the whole number of compounds, into which the ingredient in question enters.

ATONEMENT, a certain mode of appcasing anger, and obtaining pardon for an offence. In the act of atonement there is commonly understood to be a substitution of something offered, or of some personal suffering, for a penalty which would otherwise be exacted. The word is, indeed, applied colloquially to any circumstance of suffering, voluntary or involuntary, consequent upon criminal conduct or error of judgment. Thus even the spendthrift is said to have atoned for his folly by the hardships endured in consequence of it, and the murderer for his crime by a public death. But this use of the word is altogether indefensible. In theology, it has respect to offence committed against the Deity; it is in the theological acceptation of the term that it will be considered in the present article. The subject in this view of it is partly connected with that of sacrifice [see SACRIFICE]; but it is not identical with it. For it is not certain that all sacrifices had atonement for their object; and sacrifice, as commonly understood, was only one amongst other methods of atonement.

The practice of atonement is remarkable for its antiquity and universality, proved by the earliest records that have come down to us of all nations, and by the testimony of antient and modern travellers. In the oldest books of the Hebrew Scriptures, without noticing those earlier sacrifices the object of which may be considered doubtful, we have numerous instances of expiatory rites where atonement is the prominent feature, occupying, in fact, a large portion of the four last books of the Pentateuch. In some cases the atonement was made for a specific offence (Levit. iv., Numb. xvi. 46); in others it had reference to a state of transgression, as especially in the case of the scape-goat, on the day of expiation. (Levit. xvi.) The offender again either atoned by his own personal act, or received the benefit of atonement by the act of another. (Levit. iv.) The Hebrew records contain also notices of the practice of atonement, independent of the Mosaic institutions, and unconnected with the religious opinions of the Hebrew people. The barbarous offerings to Moloch appear in the light of atonements when interpreted by the indignant expostulation of Micah (vi. 7)- Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, and the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? When Job is described (i. 5) as offering burnt offerings according to the number of his sons, and accompanying the act with the explanation, 'It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their heart,' we are sure that the author of the book, and those for whom he wrote, were familiar with the notion of atonement. The name, indeed, and the age of the writer, are both disputed points; but there are strong reasons for attributing to the work a very high antiquity.

At the earliest date to which we can carry our inquiries by means of the heathen records, we meet with the same notion of atonement, with a distinction also in the application, between the removal of anger incurred by particular offences, and of that which was supposed to belong to the jealous character of the Deity. An instance of atonement of the former kind meets us in the very opening of the Iliad. Agamemnon having offended Apollo in the person of his priest, by refusing a ransom for his daughter, is not content with restitution, but proceeds to atone for his fault by an offering, the purpose of which is declared by Ulysses (Il. i. 442)— Agamemnon sent me to sacrifice a sacred hecatomb to Apollo in behalf of the Danai, that we may appease the Sovereign God.'

Among the many other instances which will readily occur to a reader of the antient classics, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia by her father, to appease the wrath of Diana, is distinguished by the remarkable circumstance of the substitution of one victim for another by the offended goddess. It should be observed, however, that although the subject of the legend belongs to the period of the Trojan war, the legend itself is of a later date than the Homeric poems. In the expiatory rites for certain cases of homicide, sacrificial offerings to the Deity formed a part of the religious ceremony of purification, in addition to the penalty which the offender paid as a compensation to the avenging party. A singular instance of atonement made to the Diana Orthia of the Lacedæmonians is given by Pausanias (iii. 16). Blood having been shed in a quarrel during a solemn sacrifice to the goddess, human victims were regularly offered to her as an atonement for the offence; till Lycurgus substituted for

this cruel ceremony the scourging of youths at the altar with such severity, that the penalty was still paid with blood. The practice of general atonement among the heathen nations, whatever may have been its origin, must have been greatly encouraged by a certain article in the popular creed, which is probably expressed pretty accurately by the saying put into the mouth of Solon by Herodotus, that the Deity is altogether a jealous being, and fond of troubling the even course of affairs' (p0ovɛpòv te kai rapaxwdeç, Herod. i. 32). The common notion is remarkably exemplified in a story told by the same historian. Amasis, king of Egypt, having heard rumours of the marvellous and uninterrupted suecesses of his friend Polycrates, the sovereign of Samos, gave vent to his anxiety on his friend's account in a letter, which is in itself so curious, and so strongly illustrates the matter in hand, that we think it deserves to be presented entire to the reader. Amasis says thus to Polycrates:-It is pleasant to hear that one's friend prospers; yet your exceeding good fortunes please me not, knowing as I do that the Deity is a jealous being; and I could wish that both myself and those whom I care for should be fortunate in some of their doings, and in others miscarry; and so pass their lives in changes of fortune, rather than be always fortunate; for I never yet heard talk of any one who with good fortune in everything did not come to his end miserably with an utter downfall. Do you therefore follow my advice, and in respect of your happy chances do as I tell you. Look out well for the most precious thing you have, and that which you would most take to heart the loss of and then away with it, in such sort that it shall never more come before the eyes of men. And if after this your successes should not take turns and go evenly with your mishaps, still remedy the matter in the way proposed by me.' (Herod. iii. 40.) The story goes on to say that Polycrates took the advice of his friend, and flung into the sea a valuable ring; but the object was defeated by an incredible piece of good fortune, which restored to him his lost treasure. Hereupon Amasis formally dissolved his connexion with a man so evidently marked out for some signal calamity.

In this case the offence was involuntary; yet it was not the less supposed to excite anger and expose the offender to punishment. Here too is an instance of atonement unaccompanied by sacrifice. The mode, indeed, of atoning admitted an almost infinite variety. Even the repetition on a certain occasion of the great games at Rome was strictly an act of atonement for a rather singular offence described by Livy, lib. ii. c. 36.

If we pursue our inquiries through the accounts left us by the Greek and Roman writers of the barbarous nations with which they were acquainted, from India to Britain, we shall find the same notion and similar practices of atonement. From the most popular portion of our own literature, our narratives of voyages and travels, every one probably, who reads at all, will be able to find for himself abundant proof that the notion has been as permanent as it is universal. It shows itself among the various tribes of Africa, the islanders of the South Seas, and even that most peculiar race, the natives of Australia, either in the shape of some offering, or some mutilation of the person. We should expect to meet with it in India, so fertile in every form of superstition; and it is certain that many of the fantastic and revolting rites of the Hindoos bear testimony to its presence. The favourite practice of torturing the body has often there a different object, that of acquiring the reality or the fame of superior sanctity; but undoubtedly it is also resorted to as a mode of atonement.

It has been supposed that the sacrificial rites of the heathens and their practice generally of atonement are but corrupt remnants of a notion and practice which existed at an earlier period of the world, in a purer state of religious knowledge, and which indicated a consciousness of the actual relation in which man stood to his Maker, and pointed darkly at the means by which an amelioration of his condition was to be effected. On the other hand, it is all but universally acknowledged by the believers in revelation, that the Levitical atonements were, in part at least, typical of that one great sacrifice on which the Christian doctrine of the atonement is founded. The nature and limits of this publication do not allow us to consider this part of the subject at a length and in a manner suited to its importance. We can do little more than state what is understood by the Christian when he speaks of the atonement. He does not consider man, according to the heathen notion

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.

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.]

ATRATO 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 Alcedo, 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.

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 Adpiav), 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 family 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 ARTRIB, a village in Lower Egypt, near the eastern branch of the Nile. It is the Athribis (vopòs '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 islands, 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 syno nymous, most probably became so in the course of time. It appears from a passage in Varro, that the Cavædium, 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 Cavadium, 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.