have been incited to try alkaline liquids as electrolytes. Many attempts have been made to construct accumulators in this way, though with only moderate success. The Lalande-Chaperon, Desmazures, Waddell-Entz and Edison are the chief cells. T. A. Edison’s cell has been most developed, and is intended for 
Fig. 24.—Edison Accumulator.traction work. He made the plates of very thin sheets of nickel-plated steel, in each of which 24 rectangular holes were stamped, leaving a mere framework of the metal. Shallow rectangular pockets of perforated nickel-steel were fitted in the holes and then burred over the framework by high pressures. The pockets contained the active material. On the positive plate this consisted of nickel peroxide mixed with flake graphite, and on the negative plate of finely divided iron mixed with graphite. Both kinds of active material were prepared in a special way. The graphite gives greater conductivity. The liquid was a 20% solution of caustic potash. During discharge the iron was oxidized, and the nickel reduced to a lower state of oxidation. This change was reversed during charge. Fig. 24 shows the general features. The chief results obtained by European experts showed that the e.m.f. was 1·33 volt, with a transient higher value following charge. A cell weighing 17·8 ℔. had a resistance of 0·0013 ohm, and an output at 60 amperes of 210 watt-hours, or at 120 amperes of 177 watt-hours. Another and improved cell weighing 12·7 ℔. gave 14·6 watt-hours per pound of cell at a 20-ampere rate, and 13·5 watt-hours per pound at a 60-ampere rate. The cell could be charged and discharged at almost any rate. A full charge could be given in 1 hour, and it would stand a discharge rate of 200 amperes (Journ. Inst. Elec. Eng., 1904, pp. 1-36).
Subsequently Edison found some degree of falling-off in capacity, due to an enlargement of the positive pockets by pressure of gas. Most of the faults have been overcome by altering the form of the pocket and replacing the graphite by a metallic conductor in the form of flakes.
References.—G. Planté, Recherches sur l’électricité (Paris, 1879); Gladstone and Tribe, Chemistry of Secondary Batteries (London, 1884); Reynier, L’Accumulateur voltaïque (Paris, 1888); Heim, Die Akkumulatoren (Berlin, 1889); Hoppe, Die Akk. fur Elektricität (Berlin, 1892); Schoop, Handbuch für Akk. (Stuttgart, 1898); Sir E. Frankland, “Chemistry of Storage Batteries,” Proc. Roy. Soc., 1883; Reynier, Jour. Soc. Franc. de Phys., 1884; Heim, “Ü. d. Einfluss der Säuredichte auf die Kapazität der Akk.,” Elek. Zeits., 1889; Kohlrausch and Heim, “Ergebnisse von Versuchen an Akk. für Stationsbetrieb,” Elek. Zeits., 1889; Darrieus, Bull. Soc. Intern. des Élect., 1892; F. Dolezalek, The Theory of the Lead Accumulator (London, 1906); Sir D. Salomons, Management of Accumulators (London, 1906); E. J. Wade, Secondary Batteries (London, 1901); L. Jumau, Les Accumulateurs électriques (Paris, 1904). (W. Ht.)
ACCURSIUS (Ital. Accorso), FRANCISCUS (1182–1260), Italian jurist, was born at Florence about 1182. A pupil of Azo, he first practised law in his native city, and was afterwards appointed professor at Bologna, where he had great success as a teacher. He undertook the great work of arranging into one body the almost innumerable comments and remarks upon the Code, the Institutes and Digests, the confused dispersion of which among the works of different writers caused much obscurity and contradiction. This compilation, bearing the title Glossa ordinaria or magistralis, but usually known as the Great Gloss, though written in barbarous Latin, has more method than that of any preceding writer on the subject. The best edition of it is that of Denis Godefroi (1549–1621), published at Lyons in 1589, in 6 vols. folio. When Accursius was employed in this work, it is said that, hearing of a similar one proposed and begun by Odofred, another lawyer of Bologna, he feigned indisposition, interrupted his public lectures, and shut himself up, till with the utmost expedition he had accomplished his design. Accursius was greatly extolled by the lawyers of his own and the immediately succeeding age, and he was even called the idol of jurisconsults, but those of later times formed a much lower estimate of his merits. There can be no doubt that he disentangled the sense of many laws with much skill, but it is equally undeniable that his ignorance of history and antiquities often led him into absurdities, and was the cause of many defects in his explanations and commentaries. He died at Bologna in 1260. His eldest son Franciscus (1225–1293), who also filled the chair of law at Bologna, was invited to Oxford by King Edward I., and in 1275 or 1276 read lectures on law in the university.
ACCUSATION (Lat. accusatio, accusare, to challenge to a causa, a suit or trial at law), a legal term signifying the charging of another with wrong-doing, criminal or otherwise. An accusation which is made in a court of justice during legal proceedings is privileged (see Privilege), though, should the accused have been maliciously prosecuted, he will have a right to bring an action for malicious prosecution. An accusation made outside a court of justice would, if the accusation were false, render the accuser liable to an action for defamation of character, while, if the accusation be committed to writing, the writer of it is liable to indictment, whether the accusation be made only to the party accused or to a third person. A threat or conspiracy to accuse another of a crime or of misconduct which does not amount to a crime for the purpose of extortion is in itself indictable.
ACCUSATIVE (Lat. accusativus, sc. casus, a translation of the Gr. αἰτιατικὴ πτῶσις, the case concerned with cause and effect, from αἰτία, a cause), in grammar, a case of the noun, denoting primarily the object of verbal action or the destination of motion.
ACE (derived through the Lat. as, from the Tarentine form of the Gr. εἷς), the number one at dice, or the single point on a die or card; also a point in the score of racquets, lawn-tennis, tennis and other court games.
ACELDAMA (according to Acts i. 19, “the field of blood”), the name given to the field purchased by Judas Iscariot with the money he received for the betrayal of Jesus Christ. A different version is given in Matthew xxvii. 8, where Judas is said to have cast down the money in the Temple, and the priests who had paid it to have recovered the pieces, with which they bought “the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.” The MS. evidence is greatly in favour of a form Aceldamach. This would seem to mean “the field of thy blood,” which is unsuitable. Since, however, we find elsewhere one name appearing as both Sirach and Sira (ch = א), Aceldamach may be another form of an original Aceldama (תֲקֵל רֵּםֶא), the “field of blood.” A. Klostermann, however, takes the ch to be part of the Aramaic root demach, “to sleep,”; the word would then mean “field of sleep” or cemetery (Probleme im Aposteltexte, 1-8, 1883), an explanation which fits in well with the account in Matthew xxvii. The traditional site (now Hak el-Dum), S. of Jerusalem on the N.E. slope of the “Hill of Evil Counsel” (Jebel Deir Abu Tor), was used as a burial-place for Christian pilgrims from the 6th century A.D. till as late, apparently, as 1697, and especially in the time of the Crusades. Near it there is a very ancient charnel-house, partly rock-cut, partly of masonry, said to be the work of Crusaders.
ACENAPHTHENE, C12H10, a hydrocarbon isolated from the fraction of coal-tar boiling at 260°–270° by M. P. E. Berthelot, who, in conjunction with Bardy, afterwards synthesized it from α-ethyl naphthalene (Ann. Chem. Phys., 1873, vol. xxix.). It forms white needles (from alcohol), melts at 95° and boils at 278°. Oxidation gives naphthalic acid (1·8 naphthalene dicarboxylic acid).
Acenaphthalene, C12H8, a hydrocarbon crystallizing in yellow tables and obtained by passing the vapour of acenaphthene over heated litharge. Sodium amalgam reduces it to acenaphthene; chromic acid oxidizes it to naphthalic acid.
