fervour of the Christian crusade against the Moors had temporarily abated, he made peace with Castile, and even aided the Christians to vanquish the Moslem princes of Seville. At the same time he offered asylum to refugees from Valencia, Murcia and other territories in which the Moors had been overcome. Al Ahmar and his successors ruled over Granada until 1492, in an unbroken line of twenty-five sovereigns who maintained their independence partly by force, and partly by payment of tribute to their stronger neighbours. Their encouragement of commerce—notably the silk trade with Italy—rendered Granada the wealthiest of Spanish cities; their patronage of art, literature and science attracted many learned Moslems, such as the historian Ibn Khaldun and the geographer Ibn Batuta, to their court, and resulted in a brilliant civilization, of which the Alhambra is the supreme monument.
The kingdom of Granada, which outlasted all the other Moorish states in Spain, fell at last through dynastic rivalries and a harem intrigue. The two noble families of the Zegri and the Beni Serraj (better known in history and legend as the Abencerrages) encroached greatly upon the royal prerogatives during the middle years of the 15th century. A crisis arose in 1462, when an endeavour to control the Abencerrages resulted in the dethronement of Abu Nasr Saad, and the accession of his son, Muley Abu’l Hassan, whose name is preserved in that of Mulhacen, the loftiest peak of the Sierra Nevada, and in a score of legends. Muley Hassan weakened his position by resigning Malaga to his brother Ez Zagal, and incurred the enmity of his first wife Aisha by marrying a beautiful Spanish slave, Isabella de Solis, who had adopted the creed of Islam and taken the name of Zorayah, “morning star.” Aisha or Ayesha, who thus saw her sons Abu Abdullah Mahommed (Boabdil) and Yusuf in danger of being supplanted, appealed to the Abencerrages, whose leaders, according to tradition, paid for their sympathy with their lives (see Alhambra). In 1482 Boabdil succeeded in deposing his father, who fled to Malaga, but the gradual advance of the Christians under Ferdinand and Isabella forced him to resign the task of defence into the more warlike hands of Muley Hassan and Ez Zagal (1483–1486). In 1491 after the loss of these leaders, the Moors were decisively beaten; Boabdil, who had already been twice captured and liberated by the Spaniards, was compelled to sign away his kingdom; and on the 2nd of January 1492 the Spanish army entered Granada, and the Moorish power in Spain was ended. The campaign had aroused intense interest throughout Christendom; when the news reached London a special thanksgiving service was held in St Paul’s Cathedral by order of Henry VII.
GRANADILLA, the name applied to Passiflora quadrangularis,
Linn., a plant of the natural order Passifloreae, a native of
tropical America, having smooth, cordate, ovate or acuminate
leaves; petioles bearing from 4 to 6 glands; an emetic and
narcotic root; scented flowers; and a large, oblong fruit,
containing numerous seeds, imbedded in a subacid edible pulp.
The granadilla is sometimes grown in British hothouses. The
fruits of several other species of Passiflora are eaten. P.
laurifolia is the “water lemon,” and P. maliformis the “sweet
calabash” of the West Indies.
GRANARIES. From ancient times grain has been stored in
greater or lesser bulk. The ancient Egyptians made a practice
of preserving grain in years of plenty against years of scarcity,
and probably Joseph only carried out on a large scale an habitual
practice. The climate of Egypt being very dry, grain could be
stored in pits for a long time without sensible loss of quality.
The silo pit, as it has been termed, has been a favourite way of
storing grain from time immemorial in all oriental lands. In
Turkey and Persia usurers used to buy up wheat or barley when
comparatively cheap, and store it in hidden pits against seasons
of dearth. Probably that custom is not yet dead. In Malta
a relatively large stock of wheat is always preserved in some
hundreds of pits (silos) cut in the rock. A single silo will store
from 60 to 80 tons of wheat, which, with proper precautions,
will keep in good condition for four years or more. The silos
are shaped like a cylinder resting on a truncated cone, and
surmounted by the same figure. The mouth of the pit is round
and small and covered by a stone slab, and the inside is lined
with barley straw and kept very dry. Samples are occasionally
taken from the wheat as from the hold of a ship, and at any
signs of fermentation the granary is cleared and the wheat
turned over, but such is the dryness of these silos that little
trouble of this kind is experienced.
Towards the close of the 19th century warehouses specially intended for holding grain began to multiply in Great Britain, but America is the home of great granaries, known there as elevators. There are climatic difficulties in the way of storing grain in Great Britain on a large scale, but these difficulties have been largely overcome. To preserve grain in good condition it must be kept as much as possible from moisture and heat. New grain when brought into a warehouse has a tendency to sweat, and in this condition will easily heat. If the heating is allowed to continue the quality of the grain suffers. An effectual remedy is to turn out the grain in layers, not too thick, on a floor, and to keep turning it over so as to aerate it thoroughly. Grain can thus be conditioned for storage in silos. There is reason to think that grain in a sound and dry condition can be better stored in bins or dry pits than in the open air; from a series of experiments carried out on behalf of the French government it would seem that grain exposed to the air is decomposed at 312 times the rate of grain stored in silo or other bins.
In comparing the grain-storage system of Great Britain with that of North America it must be borne in mind that whereas Great Britain raises a comparatively small amount of grain, which is more or less rapidly consumed, grain-growing is one of the greatest industries of the United States and of Canada. The enormous surplus of wheat and maize produced in America can only be profitably dealt with by such a system of storage as has grown up there since the middle of the 19th century. The American farmer can store his wheat or maize at a moderate rate, and can get an advance on his warrant if he is in need of money. A holder of wheat in Chicago can withdraw a similar grade of wheat from a New York elevator.
Modern granaries are all built on much the same plan. The mechanical equipment for receiving and discharging grain is very similar in all modern warehouses. A granary is usually erected on a quay at which large vessels can lie and discharge. On the land side railway sidings connect the warehouse with the chief lines in its district; accessibility to a canal is an advantage. Ships are usually cleared by bucket elevators which are dipped into the cargo, though in some cases pneumatic elevators are substituted (see Conveyors). A travelling band with throw-off carriage will speedily distribute a heavy load of grain. Band conveyors serve equally well for charging or discharging the bins. Bins are invariably provided with hopper bottoms, and any bin can be effectively cleared by the band, which runs underneath, either in a cellar or in a specially constructed tunnel. All granaries should be provided with a sufficient plant of cleaning machinery to take from the grain impurities as would be likely to be detrimental to its storing qualities. Chief among such machines are the warehouse separators which work by sieves and air currents (see Flour and Flour Manufacture).
The typical grain warehouse is furnished with a number of chambers for grain storage which are known as silos, and may be built of wood, brick, iron or ferro-concrete. Wood silos are usually square, made of flat strips of wood nailed one on top of the other, and so overlapping each other at the corners that alternately a longitudinal and a transverse batten extends past the corner. The gaps are filled by short pieces of timber securely nailed, and the whole silo wall is thus solid. This type of bin was formerly in great favour, but it has certain drawbacks, such as the possibility of dry rot, while weevils are apt to harbour in the interstices unless lime washing is practised. Bricks and cement are good materials for constructing silos of hexagonal form, but necessitate deep foundations and substantial walls. Iron silos of circular form are used to some extent in Great Britain, but are more common in North and
