d’un voyage en Sibérie, 1857); but the chief work was not issued till 1863 (Resultate magnetischer Beobachtungen, &c.). Shortly after the return of the mission, an observatory was erected in the park of Christiania (1833), and Hansteen was appointed director. On his representation a magnetic observatory was added in 1839. In 1835–1838 he published text-books on geometry and mechanics; and in 1842 he wrote his Disquisitiones de mutationibus quas patitur momentum acus magneticae, &c. He also contributed various papers to different scientific journals, especially the Magazin for Naturvidenskaberne, of which he became joint-editor in 1823. He superintended the trigonometrical and topographical survey of Norway, begun in 1837. In 1861 he retired from active work, but still pursued his studies, his Observations de l’inclination magnétique and Sur les variations séculaires du magnétisme appearing in 1865. He died at Christiania on the 11th of April 1873.
HANTHAWADDY, a district in the Pegu division of Lower
Burma, the home district of Rangoon, from which the town
was detached to make a separate district in 1880. It has an area
of 3023 sq. m., with a population in 1901 of 484,811, showing an
increase of 22% in the decade. Hanthawaddy and Henzada
are the two most densely populated districts in the province.
It consists of a vast plain stretching up from the sea between
the To or China Bakir mouth of the Irrawaddy and the Pegu
Yomas. Except the tract lying between the Pegu Yomas on
the east and the Hlaing river, the country is intersected by
numerous tidal creeks, many navigable by large boats and some
by steamers. The headquarters of the district are in Rangoon,
which is also the sub-divisional headquarters. The second
sub-division has its headquarters at Insein, where there are
large railway works. Cultivation is almost wholly confined to
rice, but there are many vegetable and fruit gardens.
HANUKKAH, a Jewish festival, the “Feast of Dedication”
(cf. John x. 22) or the “Feast of the Maccabees,” beginning
on the 25th day of the ninth month Kislev (December), of the
Hebrew ecclesiastical year, and lasting eight days. It was
instituted in 165 B.C. in commemoration of, and thanksgiving
for, the purification of the temple at Jerusalem on this day by
Judas Maccabaeus after its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes,
king of Syria, who in 168 B.C. set up a pagan altar to Zeus
Olympius. The Talmudic sources say that when the perpetual
lamp of the temple was to be relighted only one flask of holy oil
sufficient for the day remained, but this miraculously lasted
for the eight days (cf. the legend in 2 Macc. i. 18). In memory
of this the Jews burn both in synagogues and in houses on the
first night of the festival one light, on the second two, and so on
to the end (so the Hillelites), or vice versa eight lights on the
first, and one less on each succeeding night (so the Shammaites).
From the prominence of the lights the festival is also known as
the “Festival of Lights” or “Illumination” (Talmud). It is
said that the day chosen by Judas for the setting up of the new
altar was the anniversary of that on which Antiochus had set
up the pagan altar; hence it is suggested (e.g. by Wellhausen)
that the 25th of Kislev was an old pagan festival, perhaps the
day of the winter solstice.
For further details and illustrations of Ḥanukkah lamps see Jewish Encyc., s.v.
HANUMAN, in Hindu mythology, a monkey-god, who forms a
central figure in the Ramayana. He was the child of a nymph by
the god of the wind. His exploits, as the ally of Rama (incarnation
of Vishnu) in the latter’s recovery of his wife Sita from the
clutches of the demon Ravana, include the bridging of the
straits between India and Ceylon with huge boulders carried
away from the Himalayas. He is the leader of a host of monkeys
who aid in these supernatural deeds. Temples in his honour are
frequent throughout India.
HANWAY, JONAS (1712–1786), English traveller and philanthropist,
was born at Portsmouth in 1712. While still a child,
his father, a victualler, died, and the family moved to London.
In 1729 Jonas was apprenticed to a merchant in Lisbon. In
1743, after he had been some time in business for himself in
London, he became a partner with Mr Dingley, a merchant in
St Petersburg, and in this way was led to travel in Russia and
Persia. Leaving St Petersburg on the 10th of September 1743,
and passing south by Moscow, Tsaritsyn and Astrakhan, he
embarked on the Caspian on the 22nd of November, and arrived
at Astrabad on the 18th of December. Here his goods were
seized by Mohammed Hassan Beg, and it was only after great
privations that he reached the camp of Nadir Shah, under whose
protection he recovered most (85%) of his property. His
return journey was embarrassed by sickness (at Resht), by
attacks from pirates, and by six weeks’ quarantine; and he
only reappeared at St Petersburg on the 1st of January 1745.
He again left the Russian capital on the 9th of July 1750 and
travelled through Germany and Holland to England (28th of
October). The rest of his life was mostly spent in London,
where the narrative of his travels (published in 1753) soon made
him a man of note, and where he devoted himself to philanthropy
and good citizenship. In 1756 he founded the Marine Society,
to keep up the supply of British seamen; in 1758 he became a
governor of the Foundling, and established the Magdalen,
hospital; in 1761 he procured a better system of parochial
birth-registration in London; and in 1762 he was appointed a
commissioner for victualling the navy (10th of July); this office
he held till October 1783. He died, unmarried, on the 5th of
September 1786. He was the first Londoner, it is said, to carry
an umbrella, and he lived to triumph over all the hackney
coachmen who tried to hoot and hustle him down. He attacked
“vail-giving,” or tipping, with some temporary success; by
his onslaught upon tea-drinking he became involved in controversy
with Johnson and Goldsmith. His last efforts were on
behalf of little chimney-sweeps. His advocacy of solitary
confinement for prisoners and opposition to Jewish naturalization
were more questionable instances of his activity in social
matters.
Hanway left seventy-four printed works, mostly pamphlets; the only one of literary importance is the Historical Account of British Trade over the Caspian Sea, with a Journal of Travels, &c. (London, 1753). On his life, see also Pugh, Remarkable Occurrences in the Life of Jonas Hanway (London, 1787); Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. xxxii. p. 342; vol. lvi. pt. ii. pp. 812-814, 1090, 1143-1144; vol. lxv. pt. ii. pp. 721-722, 834-835; Notes and Queries, 1st series, i. 436, ii. 25; 3rd series, vii. 311; 4th series, viii. 416.
HANWELL, an urban district in the Brentford parliamentary
division of Middlesex, England, 101/2 m. W. of St Paul’s cathedral,
London, on the river Brent and the Great Western railway. Pop.
(1891) 6139; (1901) 10,438. It ranks as an outer residential
suburb of London. The Hanwell lunatic asylum of the county of
London has been greatly extended since its erection 1831, and
can accommodate over 2500 inmates. The extensive cemeteries
of St Mary Abbots, Kensington, and St George, Hanover Square,
London, are here. In the churchyard of St Mary’s church was
buried Jonas Hanway (d. 1786), traveller, philanthropist, and
by repute, introducer of the umbrella into England. The
Roman Catholic Convalescent Home for women and children
was erected in 1865. Before the Norman period the manor of
Hanwell belonged to Westminster Abbey.
HAPARANDA (Finnish Haaparanta, “Aspen Shore”), a
town of Sweden in the district (län) of Norbotten, at the head
of the Gulf of Bothnia. Pop. (1900) 1568. It lies about 11/2 m.
from the mouth of the Torne river, on the frontier with Russia
(Finland), opposite the town of Torneå which has belonged
to Russia since 1809. The towns are divided by a marshy
channel, formerly the bed of the Torne, but the main stream
is now east of the Russian town. Haparanda was founded in
1812, and at first bore the name of Karljohannstad. It received
its municipal constitution in 1842. Shipbuilding is prosecuted.
Sea-going vessels load and unload at Salmio, 7 m. from
Haparanda. Since 1859 the town has been the seat of an important
meteorological station. Annual mean temperature,
32.4° Fahr.; February 10.5°; July 58.8°. Rainfall, 16.5 in.
annually. Up the Torne valley (54 m.) is the hill Avasaxa,
whither pilgrimages were formerly made in order to stand
in the light of the sun at midnight on St John’s day
(June 24).
