Capodistrias, who confiscated their holdings in Greece ; and more recently they have been stripped of theii possessions in the Danubian principalities. They still retain some property in parts of the Archipelago. A Turkish official resides at Caryes, and collects the taxes, which amount to about ten shillings a head ; but for the most part the peninsula is autonomous, being governed by an administrative body of four presidents (cTrio-rarca), one of whom bears the title of " First Man of Athos," and a representative body called the Holy Synod, which consists | of twenty members, one from each of the monasteries proper. These twenty communities are partly Coenobitic, with a common stock and a warden, and partly Idiorrhyth- mic, with a kind of republican government and great individual liberty. Besides these regular monasteries, there are a number of do-Kr/rr/pia, or sketes, which consist of several small associations gathered round a central church, and numerous little communities known as Ka^ioyAara, or retreats, as well as genuine hermitages. Harmony is not always maintained between the different establishments, as was shown by a bitter dispute about a water-course between Cutlumusi and Pantocratoros, which led to the interference of the British consuls of Salonica and Cavalla, in answer | to an appeal from some Ionian monks who were British j subjects (1853). For the most part, however, the inhabi- j tants of Athos are quiet and moderately industrious. They are said to number about 3000, all men ; for no female, even of the lower animals, is permitted to desecrate the pre- I cincts of the Holy Mountain.
"Descriptio Montis Atho et xxii. ejusMonast.,"by Jo. Comnenus in Montfaucon s Palceographia Grceca; Georgirenes, Description of Pre sent State of Sanios, Patinas, Nicaria, and Mount Athos, Lond. 1678 ; Lieut. Webber Smith, On Mount Athos, " &c. , iii Jov.ru. Roy. Geog. Soc., 1837 ; Curzon, Visits to Monasteries in the Levant, 1849; Fallmerayer, Fragmenta aus dem Orient, 1845 ; Gass, Commen- tatio Historica, &c., and Zur Geschichte, &c., 1866; Ramner s Hist. Taschenbuch, 1860 (art. by Pischon) ; Report by M. Minoide i Minas, 1846 ; J. Miiller, Denkmdler in den Khstern von Athos; Langlois, Athos, &c. ; Didron s Iconographie Chretien^e, 1844 ; i Journal Asiatiquc, 1867; Tozer s Highlands of Turkey, 1869.
ATHY, a market-town of Ireland, county of Kildare,
34 miles S.W. of Dublin. It is a station on the Great j
Southern and Western Railway, and is intersected by the i
river Barrow, which is here crossed by a bridge of five j
archea. It has a church, a Roman Catholic chapel, a j
Presbyterian and a Methodist meeting-house, court-house, .
jail, two banks, hospital, dispensary, barracks, &c. Adjoin
ing the town is a small chapel, an ancient cemetery, and a
small Dominican monastery. Previous to the Union it
returned two members to the Irish parliament. The
principal trade is in corn, which is ground at the neigh
bouring mills. Population in 1871, 4510.
ATINA, a town of Naples, province of Terra di Lavoro,
near the Melfa, and 12 miles S.E. of Sora. It has a
cathedral, convent, and hospital, with about 5000 inhabi
tants ; but it is chiefly remarkable for its ancient remains,
consisting of portions of its walls, the ruins of an extensive
aqueduct, and numerous other structures, besides monu
ments and inscriptions. The city is of great antiquity,
and was a place of importance down to the days of the
Roman empire. It is remarkable now, as of old, for the
exceptional coolness of its situation.
ATITLAN, a lake in the department of Solola, in
Guatemala. 20 miles long, with an average breadth of 9
miles. It seems to occupy the crater of an extinct volcano,
and its depth is reported to be very great. The scenery in
the neighbourhood is striking and picturesque, the volcano
of Atitlan rearing its head 12,500 feet above the level of
the sea. A little Indian town, Santiago de Atitlan, nestles
at the foot of the mountain.
ATLANTA, the capital of Georgia, one of the United States of North America, is situated about 7 miles to the S.E. of the Chattahoochee River, at an elevation of 1100 feet above the sea. Laid out in 1845, and incorporated as a city in 1847, it has since rapidly increased. It is the centre of a large trade in grain and cotton, and has extensive railway communication in all directions. Engineering work of various kinds is carried on, as well as the manufacture of cast-iron, flour, and tobacco. There are two national and two savings banks. Educational institutions are numerous, and comprise the North Georgia Female College, Oglethorpe College, a medical college, a university for men of colour, and a variety of schools. The state library contains upwards of 16,000 volumes. There are about thirty churches of different denominations, the Methodists being most largely represented, and one of their churches ranking among the finest buildings in the city. During the war Atlanta was the centre of important military operations, and suffered greatly in consequence (1864). It was strongly fortified by the Confederates, and defended, first by General Joseph E. Johnston, and then by General Hood, against the attack of General Sherman. Hood was compelled to evacuate the city, and Sherman afterwards retired to Chattanooga,—movements which occasioned the destruction by fire of the greater part of the buildings, both public and private. Population—(1860), 9554; (1870), 21,789.
ATLANTIC OCEAN
THE designation Atlantic Ocean, originally given to the i sea that lies beyond the great range of Atlas in North-western Africa, has come to be applied, with the extension of geographical knowledge, to the whole of that vast ocean which occupies the wide and deep trough that separates the New from the Old World. Its limits are variously defined; some geographers regarding it as extending from pole to pole, whilst others consider it as bounded at its northern and southern extremities by the Arctic and Antarctic circles respectively. As the peculiarity of the physical conditions of the Polar Seas renders it on every account more appropriate to describe them under a separate head (POLAR REGIONS), the Atlantic will be here treated as bounded at the north by the Arctic circle, which nearly corresponds with the natural closing-in of its basin by the approach of the coasts of Norway and Greenland i with Iceland lying between them ; while at the south, where ! the basin is at its widest, its only boundary is the Antarctic ! circle. The line which separates its southern extension from the Indian Ocean may be considered to be the meridian of Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of the African continent ; whilst the boundary between the South Atlantic and South Pacific would be formed in like manner by the meridian of Cape Horn. Although the Baltic and the Mediterranean are commonly regarded as appendages to the Atlantic, yet their physical conditions are so peculiar as to require separate treatment. (See BALTIC and MEDI TERRANEAN.) Every physical geographer who has written upon the Atlantic has noticed the curious parallelism between its eastern and its western borders, their salient and retiring angles corresponding very closely to each other. Thus, beginning at the north we see that the projection formed by the British Islands (which extends much further westwards at 100 fathoms below the surface than it does above the
sea-level), answers to the wide entrance to Baffin s Bay ;
