m. The river crosses the richest agricultural and timber
districts of the state, and railways connect it with the
mineral regions of north central Alabama. The principal
tributary of the Alabama is the Canaba (about 200 m. long),
which enters it about 10 m. below Selma. Of the rivers which
form the Alabama, the Coosa crosses the mineral region of
Alabama, and is navigable for light-draft boats from Rome,
Georgia (where it is formed by the junction of the Oostenaula
and Etowah rivers), to about 117 m. above Wetumpka (about
102 m. below Rome and 26 m. below Greensport), and from
Wetumpka to its junction with the Tallapoosa; the channel
of the river has been considerably improved by the Federal
government. The navigation of the Lallapoosa river (which has
its source in Paulding county, Georgia, and is about 250 m.
long) is prevented by shoals and a 60-ft. fall at Tallassee,
a few miles N. of its junction with the Coosa. The Alabama is
navigable throughout the year. In 1878 the Federal government
undertook to make a channel tho length of the Alabama 200
ft. wide and 4 ft. deep; an amendment in 1891 provided for
a 6-ft. channel at low water, and in June 1907 this work was
reported as ``10% completed'' at an expenditure of $303,650.
The Mobile river is navigable for vessels of about 14 ft.
draft. The Alabama is an important carrier of cotton, cotton
seed, fertilizer, cereals, lumber, naval stores, &c.; and in
the fiscal year 1906-1907 the freight tonnage was 417,041 tons.
ALABASTER, or ARBLASTIER, WILLIAM (1567--1640), English
Latin poet and scholar, was born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, in
1567. He was, so Fuller states, a nephew by marriage of Dr John
Still, bishop of Bath and Wells. His surname, sometimes written
Arblastier, is one of the many variants of arbalester, a
cross-bowman. Alabaster was educated at Westminster school,
and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1583. He became a
fellow, and in 1592 was incorporated of the university of
Oxford. About 1502 he produced at Trinity College his Latin
tragedy of Roxana.1 It is modelled on the tragedies of
Seneca, and is a stiff and spiritless work. Fuller and Anthony
a Wood bestowed exaggerated praise on it, while Samuel Johnson
regarded it as the only Latin verse worthy of notice produced
in England before Milton's elegies. Roxana is founded
on the La Dalida (Venice, 1567) of Luigi Groto, known as
Cieco di Hadria, and Hallam asserts that it is a plagiarism
(Literature of Europe, iii. 54). A surreptitious edition
in 1632 was followed by an authorized version a plagiarii
unguibus vindicata, aucta et agnita ab Aithore, Gulielmo,
Alabastro. One book of an epic poem in Latin hexameters, in
honour of Queen Elizabeth, is preserved in MS. in the library of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge. This poem, Elisaeis, Apotheosis
poetica, Spenser highly esteemed. ``Who lives that can match
that heroick song?'' he says in Colin Clout's come home
again, and begs ``Cynthia'' to withdraw the poet from his
obscurity. In June 1596 Alabaster sailed with Robert Devereux,
earl of Essex, on the expedition to Cadiz in the capacity
of chaplain, and, while he was in Spain, he became a Roman
Catholic. An account of his change of laith is given in an
obscurely worded sonnet contained in a MS. copy of Divine
Meditations, by Mr Alabaster (see J. P. Collier, Hist. of Eng.
Dram. Poetry, ii. 341). He defended his conversion in a
pamphlet, Seven Motives, of which no copy is extant. The
proof of its publication only remains in two tracts, A Booke
of the Seuen Planets, or Seuen wandring motives of William
Alablaster's (sic) wit . . ., by John Racster (1598), and
An Answer to William Alabaster. his Motives, by Roger Fenton
(1599). From these it appears that Alabaster was imprisoned
for his change of faith in the Tower of London during 1598 and
1599. In 1607 he published at Antwerp Apparatus in Revelationem
Jesu Christi, in which his study of the Kabbalah was turned
to account in a mystical interpretation of scripture which drew
down the censure alike of Protestants and Catholics. The book
was placed on the Index librorum prohibitorum at Rome early in
1610. Alabaster says in the preface to his Ecce sponsus
veni (1633), a treatise on the time of the second advent of
Christ, that he went to Rome and was there imprisoned by the
Inquisition but succeeded in escaping to England and again
embraced the Protestant faith. He received a prebend in
St Paul's cathedral, London, and the living of Therlield,
Hertfordshire. He died in 1640. Alabaster's other cabalistic
writings are Commenitarius de Beslia Apocalyptica (1621) and
Spiraculum tubarum . . . . (1633), a mystical interpretation
of the Pentateuch. It was by these theological writings
that he won the praise of Robert Herrick, who calls him ``the
triumph of the day'' and the ``one only glory of a million''
(``To Doctor Alabaster'' in Hesperides, 1648). He also published
(1637) Lexicon Pentaglottoni, Hebraicum, Chaldaicum,
Syriacum. Talmudico-Rabbinicci et Arabicum.
See T. Fuller, Worthies of England (ii. 343); J. P. Collior,
Bibl. and Crit. Account of the Rarest Books in the English
Language (vol. i. 1865); Pierre Bayle, Dictionary, Historical
and Critical (ed. London, 1834); also the Athenaeum (December
26, 1903), there Sir Bertram Dobell describes a MS. in his
possession containing forty-three sonnets by Alabaster.
1 For an analysis of the play see an article on
the Latin university plays in the Jahrbuch der
Deutschen Shakespeare Gesellschaft (Weimar, 1898)
ALABASTER, a name applied to two distinct mineral substances,
the one a hydrous sulphate of lime and the other a carbonate of
lime. The former is the alabaster of the present day, the
latter is generally the alabaster of the ancients. The two
kinds are readily distinguished from each other by their relative
hardness. The modern alabaster is so soft as to be readily
scratched even by the finger-nail (hardness= 1.5 to 2), whilst
the stone called alabaster by the ancients is too hard to be
scratched in this way (hardness=3), though it yields readily to a
knife. Moreover, the ancient alabaster, being a carbonate,
effervesces on being touched with hydrochloric acid, whereas the
modern alabaster when so treated remains practically unaffected.
Ancient Alabaster.---This substance, the ``alabaster'' of
scripture, is often termed Oriental alabaster, since the early
examples came from the East. The Greek name alabastrites is
said to be derived from the town of Alabastron, in Egypt,
where the stone was quarried, but the locality probably owed
its name to the mineral; the origin of the mineral-name is
obscure, and it has been suggested that it may have had an Arabic
origin. The Oriental alabaster was highly esteemed for making
small perfume-bottles or ointment vases called alabastra;
and this has been conjectured to be a possible source of the
name. Alabaster was also employed in Egypt for Canopic jars
and various other sacred and sepulchral objects. A splendid
sarcophagus, sculptured in a single block of translucent
Oriental alabaster from Alabastron, is in the Soane Museum,
London. This was discovered by Giovanni Beizoni, in 1817, in
the tomb of Seti I., near Thebes, and was purchased by Sir John
Soane, having previously been offered to the British Museum for
Oriental alabaster is either a stalagmitic deposit, from the
floor and walls of limestone-caverns, or a kind of travertine,
deposited from springs of calcareous water. Its deposition
in successive layers gives rise to the banded appearance which
the marble often shows on cross-section, whence it is known as
onyx-marble or alabaster-onyx, or sometimes simply as onyx--a
term which should, however, be restricted to a siliceous
mineral. The Egyptian alabaster has been extensively worked
near Suez and near Assiut; there are many ancient quarries
in the hills overlooking the plain of Tell el Amarna. The
Algerian ony.xmarble has been largely quarried in the province of
Oran. In Mexico there are famous deposits of a delicate green
variety at La Pedrara, in the district of Tecali, near Puebla.
Onyx-marble occurs also in the district of Tehuacan and at several
localities in California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Virginia.
Modern Alabaster.--- When the term ``alabaster'' is used
without any qualification it invariably means, at the present
day, a finely granular variety of gypsum (q.v..) This
mineral, or alabaster proper, occurs in England in the
Keuper marls of the Midlands, especially at Chellaston in
Derbyshire, at Fauld in Staffordshire and near Newark in
Nottinghamshire. At all these localities it has been extensively
worked. It is also found, though in subordinate quantity, at
Watchet in Somersetshire, near Penarth in Giamorganshire, and
elsewhere. Iii Cumberland and Westmorland it occurs largely
in the New Red rocks, but at a lower geological horizon.
The alabaster of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire is found in
thick nodular beds or ``floors,'' in spheroidal masses known
as ``balls'' or ``bowls.'' and in smaller lenticular masses
termed ``cakes.'' At Chellaston. where the alabaster is known
as ``Patrick,'' it has been worked into ornaments under the name
of ``Derbyshire spar''---a term applied also to fluor-spar. The
finer kinds of alabaster are largely employed as an ornamental
stone, especially for ecclesiastical decoration, and for the
srails of staircases and halls Its softness enables it to be
readily carved into elaborate forms, but its solubility in
water renders it inapplicable to outdoor work. The purest
alabaster is a snow-white material of fine tiniforni grain,
but it is often associated with oxide of iron, which produces
brown clouding and veining in the stone. The coarser varieties
of alabaster are converted by calcination into plaster of
Paris, whence they are sometimes known as ``plaster stone.''
On the continent of Europe the centre of the alabaster trade is
Florence. The Tuscan alabaster occurs in nodular masses,
embedded in limestone, interstratified with marls of Miocene
and Pliocene age. The mineral is largely worked, by means
of underground galleries, in the district of Volterra.
Several varieties are recognized---veined, spotted, clouded,
agatiform, &c. The finest kind, obtained principally from
Castellina, is sent to Florence for figure-sculpture, whilst
the common kinds are carved locally, at a very cheap rate, into
vases, clock-cases and various ornamental objects, in which
a large trade is carried on, especially in Florence, Pisa and
Leghorn. In order to diminish the translucency of the alabaster
and to produce an opacity suggestive of true marble, the
statues are immersed in a bath of water and gradually heated
nearly to the boiling-point--an operation requiring great
care, for if the temperature be not carefully regulated, the
stone acquires a dead-white chalky appearance. The effect of
heating appears to be a partial dehydration ofthegypsum. If
properly treated, it Very closely resembles true marble, and
is known as mormo di Castellina. It should be noted that
sulphate of lime (gypsum) was used also by the ancients, and was
employed, for instance, in Assyrian sculpture, so that some
of the ancient alabaster is identical with the modern stone.
Alabaster may be stained by digesting it, after heing
heated, in various pigmentary solutions; and in this way a
good imitation of coral has been produced (alabaster coral).
See M. Carmichael, Report on the Volterra Alabaster Industry,
Foreign Office, Miscellaneous Series, No. 352 (London, 1895): A. T.
