preserving their general line, came under a terrible fire from heavy guns and musketry. The enemy’s artillery was three hundred yards away, yet the British pressed on in spite of their losses, and as some of the Light Division troops reached the “Great Battery” the Russians hurried their guns away to safety. In the meantime, on both sides of this battery, the assailants had come to close quarters with the Russian columns, which were aided by their field guns. A brave counter-attack was made by the Russian Vladimir regiment, 3000 strong, against the troops which had stormed the great battery, and for want of support the British were driven out again. But they soon rallied, and now the second line had crossed and formed for attack. The Guards brigade attacked the Vladimir regiment, and on the left the Highland brigade and the cavalry moved forward also. Some of the field artillery, which had now crossed the Alma, fired steadily into the closed masses of the Russian reserve, and the Vladimir regiment lost half of its numbers under the volleys of the Guards. The French were now severely pressing the Russian left, and one-third of Menshikov’s forces was drawn into the fight in that quarter. The success of the frontal assault had dispirited the remainder of the defenders, and Menshikov drew off his forces southwards. He had lost 5700 men (Berndt and Hamley). The British had about 2000 killed and wounded; the French stated their losses at 1340 men.
ALMACANTAR (from the Arabic for a sun-dial), an astronomical term for a small circle of the sphere parallel to the horizon; when two stars are in the same almacantar they have the same altitude. The term was also given (1880) to an instrument invented by S. C. Chandler to determine the latitude or correct the timepiece, of great value because of its freedom from instrumental errors.
ALMACK’S, formerly the name of a famous London club and
assembly rooms. The founder, known as William Almack, is
usually said to have been one Macall, or McCaul, of which name
Almack is an anagram. In 1764 he founded a gentlemen’s club
in Pall Mall, where the present Marlborough Club stands. It
was famous for its high play. In 1778 it was taken over by one
Brooks, and established as Brooks’s Club in St James’s Street,
where it still exists. In 1765 Almack built a suite of assembly
rooms in King’s Street, St James’s. Here for a ten-guinea
subscription a series of weekly balls was given for twelve weeks.
They were managed by a committee of ladies of rank, and
admission was exceedingly difficult. At Almack’s death in 1781
they were left to his niece Mrs Willis. As “Willis’s Rooms”
they lasted till 1890, when they became a restaurant, but as
“Almack’s” they ceased in 1863. Several clubs, including a
mixed club for ladies and gentlemen, held meetings at Almack’s
during the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. A new London
social club (1904) has also adopted the name of Almack’s.
ALMADÉN, or Almadén del Azogue, a town of Spain, in the
province of Ciudad Real; situated in mountainous country
55 m. W.S.W. of the city of Ciudad Real. Pop. (1900) 7375.
Almaden, the Sisapon of the Romans, is celebrated for its
mercury mines, which were extensively wrought by the Romans
and Moors, and are still productive, the ore increasing in richness
with the depth of the descent. The mines ranked with those of
Adria, in South Austria, as the most valuable in the world, until
the great development of the mercury deposits at New Almaden,
in California, U.S.A., between 1853 and 1857. They were long
worked by convict labour, owing to their unhealthy atmosphere;
and exemption from military service is granted to miners
who have worked at Almadén for two years. The annual
yield is about 1,400,000 ℔. Lead and sulphur are obtained
in the neighbourhood. The nearest railway station is that of
Chillén, 3 m. S. on the Madrid-Badajoz-Lisbon line.
ALMAGRO, DIEGO DE (1475–1538), Spanish commander, the
companion and rival of Pizarro (q.v.), was born at Aldea del Rey
in 1475. According to another account he was a foundling in
the village from which he derived his name. In 1525 he joined
Pizarro and Hernando de Luque at Panama in a scheme for the
conquest of Peru (see Peru: History). He was executed by
order of Pizarro in 1538 in consequence of a dispute as to their
respective territories.
ALMANAC, a book or table containing a calendar of the days,
weeks and months of the year, a register of ecclesiastical festivals
and saints’ days, and a record of various astronomical phenomena
&c. The derivation of the word is doubtful. The word almanac
was used by Roger Bacon (Opus Majus, 1267) for tables of the
apparent motions of the heavenly bodies. The Italian form is
almanacco, French almanach, and the Spanish is almanaque; all
of which, according to the New English Dictionary, are probably
connected with the Arabic al-manākh, a combination of the
definite article al, and manākh, a word of uncertain origin. An
Arabic-Castilian vocabulary (1505) gives manākh, a calendar,
and manaḥ, a sun-dial; manākh has also been connected with
the Latin manacus, a sun-dial.
The attention given to astronomy by Eastern nations probably led to the early construction of such tables as are comprised in our almanacs; of these we know little or nothing. The fasti (q.v.) of the Romans are far better known and were similar to modern almanacs. Almanacs of a rude kind, known as clogg almanacs, consisting of square blocks of hard wood, about 8 in. in length, with notches along the four angles corresponding to the days of the year, were in use in some parts of England as late as the end of the 17th century. Dr Robert Plot (1640–1696), keeper of the Ashmolean Museum and professor of chemistry at Oxford, describes one of these in his Natural History of Staffordshire (Oxford, 1686); and another is represented in Gough’s edition of Camden’s Britannia (1806, vol. ii. p. 499).
The earliest almanac regarding which J. J. L. de Lalande (Bibliographic astronomique, Paris, 1803) could obtain any definite information belongs to the 12th century. Manuscript almanacs of considerable antiquity are preserved in the British Museum and in the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge. Of these the most remarkable are a calendar ascribed to Roger Bacon (1292), and those of Peter de Dacia (about 1300), Walter de Elvendene (1327) and John Somers (1380). It is to be remembered that early calendars (such as the Kalendarium Lincolniense of Bishop Robert Grosseteste) frequently bear the names, not of their compilers, but of the writers of the treatises on ecclesiastical computation on which the calendars are based. The earliest English calendar in the British Museum is one for the year 1431. The first printed almanac known was compiled by Pürbach, and appeared between the years 1450 and 1461; the first of importance is that of Regiomontanus, which appears to have been printed at Nuremberg in 1472. In this work the almanacs for the different months embrace three Metonic cycles, or the 57 years from 1475 to 1531 inclusive. The earliest almanac printed in England was The Kalendar of Shepardes, a translation from the French, printed by Richard Pynson about 1497.
Early almanacs had commonly the name of “prognostications” in addition, and what they professed to show may be gathered from titles like the following, which is quoted by J. O. Halliwell: “Pronostycacyon of Mayster John Thybault, medycyner and astronomer of the Emperyall Majestie, of the year of our Lorde God MCCCCCXXXIJ., comprehending the iiij. partes of this yere, and of the influence of the mone, of peas and warre, and of the sykenesses of this yere, with the constellacions of them that be under the vij. planettes, and the revolucions of kynges and princes, and of the eclipses and comets.” Among almanacs of this class published in England, and principally by the Stationers’ Company, are Leonard Digges’s Prognostication Everlasting of Right Good Effect, for 1553, 1555; &c.; William Lilly’s Merlinus Anglicus Junior for 1644, &c., and other almanacs and “prognostications”; John Booker’s Bloody Almanac and Bloody Irish Almanac for 1643, 1647, &c.—the last attributed erroneously to Richard Napier; John Partridge’s Mercurius Coelestis for 1681, Merlinus Redivivus, &c. The name of Partridge has been immortalized in Pope’s Rape of the Lock; and his almanacs were very cleverly burlesqued by Swift, who predicted Partridge’s own death, in genuine prognosticator’s style. The most famous of all the Stationers’ Company’s predicting almanacs was the Vox Stellarum of Francis Moore (1657–1715?), the first number of which was completed in July 1700, and contained predictions for 1701.
