lengths of the vertical axes are in the ratio 5:7:9, and this is also the ratio of the number of magnesium atoms present in each of the three minerals. These minerals are strikingly similar in appearance, and can only be distinguished by the goniometric measurement of the complex crystals. They are honey-yellow to brown or red in colour, and have a vitreous to resinous lustre; the hardness is 6-612, and the specific gravity 3.1–3.2. Further, they often occur associated together, and it is only comparatively recently that the three species have been properly discriminated. The name humite, after Sir Abraham Hume, Bart. (1749–1839), whose collection of diamond crystals is preserved at Cambridge in the University museum, was given by the comte de Bournon in 1813 to the small and brilliant honey-yellow crystals found in the blocks of crystalline limestone ejected from Monte Somma, Vesuvius; all three species have since been recognized at this locality. Chondrodite (from χόνδρος, “a grain”) was a name early (1817) in use for granular forms of these minerals found embedded in crystalline limestones in Sweden, Finland and at several place in New York and New Jersey. Large hyacinth-red crystals of all three species are associated with magnetite in the Tilly Foster iron-mine at Brewster, New York; and at Kafveltorp in Örebro, Sweden, similar crystals (of chondrodite) occur embedded in galena and chalcopyrite.
The relation mentioned above between the crystallographic constants and the chemical composition is unique amongst minerals, and is known as a morphotropic relation. S. L. Penfield and W. T. H. Howe, who in 1894 noticed this relation, predicted the existence of another member of the series, the crystals of which would have a still shorter vertical axis and contain less magnesium, the formula being Mg[Mg(F, OH)]2SiO4; this has since been discovered and named prolectite (from προλέγειν, “to foretell”). (L. J. S.)
HUMMEL, JOHANN NEPOMUK (1778–1837), German composer
and pianist, was born on the 14th of November 1778, at
Pressburg, in Hungary, and received his first artistic training
from his father, himself a musician. In 1785 the latter received
an appointment as conductor of the orchestra at the theatre of
Schikaneder, the friend of Mozart and the librettist of the Magic
Flute. It was in this way that Hummel became acquainted with
the composer, who took a great fancy to him, and even invited
him to his house for a considerable period. During two years,
from the age of seven to nine, Hummel received the invaluable
instruction of Mozart, after which he set out with his father on
an artistic tour through Germany, England and other countries,
his clever playing winning the admiration of amateurs. He began
to compose in his eleventh year. After his return to Vienna he
completed his studies under Albrechtsberger and Haydn, and
for a number of years devoted himself exclusively to composition.
At a later period he learned song-writing from Salieri. For some
years he held the appointment of orchestral conductor to Prince
Eszterhazy, probably entering upon this office in 1807. From
1811 to 1815 he lived in Vienna. On the 18th of May 1813 he
married Elisabeth Röckl, a singer, and the sister of one of Beethoven’s
friends. It was not till 1816 that he again appeared in
public as a pianist, his success being quite extraordinary. His
gift of improvisation at the piano was especially admired, but his
larger compositions also were highly appreciated, and for a time
Hummel was considered one of the leading musicians of an age
in which Beethoven was in the zenith of his power. In Prussia,
which he visited in 1822, the ovations offered to him were unprecedented,
and other countries—France in 1825 and 1829,
Belgium in 1826 and England in 1830 and 1833—added further
laurels to his crown. He died in 1837 at Weimar, where for a long
time he had been the musical conductor of the court theatre.
His compositions are very numerous, and comprise almost every
branch of music. He wrote, amongst other things, several operas,
both tragic and comic, and two grand masses (Op. 80 and 111).
Infinitely more important are his compositions for the pianoforte
(his two concerti in A minor and B minor, and the sonata in
F sharp minor), and his chamber music (the celebrated
septet, and several trios, &c.). His experience as a player
and teacher of the pianoforte was embodied in his Great
Pianoforte School (Vienna), and the excellence of his method is
further proved by such pupils as Henselt and Ferdinand Hiller.
Both as a composer and as a pianist Hummel continued the
traditions of the earlier Viennese school of Mozart and Haydn;
his style in both capacities was marked by purity and correctness
rather than by passion and imagination.
HUMMING-BIRD, a name in use, possibly ever since English
explorers first knew of them, for the beautiful little creatures
to which, from the sound occasionally made by the rapid vibrations
of their wings, it is applied. Among books that are ordinarily
in naturalists’ hands, the name seems to be first found
in the Musaeum Tradescantianum, published in 1656, but it
therein occurs (p. 3) so as to suggest its having already been
accepted and commonly understood; and its earliest use, as yet
traced, is by Thomas Morton (d. 1646), a disreputable lawyer
who had a curiously adventurous career in New England, in the
New English Canaan, printed in 1637—a rare work giving an
interesting description of the natural scenery and social life
in New England in the 17th century, and reproduced by Peter
Force in his Historical Tracts (vol. ii., Washington, 1838). André
Thevet, in his Singularitez de la France antarctique (Antwerp,
1558, fol. 92), has been more than once cited as the earliest
author to mention humming-birds, which he did under the name
of Gouambuch; but it is quite certain that Oviedo, whose
Hystoria general de las Indias was published at Toledo in 1525,
preceded him by more than thirty years, with an account of
the “paxaro mosquito” of Hispaniola, of which island “the first
chronicler of the Indies” was governor.[1] This name, though
now apparently disused in Spanish, must have been current
about that time, for we find Gesner in 1555 (De avium natura,
iii. 629) translating it literally into Latin as Passer muscatus,
owing, as he says, his knowledge of the bird to Cardan, the
celebrated mathematician, astrologer and physician, from whom
we learn (Comment. in Ptolem. de astr. judiciis, Basel, 1554,
p. 472) that, on his return to Milan from professionally attending
Archbishop Hamilton at Edinburgh, he visited Gesner at Zürich,
about the end of the year 1552.[2] The name still survives in the
French oiseau-mouche; but the ordinary Spanish appellation
is, and long has been, Tominejo, from tomin, signifying a weight
equal to the third part of an adarme or drachm, and used metaphorically
for anything very small. Humming-birds, however,
are called by a variety of other names, many of them derived
from American languages, such as Guainumbi, Ourissia and
Colibri, to say nothing of others bestowed upon them (chiefly
from some peculiarity of habit) by Europeans, like Picaflores,
Chuparosa and Froufrou. Barrère, in 1745, conceiving that
humming-birds were allied to the wren, the Trochilus,[3] in part, of
- ↑ In the edition of Oviedo’s work published at Salamanca in 1547, the account (lib. xiv. cap. 4) runs thus: “Ay assi mismo enesta ysla vnos paxaricos tan negros como vn terciopelo negro muy bueno & son tan pequeños que ningunos he yo visto en Indias menores excepto el que aca se llama paxaro mosquito. El qual es tan pequeño que el bulto del es menor harto o assaz que le cabeça del dedo pulgar de la mano. Este no le he visto enesta Ysla pero dizen me que aqui los ay: & por esso dexo de hablar enel pa lo dezir dode los he visto que es en la tierra firme quãdo della se trate.” A modern Spanish version of this passage will be found in the beautiful edition of Oviedo’s works published by the Academy of Madrid in 1851 (i. 444).
- ↑ See also Morley’s Life of Girolamo Cardano (ii. 152, 153).
- ↑ Under this name Pliny perpetuated (Hist. naturalis, viii. 25) the confusion that had doubtless arisen before his time of two very distinct birds. As Sundevall remarks (Tentamen, p. 87, note), τροχίλος was evidently the name commonly given by the ancient Greeks to the smaller plovers, and was not improperly applied by Herodotus (ii. 68) to the species that feeds in the open mouth of the crocodile—the Pluvianus aegyptius of modern ornithologists—in which sense Aristotle (Hist. animalium, ix. 6) also uses it. But the received text of Aristotle has two other passages (ix. 1 and 11) wherein the word appears in a wholly different connexion, and can there be only taken to mean the wren—the usual Greek name of which would seem to be ὄρχιλος (Sundevall, Om Aristotl. Djurarter, No. 54). Though none of his editors or commentators has suggested the possibility of such a thing, one can hardly help suspecting that in these passages some early copyist has substituted τροχίλος for ὄρχιλος, and so laid the foundation of a curious error. It may be remarked that the crocodile of Santo Domingo is said to have the like office done for it by some kind of bird, which is called by Descourtilz (Voyage, iii. 26), a “Todier,” but, as Geoffr. St Hilaire observes (Descr. de l’Égypte, ed. 2, xxiv. 440), is more probably a plover. Unfortunately the fauna of Hispaniola is not much better known now than in Oviedo’s days.
