Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/161

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ELL — ELM
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gascar in order to inquire into the prospects for the resumption of the missionary enterprise there, which had been checked for several years owing to the bitter hostility of the reigning queen. Between 1853 and 1857 he paid three visits to that island, of which he has given a full account in his Three Visits to Madagascar (1858), one of the most profoundly interesting and romantic narratives in the whole literature of missions. In reading it one scarcely knows whether to admire most the fearlessness, the undeviating regard for principle, or the discretion, with which he discharged a most delicate and difficult negotiation, and won in the end a signal triumph for free Christianity. Though its primary interest is religious, the work contains much valuable scientific information. At the invitation of the directors of the society, Ellis undertook another journey to Madagascar in 1863, when he was close upon seventy years of age. Of this he gave an account in his Madagascar Revisited (1867). He died on the 25th June 1872. In addition to the works already mentioned, Ellis was the author of A Vindication of the South Sea Missions from the Misrepresentations of Otto Von Kotzebue (1831), and Village Lectures on Popery (1851).

Mrs Ellis survived her husband only a few days. For a considerable number of years she conducted a ladies' school in Hertfordshire on principles which she had carefully thought out, and which are explained in her Rawdon House (1848). She wrote upwards of thirty works, most of which were very popular.

ELLOR, or Ellur, a town of British India, in the Godávarí district, in the presidency of Madras, situated on the bank of the Tammaler river, in 16° 43' N. lat. and 81° 10' E. long. The town contains a population of 25,487 persons, made up as follows: Hindus, 20,253; Mahometans, 5946; Christians, 188. Ellor is a municipality, and the chief town of the táluk or sub-district of the same name. The town, which is clean and healthy, with well-shaded roads, is the headquarters of an executive engineer, with magisterial and civil courts, post-office, school, &c.; it is also a station of the Church Missionary Society and of the Lutheran Mission. The municipal income in 1875–76 amounted to £760, and the expenditure to £957. The chief industry of the place is the manufacture of woollen carpets. Ellor was formerly a military station.

ELLORA, a town of India, in the native state of Hyderabad, near the city of Dowletabad, situated in 20° 2' N. lat. and 75° 13' E. long. In a mountain near this town there are some remarkable excavations, containing mythological symbols of the Hindu worship, and temples ornamented with statues of many of the deities. The principal figures are those of Indra, the god of the firmament, and his consort Indrani. Besides these, there are some figures of the deities and incarnations adored by the Jains, the followers of Buddha and Parisnáth; but all of them have been forsaken by the priests. The Temple is said to have been executed by Rájáh Edu of Ellichpur, who was cured of a cutaneous disorder by a spring near the place, and in gratitude gave orders for the construction of the shrine. It measures 138 feet in front, and in the interior extends 247 feet in length by 150 feet in breadth, and is in some places 100 feet high. A minute account of these curious antiquities is contained in the sixth volume of the Asiatic Researches and in Fergusson's History of Indian and Eastern Architecture. See also article Architecture, vol. ii. pp. 394395. Ellora was ceded in 1818 by Holkar to the British. who transferred it to the Nizám in 1822 by the treaty of Hyderabad.

ELLSWORTH, a city of the United States, capital of Hancock county, Maine, is situated 35 miles east of Bangor, on the Union river, about four miles from its mouth. As the port of entry for the district of Frenchman's Bay, and the seat of an extensive trade in timber, it enjoys great commercial prosperity; and, besides a considerable variety of wooden wares, it manufactures iron, brass, sailcloth, carriages, and sledges. Population in 1840, 2263; in 1870, 5257.

ELLWOOD, Thomas (1639–1713), an English author, chiefly celebrated from his connection with Milton, was born at Crowell, in Oxfordshire, in 1639. The principal facts of his life are related in a very interesting autobiography, which contains much information as to his intercourse with the poet. While he was still young his father removed to London, where Thomas became acquainted with a Quaker family named Pennington, and was led through their influence to connect himself with the Society of Friends. The change was very distasteful to his father, and the autobiography gives a full account of the persecution to which he was subjected on account of it. It was through the Penningtons that he was introduced in 1661 to Milton in the capacity of Latin reader. He spent nearly every afternoon in the poet's house in Jewin Street, until the intercourse was interrupted by an illness which compelled him to go to the country. After a period of imprisonment at Aylesbury for Quakerism, Ellwood resumed his visits to Milton, who was now residing at a house his Quaker friend had taken for him at Giles Chalfont. It was during this residence in the Country that the poet gave him the manuscript of the Paradise Lost to read, and did him the honour of asking his opinion of it. In returning the manuscript Ellwood suggested "Paradise Found" as a subject; and when Milton long afterwards in London showed him Paradise Regained, it was with the remark, "This is owing to you, for you put it into my head at Chalfont."

Ellwood was the author of several polemical works, of which Forgery no Christianity (1674) and The Foundation of Tithes Shaken (1682) deserve mention. His Sacred Histories of the Old and New Testaments appeared in 1705 and 1709. He died in 1713. His autobiography was published in the following year. Another edition appeared in 1791.|1}}

ELM, the popular name for the trees and shrubs constituting the genus Ulmus, of the natural order Ulmaceæ. The Common Elm, U. campestris, a doubtful native of England, is found throughout great part of Europe, in North Africa, and in Asia Minor, whence it ranges as far east as Japan. It grows on almost all soils, but thrives best on a rich loam, in open, low-lying, moderately moist situations, attaining a height of 60–100, and in some few cases as much as 130 or 150 feet. The branches are numerous and spreading, and often pendulous at the extremities; the bark is rugged; the leaves are alternate, ovate, rough, doubly serrate, and, as in other species of Ulmus, unequal at the base (see vol. iv. p. 109, fig. 100); the flowers are small, hermaphrodite, numerous, in purplish brown tufts, and each with a fringed basal bract, have a four-toothed campanulate calyx, four stamens, and two styles, and appear before the leaves in March and April; and the seed-vessels are green, membranous, one-seeded, and deeply-cleft. Unlike the wych elm, it rarely perfects its seed in England, where it is propagated by means of suckers from old trees, or preferably by layers from stools. In the first ten years of its growth it ordinarily reaches a height of 25—30 feet. The wood, at first brownish-white, becomes, with growth, of a brown colour having a greenish shade. It is close-grained, free from knots, without apparent medullary rays, and is hard and tough, but will not take a polish. All parts of the trunk, including the sapwood, are available in carpentry. By drying, the wood loses over 60 per cent. of its weight, and has then a specific gravity of 0·588. It has considerable transverse strength, does not crack when once seasoned, and is