proprietors, the larger properties moving towards consolidation
and those of the peasant proprietors towards subdivision.
Those interested in the formation of small holdings in Great
Britain will find much to interest them in the history of Danish
legislations. British policy for many generations was to
preserve demesne land, and there are many devices for insuring
that a spendthrift life-owner shall not be able to scatter
the family inheritance; but as long ago as 1769 the Danish
legislators set an exactly opposite example. They enacted that
peasant land should not be incorporated or worked with estate
land; it must always remain in the ownership and occupation of
peasants. In this spirit all subsequent legislation was
conceived, and the allotment law that came into force in October
1899 bears some resemblance to the English Small Holdings Act of
1892. It provides that labourers able to satisfy certain
conditions as to character may obtain from the state a loan equal
to nine-tenths of the purchase money of the land they wish to
acquire. This land should be frm 5 to 7 acres in extent
and of medium quality, but the limits are from 2 3/4 to 10 3/4
acres in the case of better or poorer land. The total value
should not exceed 4000 kr. (L. 222). The interest payable on
the loan received from the state is 3%. The load itself is
repayable after the first five years by annual instalments
of 4% until half is paid off; the remainder by instalments of
3 1/2%, including interest. Provision is, however, made for
cases where the borrower desired to pay off the loan in larger
sums. Regulations are laid down regarding the transfer of
such properties and also their testamentary disposition.
The Treasury was empowered to devote a sum of 2,000,000 kr.
Number and Size of Holdings in Denmark in 1901.
Groups Percentage Percentage Average size
Tondeland. Acres. Number. of Number. Acreage of Area. in Acres.
Under 1 Under 1.36 68,380 27.3 23,455 .3 .34
1-3 1.36-4 18,777 7.5 58,553 .7 3.12
3-27 4-36.7 93,060 37.2 1,408,549 15.8 15.14
27-108 36.7-147 60,872 24.4 4,459,077 50.1 73.25
108-216 147-294 6,502 2.6 1,272,398 14.3 195.69
Over 216 Over 294 2,392 1.0 1,674,730 18.8 700.14
Total 249,983 100.0 8,896,762 100.0 35.59
(L. 111,000) this purpose for five years;
after that the land is . subject to revision.
Even before this law was passed Denmark was a country of small
holdings, the peasant farms amounting to 66% of the whole,
and the number is bound to increase, since the incorporation
of farms is illegal, while there is no obstacle to their
division. Between 1835 and 1885, the number of small holdings
of less than one tondekarthorn increased from 24,800 to
92,856. What gives point to these remarks is, that Denmark seems
in the way to arrest its rural exodus, and was one of the first
countries to escape from the agricultural depression due to the
extraordinary fall in grain prices. The distribution of land
in Denmark may be gathered from a glance at the preceding table
for the compilation of which we are indebted to Major Craigie.
AUTHORITIES.---Walter of Henley's Husbandry; The English
Village Community, by Frederick Seebohm; Annals of
Agriculture by Arthur Young; The Agricultural Labourer,
by T. E. Kebbel; Report on the Employment of Messrs
Tremenheere and Tufnall); A Study of Small Holdings,
by W. E. Bear; The Law and the Labourer, by C. W. Stubbs;
``Agricultural Holdings in England and Abroad,'' by Major
Craigie (Statistical Society's Journal, vol. i.); The
Return to the Land, by Senator Jules Meline; Land
Reform, by the Right Hon. Jesse Collings, M.P.; Report
on the Decline in the Agricultural Population of Great
Britain, issued by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries;
Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board
of Agriculture and Fisheries to enquire into and report upon
the subject of Small Holdings in Great Britain. (P. A. G.)
ALLOTROPY (Gr. allos, other, and tropos, manner), a name
applied by J. J. Berzelius to the property possessed by certain
substances of existing in different modifications. Custom has
to some extent restricted its use to inorganic chemistry; the
corresponding property of organic compounds being generally termed
isomerism (q.v..) Conspicuous examples are afforded by oxygen,
carbon, boron, silicon, phosphorus, mercuric oxide and iodide.
ALLOWANCE (from ``allow,'' derived through O. Fr. alouer
from the two Lat. origins adlaudare, to praise, and allocare,
to assign a place; so that the English word combined the
general idea of ``assigning with approval''), the action of
allowing, or the thing allowed; particularly, a certain limited
apportionment of money or food and diet (see DIETARY.)
In commercial usage ``allowance'' signifies the deduction made
from the gross weight of goods to make up for the weight of
the box or package, waste, breakages, &c. Allowance, which is
customary in most industries, varies according to the trade,
district or country; e.g. in the coal trade it is customary
for the merchant to receive from the pit 21 cwts. of coal for
every ton purchased by him, the difference of 1 cwt. being the
allowance for the purpose of making good the waste caused through
transhipment, screening and cartage (see TARE AND TRET.)
ALLOXAN, or MESOXALYL UREA, C4H2N2O4
/NH-CO\
CO CO
\NH-CO/
an oxidation product of uric acid, being obtained from it
by the action of cold nitric acid, C5H4N4O3 + H2O +
O = C4H2N3O4 + CO(NH2)2. It crystallizes from water
in colourless rhombic prisms, containing four molecules
of water of crystallization, and possesses a very acid
reaction. It serves as the starting-point for the preparation
of many related substances. Zinc and hydrochloric acid in
the cold convert it into alloxantin (q.v.), hydroxylamine
gives nitroso-barbituric acid, C4H2N2O3: NOH, baryta
water gives alloxanic acid, C4H4N2O5, hot dilute nitric
acid oxidizes it to parabanic acid (q.v.), hot potassium
hydroxide solution hydrolyses it to urea and mesoxalic
acid (q.v.) and zinc and hot hydrochloric acid convert
it into dialuric acid, C4H4N2O4. M. Nencki has shown
that alloxan combines with thiourea in alcoholic solution,
in the presence of sulphur dioxide to form pseudothiouric
acid, C5H6N4SO3. Methyl and dimethylalloxans are also
known, the former being obtained on oxidation of methyl uric
acid, and the latter on oxidation of caffeine (q.v..)
ALLOXANTIN, C8H4N4O7.3H2O, a product obtained by the combination
of alloxan and dialuric acid, probably possessing the constitution
NH--CO CO--NH
| | | |
CO C(OH)--O--CH CO
| | | |
NH--CO CO--NH
one of the three molecules Of water bema possibly constitutional.
It forms small hard prisms which become red on exposure to air
containing ammonia, owing to the formation of murexide (ammonium
purpurate), C8H4(NH4)N5O6. It may also be obtained by the
action of sulphuretted hydrogen on alloxan. The tetramethyl
derivative, amalic acid, C8(CH3)4N4O7, has been prepared
by oxidizing caffeine (q.v.) with chlorine water, and forms
colourless crystals which are only slightly soluble in hot
water. The formation of murexide is used as a test for the
presence of uric acid, which on evaporation with dilute nitric
acid gives alloxantin, and by the addition of ammonia to the
residue the purple red colour of murexide becomes apparent.
ALLOYS (through the Fr. aloyer, from Lat. alligare, to
combine), a term generally applied to the intimate mixtures
obtained by melting together two or more metals, and allowing
the mass to solidify. It may conveniently be extended to similar
mixtures of sulphur and selenium or tellurium, of bismuth and
sulphur, of copper and cuprous oxide, and of iron and carbon,
in fact to all cases in which substances can be made to mix in
varying proportions without very marked indication of chemical
action. The term ``alloy'' does not necessarily imply
obedience to the laws of definite and multiple proportion or
even uniformity throughout the material; but some alloys are
homogeneous and some are chemical compounds. In what follows
we shall confine our attention principally to metallic alloys.
If we melt copper and add to it about 30% of zinc, or 20% of
tin, we obtain uniform liquids which when solidified are the
well-known substances brass and bell-metal. These substances
are for all practical purposes new metals. The difference in
the appearance of brass and copper is familiar to everyone;
brass is also much harder than copper and much more suitable
for being turned in a lathe. Similarly, bell-metal is
harder, more sonorous and more brittle than either of its
components. It is almost impossible by mechanical means
to detect the separate ingredients in such an alloy; we may
cut or file or polish it without discovering any lack of
homogeneousness. But it is not permissible to call brass a
chemical compound, for we can largely alter its percentage
composition without the substance losing the properties
characteristic of brass; the properties change more or less
continuously, the colour, for example, becoming redder with
decrease in the percentage of zinc, and a paler yellow when
there is more zinc. The possibility of continuously varying
the percentage composition suggests analogy between an alloy
and a solution, and A. Matthiessen (Phil. Trans., 1860)
applied the term ``solidified solutions'' to alloys. Regarded
as descriptive of the genesis of an alloy from a uniform liquid
containing two or more metals, the term is not incorrect, and
it may have acted as a signpost towards profitable methods of
research. But modern work has shown that, although alloys
sometimes contain solid solutions, the solid alloy as a
whole is often far more like a conglomerate rock than a uniform
solution. In fact the uniformity of brass and bell-metal is
only superficial; if we adopt the methods described in the
article METALLOGRAPHY, and if, after polishing a plane face
on a bit of gun-metal, we etch away the surface layer and
examine the new surface with a lens or a microscope, we find
a complex pattern of at least two materials. Fig. 1 (Plate)
is from a photograph of a bronze containing 23.3% by weight of
tin. The acid used to etch the surface has darkened the
parts richest in copper, while those richest in tin remained
white. The two ingredients revealed by this process are not
pure copper and pure tin, but each material contains both
metals. In this case the white tin-rich portions are themselves
a complex that can be resolved into two substances by a higher
magnification. The majority of alloys, when examined thus,
prove to be complexes of two or more materials, and the patterns
showing the distribution of these materials throughout the
alloy are of a most varied character. It is certain that the
structure existing in the alloy is closely connected with the
mechanical properties, such as hardness, toughness, rigidity,
and so on, that make particular alloys valuable in the arts,
and many efforts have been made to trace this connexion. These
efforts have, in some cases, been very successful; for example,
in the case of steel, which is an alloy of iron and carbon, a
