but its solubility in water renders it inapplicable to outdoor work. The purest alabaster is a snow-white material of fine uniform 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 of the gypsum. If properly treated, it very closely resembles true marble, and is known as marmo 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 being 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. Metcalfe, “The Gypsum Deposits of Nottingham and Derbyshire,” Transactions of the Federated Institution, vol. xii. (1896), p. 107; J. G. Goodchild, “The Natural History of Gypsum,” Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, vol. x. (1888), p. 425; George P. Merrill, “The Onyx Marbles,” Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1893, p. 539. (F. W. R.*)
ALACOQUE, or Al Coq, MARGUERITE MARIE (1647–1690), French nun and mystic, was born at Lauthecourt, a village in the diocese of Autun, on the 22nd of July 1647. She would seem to have been from the first of a morbid and unhealthy temperament, and before the age of thirteen was the subject of a paralytic seizure. Having been cured of this, as she believed, by the intercession of the Holy Virgin, she changed her name to Marie and vowed to devote her life to her service. In May 1671 she entered the Visitation convent at Paray-le-Monial, in the diocese of Autun, and took the final vows in November 1672. Though her reading was confined to the lives of the saints, she taught in the school kept by the nuns for the girls of the neighbourhood, to whom she endeared herself by her kindly disposition. The appalling austerities, however, to which she was allowed to subject herself quickly affected her mental and bodily health. Hallucinations, to which she had been always subject, became more and more frequent. She conceived herself to be specially favoured by Christ, who appeared to her in the most extravagant forms. At last, by dint of fasting and lacerating her flesh, she succeeded in reducing herself to such a state of ecstatic suffering that she believed herself to be undergoing in her own person the Passion of the Lord. Her reward was the supreme vision in which Christ revealed to her His heart burning with divine love, and even, so she affirmed, exchanged it with hers, at the same time bidding her establish, on the Friday following, the feast of Corpus Christi, a festival in honour of His Sacred Heart. It was not till ten years later, in 1685, that the festival was first celebrated at Paray, and not till after the death of Marguerite, on the 17th of October 1690, that the cult of the Sacred Heart, fostered by the Jesuits and the subject of violent controversies within the church, spread throughout France and Christendom. (See Sacred Heart.)
Marguerite Alacoque was beatified by Pius IX. in 1864. Her short devotional writing, La Dévotion au Sacré-Cœur de Jésus, was published by J. Croiset in 1698, and is now very popular among Roman Catholics.
See Bishop Languet, Vie de la vénérable Marguerite-Marie (Paris, 1724), translated and edited by F. W. Faber (1847); Mgr. Bougaud, Histoire de la bienheureuse Marguerite-Marie (Paris, 1874); G. Tickell, S.J., The Life of Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque, with some account of the devotion to the Sacred Heart (London, 1869); J. B. H. R. Capefigue, Marie Marguerite Al-Coq (Paris, 1866).
ALAGOAS, a maritime state of Brazil, bounded N. and W. by the state of Pernambuco, S. and W. by the state of Sergipe, and E. by the Atlantic. It has an area of 22,584 sq. m. A dry, semi-barren plateau, fit for grazing only, extends across the W. part of the state, breaking down into long fertile valleys and wooded ridges towards the coast, giving the country a mountainous character. The coastal plain is filled with lakes (lagoas), in some cases formed by the blocking up of river outlets by beach sands. The valleys and slopes are highly fertile and produce sugar, cotton, tobacco, Indian corn, rice, mandioca and fruits. Hides and skins, mangabeira rubber, cabinet woods, castor beans and rum are also exported. Cattle-raising was formerly a prominent industry, but it has greatly declined. Manufactures have been developed to a limited extent only, though protective tariff laws have been adopted for their encouragement. The climate is hot and humid, and fevers are prevalent in the hot season. The capital, Maceio, is the chief commercial city of the state, and its port (Jaragua) has a large foreign and coastwise trade. The principal towns are Alagoas, formerly the capital, picturesquely situated on Lake Manguaba, 15 m. S.W. of Maceio, and Penedo, a small port on the lower São Francisco, 26 m. above the river’s mouth. Before 1817 Alagoas formed part of the capitania of Pernambuco, but in that year the district was rewarded with a separate government for refusing to join a revolution, and in 1823 became a province of the empire. The advent of the republic in 1889 changed the province into a state.
ALAIN DE LILLE [Alanus de Insulis] (c. 1128–1202), French theologian and poet, was born, probably at Lille, some years before 1128. Little is known of his life. He seems to have taught in the schools of Paris, and he attended the Lateran Council in 1179. He afterwards inhabited Montpellier (he is sometimes called Alanus de Montepessulano), lived for a time outside the walls of any cloister, and finally retired to Cîteaux, where he died in 1202. He had a very widespread reputation during his lifetime and his knowledge, more varied than profound, caused him to be called Doctor universalis. Among his very numerous works two poems entitle him to a distinguished place in the Latin literature of the middle ages; one of these, the De planctu naturae, is an ingenious satire on the vices of humanity; the other, the Anticlaudianus, a treatise on morals, the form of which recalls the pamphlet of Claudian against Rufinus, is agreeably versified and relatively pure in its latinity. As a theologian Alain de Lille shared in the mystic reaction of the second half of the 12th century against the scholastic philosophy. His mysticism, however, is far from being as absolute as that of the Victorines. In the Anticlaudianus he sums up as follows: Reason, guided by prudence, can unaided discover most of the truths of the physical order; for the apprehension of religious truths it must trust to faith. This rule is completed in his treatise, Ars catholicae fidei, as follows: Theology itself may be demonstrated by reason. Alain even ventures an immediate application of this principle, and tries to prove geometrically the dogmas defined in the Creed. This bold attempt is entirely factitious and verbal, and it is only his employment of various terms not generally used in such a connexion (axiom, theorem, corollary, etc.) that gives his treatise its apparent originality. Alain de Lille has often been confounded with other persons named Alain, in particular with Alain, archbishop of Auxerre; Alan, abbot of Tewkesbury, Alain de Podio, etc. Certain facts of their lives have been attributed to him, as well as some of their works: thus the Life of St Bernard should be ascribed to Alain of Auxerre and the Commentary upon Merlin to Alan of Tewkesbury. Neither is the philosopher of Lille the author of a Memoriale rerum difficilium, published under his name; and it is exceedingly doubtful whether the Dicta
