elected abbot of Hy or Iona, being
ninth in succession from the founder, St Columba. While on
a mission to the court of King Aldfrith of Northumberland in
686, he was led to adopt the Roman rules with regard to the
time for celebrating Easter and the tonsure, and on his return
to Iona he tried without success to enforce the change upon the
monks. He died on the 23rd of September 704. Adamnan wrote
a Life of St Columba, which, though abounding in fabulous
matter, is of great interest and value. The best editions
