already mentioned, to be the object of a capricious and vengeful enmity, but through a sinful nature, and practices and affections conformable to that nature, to have come into a state of alienation from God; in other words, he believes that God is just and holy, that man has sinned, and must therefore be punished. This being his condition, he further believes that the Divine Being, revealed to us under the title of the Son of God, interposed between the sentence and its execution, suffered in our stead, and atoned by his death for our sin; that the immediate consequences were, remission of the original sentence, and restoration to a state which is still probationary, but in which man is made capable of a permanent reunion with his Maker. The believer in the doctrine of the atonement supposes that the sacrifice was necessary according to a law fixed in the counsels of God (which law he also supposes to be revealed to us) that sin must be atoned for before it can be pardoned; but he distinguishes between the necessity of the sacrifice itself, and the further purpose of God in causing it to be publicly made, and providing that it should be universally known. He supposes the knowledge of the fact to be necessary to the formation of the Christian character, and its moral consequences to be, a deeper sense of the turpitude of sin; whereas there might otherwise be danger lest that should be lightly accounted of which appeared to have been lightly forgiven; and also a new and powerful motive to a love of the Supreme Being, supplying a remedy for that selfish principle which might prevail, if the only motives to obedience were the hope of reward and the fear of punishment.

We have endeavoured to state the doctrine of the Atonement in such terms as would be accepted by all, who accepted the doctrine itself on the authority of Scripture. It is well known, however, that among those who would concur in the general statement, there would be found minor differences of opinion, particularly as to the universality of the benefit conferred by the sacrifice. [See CALVIN.] We have also without qualification called the doctrine in question a doctrine of the Christian religion; though we are well aware that there are some whose views of the gospel dispensation and whose interpretation of scripture have led them, whilst fully admitting the divine origin of our religion, to reject as unscriptural the doctrine of the atonement. But these would themselves readily acknowledge, we believe, that they are comparatively few in number. With respect to some few in early times, such as Theodotus the tanner, and Paulus of Samosata, we rather infer from their peculiar notions concerning the person of Christ, than know from any direct evidence, that they dissented, in this particular point, from the general belief. The spirit of controversy, commonly too bitter, was then more fertile in unmeasured vituperation than in full and clear statements of the opinions attributed to opponents.

To atone, according to the vulgar etymology, is to set at one, that is, to reconcile; and hence atonement is etymologically explained at-one-ment. Whether this derivation is right or not, reconciliation seems to have been the primary meaning of atonement with our earlier writers. Hence in the authorised version of the New Testament the same word which in 2 Cor. v. 19 is properly rendered reconciliation, is in Rom. v. 11 rendered atonement. The word, however, soon came to bear the meaning in which it is now used; and such is in fact its ordinary meaning in the authorised version of the Old Testament.

ATOOI or ATOWAI, one of the group of islands in the North Pacific Ocean, which was discovered by Cook on his third voyage, in January, 1778, and which he named the Sandwich Islands, in honour of the then First Lord of the Admiralty.

Atooi is situated in 21° 57′ N. lat. and 160° W. long. The island is ten leagues in length from east to west, and is much broader at the east than at the west end. On the eastern side the surface rises with a gentle acclivity from the sea-shore, and attains its greatest elevation about the centre of the island, which is 7300 feet above the level of the sea. The high ground is covered with lofty trees, the foliage of which is very luxuriant, but the coast on the eastern side is uncultivated, and nearly deserted by the inhabitants. On the western side the land is fertile, and produces abundantly all the vegetables furnished by the islands of those seas.

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There is reason to believe that when Captain Cook first arrived at Atooi the natives looked upon his visit as the fulfilment of a tradition or prophecy, which led them to expect the return among them of a chief who had long ago disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and whose return in after times was foretold, when he should present himself on an island bearing cocoa-nut trees, and swine, and dogs. Accordingly, as soon as the ships were anchored, a priest repaired on board, and decorating Cook with red cloth, such as adorned their deities, offered him a pig in the manner of sacrifice, and pronounced a long and. to the Europeans present, an unintelligible discourse. When he landed, the people either withdrew respectfully from sight, or prostrated themselves on the ground before him.

On the south-west side of the island, and about two leagues from the west end, is a tolerably good roadstead and watering-place, called Wymoa. To the eastward of this anchorage a shoal projects, on which are rocks and breakers, and the road is exposed to the trade-wind.

Some strongly suspicious circumstances which occurred at the time of Cook's first visit to Atooi, induced him to be of opinion that the inhabitants were cannibals. The more intimate knowledge we have since acquired of their habits and dispositions leads to the belief that Cook was mistaken in this respect. There is not the least trace of so barbarous a custom to be discovered. It is doubtless true that human sacrifices were resorted to upon certain occasions; but although a great part of their religious ceremonies consisted in feasting, it is not now believed that they ate any part of those human sacrifices.

When they were first discovered, each of the principal islands of the group was under the sway of its own Erie Erie (chief of chiefs), and it was not until 1817 that this island was finally conquered, and the whole of the seven islands were brought under the dominion of King Tamehameha.

Captain Cook computed the population of this island, from such data as he could then obtain, at about 30,000; but it has since been ascertained that this computation was probably below the truth, and that the number of the inhabitants is now about 54,000. (See Cook's Third Voyage round the World; Vancouver's Voyage, vol. i. ; Voyage of H. M. Ship Blonde to the Sandwich Islands in 1824, 1825.

ATOONI, or ATAONI, a tribe of Nomadic Arabs, placed, according to Burckhardt, between the Nile and the Red Sea, in Middle Egypt, between 26° and 28° N. lat. They border on the Ababde towards the south, with whom they are enemies, and from whom they have taken away the profitable employment of escorting the caravans between Kenneh and Kosseir on the Red Sea, which privilege the Ataoni now farm from the pacha. To the north, the Ataoni are bounded by the Maazy and the Beni Wassel Arabs, who live on the borders of the province of Atfih, and northwards towards Suez. (Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia, and Map.) [See ABABDE.]

ATORKOU. [See KURILE ISLANDS.]
ATRAGENE. [See CLEMATIS.]

ATRA'TO is the name of a river in South America, in the republic of New Granada, and in the department of the Rio Cauca, of which latter it drains the northern part, called the province of Chocò. It is formed by the union of three small rivers, Rio Quito, Rio Andageda, and Rio Zitara, which rise in a mountain-knot a little south of 6° N. lat., and soon join one another. It runs nearly straight from south to north for upwards of 150 miles; its mouth is in the bay of Chocò, the most southern part of the Gulf of Darien, near 8° N. lat. Traversing a narrow valley, which is embosomed between two ranges of the Andes, and for two-thirds of the year is drenched by almost continual rains, the Atrato brings down a greater quantity of water than would be supposed from the length of its course; and, according to the statement of Aicedo, its mouth is five leagues wide. Just at its entrance into the sea are seventeen small islands, lying in two lines. It is navigable only for a short distance from its mouth for European vessels.

The country drained by the Atrato and its affluents is extremely mountainous, and does not contain a level tract of any extent, except at its mouth. The mountains are covered with forests almost inaccessible, and the narrow val

.eys, on account of the almost continual moisture of the air, are marshy, and so frequently overflowed, that the inhabitants find it necessary, in many places, to build their houses upon trees, in order to be elevated at some distance above the damp soil and the reptiles engendered in the putrid waters. It therefore cannot be a matter of surprise that this country has remained in nearly the same condition in which it was at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when discovered by the Spaniards under Roderigo de Bastidas and Alonso de Ojeda. But as the adjacent mountains contain rich mines of gold, and the Atrato and all its affluents bring down from them gold dust, a few Europeans have settled on the banks of the river, who cause considerable quantities of gold to be collected by their slaves, by washing the sand of the rivers. The native Indians, too, pay the taxes imposed upon them in that metal. The mines are at present not worked, and agriculture is almost entirely abandoned, though it is said that the valley contains many fertile tracts.

The Atrato river, which is also called Darien and Chocò, has obtained some historical celebrity: the first European settlement on the continent of America was founded not far from its mouth in 1510, by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa. It was called Santa Maria el Antiqua, and abandoned for Panama in 1518, on account of the insalubrity of the air. At present its site is almost unknown.

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In our times the Atrato has acquired another sort of celebrity it has been the means by which the only existing water-communication between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific has been effected. One of its sources, the Rio Quito, rises near the source of the Rio San Juan, or Rio de Naonama, and between them runs a ravine, or quebreda, called the Quebreda de Raspadura. In this ravine the curate of the village of Novita made his parishioners dig a little canal, which is navigable during the heavy rains, and thus the canoes of the Indians carry the cocoa, the most important of the agricultural products of the adjacent country, from the mouth of the Rio San Juan to that of the Atrato. This canal, which was made in 1788, unites two points, which are respectively on the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, and are four degrees of latitude from one another. (Alcedo, Humboldt.)

ATRI, HATRIA PICE'NA, a town of the province of Teramo or Abruzzo Ultra I., in the kingdom of Naples, situated on a hill near the river Matrina or Piomba, and between that and the river Vomano, and about four miles distant from the coast of the Adriatic. It is 12 miles S.E. of Teramo, and near, though not upon, the high road from Teramo to Naples. Atri gives the title of Duke to a Neapolitan family. The antient Hatria was once a place of considerable importance; it is included by the Roman geographers in the province of Picenum, being in that part of it which was inhabited by the Prætutii. It was called Hatria Picena, to distinguish it from the Hatria or Hadria of the Veneti. [See ADRIA.] They were both colonies of the Etruscans, who had also in the Picenum the colonies of Cupra Maritima and Cupra Montana. Medals and coins have been found near Atri bearing effigies of fishes, anchors, and other maritime symbols, with the legend Hat. The harbour of Hatria was at the mouth of the river Matrinus. The Syracusans, in the time of the elder Dionysius, sent a colony to Hatria, and some of the coins of that town are marked with the Pegasus, which was the symbol of Syracuse. (Delfico, Numismatica della Città d' Atri nel Piceno.) Philistus, the historian, being banished from Syracuse by the elder Dionysius, took refuge at Hatria (siç Tov 'Adpíav), which we must suppose to be Hatria Picena, as this town had received a Syracusan colony: here he probably wrote the greatest part of his history. (Plutarch, Dion. xi.) Hatria afterwards became a Roman colony. The fainily of the Emperor Hadrian was originally from this place. (Spartian. Hadrian.) Of the antient town hardly any vestiges now remain. The present town of Atri is a small and poor place; it was once surrounded by walls, which have partly fallen to ruin.

ATRIB, or ARTRIE, a village in Lower Egypt, near the eastern branch of the Nile. It is the Athribis (vouòc Apibirns) of Herodotus (ii. 166); blocks of stone, which have been observed here, probably indicate the site of a temple, parts of which may still be buried.

ATRISKOI, or ATRIKANSKOI, one of the four large islands in the Icy Sea, which lie off the coast of Siberia,

and to which the name of New-Siberia, or Laechoff isla. Is has been given. (See NEW SIBERIA.)

A'TRIUM, a hall or room of audience in a Roman house. The two words, Atrium and Cavædium, if not at first sync nymous, most probably became so in the course of time. It appears from a passage in Varro, that the Cavadium, or Cavum Edium, the hollow of the house,' must be the whole area between the rim of the compluvium from which the rain fell, and the impluvium into which the rain fell. The Atrium, properly so called, and as at first distinguished from the Cavædium, would be the space between the open area and the walls (parietes) of the Atrium: thus the Cavum Edium would be the hollow space open to the sky and rain, while the Atrium would be the covered part, and would therefore form the hall or room of audience. If our conjectures, founded on this obscure passage of Varro, descriptive of the parts of a Roman house, be correct, we would suggest that the compluvium means rather the rim or gutter from which the rain fell [see HOUSE, ROMAN HOUSE] than the whole area of the open space over the impluvium.

The term Atrium is derived, according to Varro (Ling. Lat. iv.), from the Atriates, a people of Tuscany, from whom the pattern of it was taken. It was the most important and usually the most splendid apartment of a Roman house. Here the owner received his crowd of morning visitors, who were not admitted to the inner apartments. Originally the Atrium was the common room of resort for the whole family -the place of their domestic occupations; and such it probably continued in the humbler ranks of life. It consisted of a large apartment roofed over, but with an opening in the centre, called comp.uvium, towards which the roof sloped so as to throw the rain-water into a cistein in the floor called impluvium. Vitruvius distinguishes five species of Atria.

1. Tuscanicum, or Tuscan Atrium, the oldest and simplest of all. It was merely an apartment, the roof of which was supported by four beams crossing each other at right angles, the included space forming the compluvium. Many of these remain at Pompeii.

2. The Tetrastyle, or four-columned Atrium, resembled the Tuscan, except that the girders, or main beams of the roof, were supported by pillars, placed at the four angles of the impluvium. This furnished means of increasing the size of the apartment.

This species is admitted into the Pharmacopoeias of this country, and is employed in the form of dried leaves, or of an extract. Its action on the human system differs according to the quantity taken. If the dose be small, a quickening of the heart's action follows, and an increased quantity of blood is sent to the brain. In this case it has a stimulating effect; but if the dose be larger, though some stimulating action is for a short time apparent, a sedative effect of a very powerful kind ensues. During the first stage, excitement of the heart, the brain, and the intellectual faculties, is manifest: this is succeeded by greatly diminished sensibility, perhaps most markedly observable in the extreme dilatation of the pupil, and the insensibility of the stomach to the stimulus of emetic substances. The spinal cord would appear not to be directly influenced by this agent, but to suffer at last from the impaired state of the function of respiration, and the consequently deteriorated condition of the blood. Convulsions, therefore, only occur late in cases of poisoning by this article. It deserves to he remarked, that the delirium accompanying the action of an overdose of belladonna is always of a gay, elevated kind; a red eruption, or efflorescence, on the skin is also generally observable. The nausea and vomiting are unaccompanied with much pain of the stomach; nor do the stomach and intestines present many traces of inflammatory action. The nausea and vomiting seem to be the result of the condition of the circulation in the brain, the gorged state of the vessels of which is rendered obvious by inspection after death.

The action of belladonna is ascribed to an alkaloid which it contains, called atropia, which exists in combination with malic acid.

The cases in which belladonna may be advantageously employed are, diseases of increased sensibility of the nerves, particularly local affections of these, such as tic douloureux and other pains. It has also been recommended for the cure of scrofulous and cancerous tumours, and is employed to dilate the pupil in certain states of diseases of the eye. In the first set of cases, it may be employed either internally or externally. In tic douloureux, given internally along with arsenious acid, it often affords speedy and lasting relief. In the passage of gall-stones through the gall-duct, or of stones from the kidney, applied externally over the painful part, it gives great ease.

Its employment in cases of scrofulous and cancerous enlargement of the glands is likewise either internal or external. That it relieves the pair. attendant on such affections is unquestionable; but it cannot be used to effect the cure of these with safety. It undoubtedly changes the process of deposition throughout the whole body, and also in morbid structure, into one of absorption-as is proved by the diminished solidity and increased fluidity of the body, as observed in cases of poisoning by it, where the great quantity of fluids favours the decomposition of the bodies which have died from its influence, and in which putrefaction always takes place very soon. But an equal degree of benefit may be obtained from the employment of antimonial preparations, without the danger which attends the use of this plant.

Its employment in the form of extract rubbed over the eyelids, to dilate the pupil previous to the operation for cataract, is an usual step, but requires caution: the same remark is applicable to its use in the form of solution dropped into the eye during inflammation of the iris. In both these cases it is liable to be absorbed in too great a degree, and to cause alarming symptoms.

Belladonna has been recommended as a useful sedative in the latter stages of hocping-cough. But though it lessens the violence of the spasmodic action, the same degree of benefit may be obtained from hydrocyanic acid, without the liability of inducing that action of the vessels of the brain which ends in hydrocephalus. (See Golis on Hydrocephalus.) Belladonna has also been proposed as a preventive of scarlet fever; but it is by no means certain to ward off this disease, while it is almost sure to induce hydrocephalus. Other preventive measures of a safer kind should therefore be had recourse to.

In case of poisoning by it, if taken into the stomach, the most immediate means should be employed to remove it. For this purpose the stomach-pump is best. Emetics can seldom excite the stomach to any expulsive action; in some instances, fourteen grains of tartrite of antimony have been given without any effect.

Vinegar should not be given so long as any of the bella

donna remains in the stomach, as it heightens its power. Vinegar is useful, however, at a later period, in combating the secondary or depressing effects. [See ANTIDOTES.] Bleeding relieves the gorged state of the vessels of the head, from the continuance of which the chief danger is to be apprehended; it should therefore seldom be omitted. ATROPHY, from the Greek word ȧrpopía, signifying ' want of nourishment,' wasting;' deficient nutrition either of a part or of the whole of the body. Nutrition, one of the most characteristic of the vital functions by which the living is distinguished from the inorganic body, consists in the conversion of foreign particles into the proper substance of the living being. The exercise of every vital function is attended with a certain expenditure of the substance of the organ by which the function is carried on. To supply this waste a stream of new matter is always flowing through every organ, from which each takes up the quantity required to replace the quantity which it expends. There are thus two opposite sets of actions incessantly going on in the living body; processes of waste, and processes of supply. In the state of health there is an exact balance between these opposite actions. In every morbid condition of the system, this balance is more or less disturbed, in consequence of which the whole body, or particular parts of it, become either too little or too much nourished. The first state, from whatever cause it results, is called atrophy; the second, hypertrophy. In considering the phenomena of disease, then, there is one obvious guide as to its seat. If it be attended with decided, steady, and progressive wasting, it must be seated in some organ of supply. For the wasting itself is not disease, but the result and sign of disease; it is never the primary event; and seldom even the second in succession; it is a phenomenon forming part of a train, its place often being low down in a long series; it is the first to become visible, the phenomena which precede it, and on which it depends, not being visible, and frequently requiring careful investigation to detect them.

Wasting may be either general or local-that of the whole body, or only a part of it; and this will depend entirely on the nature of the cause that produces it, according as it be a disturbing influence affecting the system, or only some individual organ.

1. Wasting may of course be produced without disease, by merely withholding the supply of nutritious food. Nutritious food is the only source from which the material can be derived for repairing the waste of the vital functions. If it be inadequate, every function will languish, and every organ waste, in a degree proportionate to the scantiness of the supply.

2. Among the diseases capable of producing wasting, the most important are those which have their primary seat in the organs of nutrition. The stomach and intestines are the organs which produce the first and the most essential changes on the aliment, by which it is converted into nutriment, and prepared for assimilation. If any cause render these organs incapable of performing their functions, the ordinary waste of the body cannot be repaired, and a general atrophy must inevitably follow. Yet it is remarkable that these organs may perform their functions so imperfectly as to produce a great degree of disturbance in the system, without necessarily occasioning any manifest wasting. People sometimes suffer severely during a long life from dyspepsia, in its manifold forms, without getting thin. The reason is, that though the food be not easily and healthfully digested, yet, in the midst of the disturbance, enough of it is converted into nutriment to supply the ordinary waste of the body. Organic disease, however, that is, disease attended with a morbid change in the structure of an organ,-rapidly tells upon the system, producing a progressive and ultimately an extreme degree of emaciation; and occasionally a single attack of merely functional dyspepsia, lasting only a few days, will render the body manifestly thinner, and cause the loss of many pounds of weight. 3. Next to the diseases of the primary organs of digestion come the diseases of the organs which co-operate with the stomach and intestines in converting the aliment into nutriment; and more especially diseases of the pancreas and liver. The specific influence of these organs on nutrition will be explained hereafter. [See DIGESTION.] At present, it is sufficient to advert to the fact, that one character of organic disease established in these organs, is a progressive wasting of the body.

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4. But the food when digested has a long course to travel before it reaches the blood. It must be taken up by the lacteal vessels, and be carried through the mesenteric glands. [See DIGESTION.] It is probable that these organs are not mere channels of communication between the stomach and intestines and the lungs, but that they effect some change upon the imperfectly-digested aliment, as it passes through them. Certain it is that disease of these organs powerfully influences the process of nutrition, and produces a great degree of wasting. Examples of this are but too abundant in infants and children, who are cut off in great numbers by diseases which, on examination of the body after death, are found to have their chief seat in these organs. [See MARASMUS.]

5. Disease of the organs of assimilation interrupts nutrition just as effectually as disease in the primary organs of digestion. It is not until the digested aliment reaches the lungs that it is converted into blood. The lungs finish what the stomach begins; and the function of respiration is the completion of that of digestion. Any thing that impairs the function of respiration must therefore necessarily impair that of nutrition, and produce a proportionate degree of wasting. The lungs have this peculiarity, that they are capable of what may be called progressive destruction, the obliteration of one part after another in successive portions: the parts obliterated of course cease to contribute their share to the conversion of the aliment into blood; but the parts not obliterated continue to do so pretty much as ir. the state of health. Hence it is possible to breathe with only one lung, or with only half a lung; and the flame of life may, for a short time, be barely kept alive by a portion of even half a lung. The consequence is that, in certain diseases of the lungs, emaciation is carried to the utmost extent which seems to be compatible with the maintenance of the smallest particle of life.

6. But the process of nutrition is not completed ever after the aliment is converted into blood. There still remains what may be termed the function of appropriation. After their conversion into blood in the lungs, the new particles are returned to the left side of the heart, whence they are carried out to the system by the larger trunks of the arterial vessels. These tubes terminate in a system of vessels of extreme minuteness, called the arterial capillaries, which are the true appropriators of the new particles prepared for them in the lungs, the architects and masons of the system, by which the new particles are deposited in the room of the old in the respective organs, and by which the waste is repaired. If, then, the capillaries of the system fail to perform their duty, no matter what quantity or what quality of nutrient matter be brought to them, the function of nutrition is suspended, and the body wastes; and, in like manner, if the capillaries of any particular part fail, the nutrition of that particular part must be at an end, and consequently its bulk diminish.

7. It is chiefly in consequence of the disease of these capillary vessels that acute diseases, such as inflammation and fever, are always attended with so great a degree of wasting, although there is always, combined with this, disturbance of the digestive functions; so that in acute diseases nutrition is interrupted in a two-fold mode, by diminished digestion, and by imperfect appropriation of what is digested.

8. But a due supply of nervous influence is as indispensable to nutrition as a due supply of arterial blood. Whenever therefore the capillary vessels do not receive their appropriate nervous stimulus, the parts to which they belong waste. Whatever injures the nerves in such a degree as to impair their functions is invariably found to occasion atrophy... If the nerves which supply a part waste, that part immediately begins to diminish in bulk if a part has been long wasted, the nerves distributed to it become so small that they can scarcely be traced. If the head of an unreduced dislocated bone press upon the large trunk of a nerve, the parts to which the nerve is distributed waste. If a poison capable of producing paralysis of the nerves, such as lead, be gradually and slowly introduced into the system, the body wastes; an example of which is seen in the atrophy commonly attendant on the disease termed the colica pictorum, the colic of painters. As will be fully shown hereafter, it is the organic, not the sentient, system of nerves that supplies the nervous influence indispensable to nutrition. Injury to the sentient system may indeed occasion atrophy; but it produces this effect indirectly;