Book i

. of Euclid is known as the _Pons Asinorum_, bridge of asses.

ASS, FEAST OF THE, formerly a festival in northern France, primarily in commemoration of the biblical flight into Egypt, and usually held on the 14th of January. A girl with a baby at her breast and seated on an ass splendidly caparisoned was led through the town to the church, and there placed at the gospel side of the altar while mass was said. The ceremony degenerated into a burlesque in which the ass of the flight became confused with Balaam's ass. So scandalous became the popular revels associated with it, that the celebration was prohibited by the church in the 15th century. (See FOOLS, FEAST OF.)

ASSAB, a bay and port on the African shore of the Red Sea, 60 m. N. of the strait of Bab-el Mandeb. Assab Bay was the first territory acquired by Italy in Africa. Bought from the sultan of Raheita in 1870, it was not occupied until 1880. (See ERITREA, and ITALY: _History_.)

ASSAM, a former province of British India, which was amalgamated in 1905 with "Eastern Bengal and Assam" (q.v.). Area 56,243 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 6,126,343. The province of Assam lies on the N.E. border of Bengal, on the extreme frontier of the Indian empire, with Bhutan and Tibet beyond it on the N., and Burma and Manipur on the E. It comprises the valleys of the Brahmaputra and Surma rivers, together with the mountainous watershed which intervenes between them. It is situated between 24 deg. 0' and 28 deg. 17' N. lat., and between 89 deg. 46' and 97 deg. 5' E. long. It is bounded on the N. by the eastern section of the great Himalayan range, the frontier tribes from west to east being successively Bhutias, Akas, Daphlas, Miris, Abors and Mishmis; on the N.E. by the Mishmi hills, which sweep round the head of the Brahmaputra valley; on the E. by the unexplored mountains that mark the frontier of Burma, by the hills occupied by the independent Naga tribes and by the state of Manipur; on the S. by the Lushai hills, the state of Hill Tippera, and the Bengal district of Tippera; and on the W. by the Bengal districts of Mymensingh and Rangpur, the state of Kuch Behar and Jalpaiguri district.

_Natural Divisions._--Assam is naturally divided into three distinct tracts, the Brahmaputra valley, the Surma valley and the hill ranges between the two. The Brahmaputra valley is an alluvial plain, about 450 m. in length, with an average breadth of 50 m., lying almost east and west. To the north is the main chain of the Himalayas, the lower ranges of which rise abruptly from the plain; to the south is the great elevated plateau or succession of plateaus known as the Assam range. The various portions of this range are called by the names of the tribes who inhabit them--the Garo, the Khasi, the Jaintia, the North Cachar and the Naga hills. The range as a whole is joined at its eastern extremity by the Patkai to the Himalayan system, and by the mountains of Manipur to the Arakan Yoma. The highest points in the range are Nokrek peak (4600 ft.) in the Garo hills, Shillong peak (6450 ft.) in the Khasi-Jaintia hills, and Japva peak (nearly 10,000 ft.) in the Naga hills. South of the range comes the third division of the province, the Surma valley, comprising the two districts of Cachar and Sylhet. The Surma valley is much smaller than the Brahmaputra valley, covering only 7506 against 24,283 sq. m.; its mean elevation is much lower and its rivers are more sluggish.

_Physical Aspects._--Assam is a fertile series of valleys, with the great channel of the Brahmaputra (literally, the _Son of Brahma_) flowing down its middle, and an infinite number of tributaries and watercourses pouring into it from the mountains on either side. The Brahmaputra spreads out in a sheet of water several miles broad during the rainy season, and in its course through Assam forms a number of islands in its bed. Rising in the Tibetan plateau, far to the north of the Himalayas, and skirting round their eastern passes not far from the Yang-tsze-kiang and the great river of Cambodia, it enters Assam by a series of waterfalls and rapids, amid vast boulders and accumulations of rocks. The gorge, situated in Lakhimpur district, through which the southernmost branch of the Brahmaputra enters, has from time immemorial been held in reverence by the Hindus. It is called the Brahmakunda or Parasuramkunda; and although the journey to it is both difficult and dangerous, it is annually visited by thousands of devotees. After a rapid course westwards down the whole length of the Assam valley, the Brahmaputra turns sharply to the south, spreading itself over the alluvial districts of the Bengal delta, and, after several changes of name, ends its course of 1800 m. in the Bay of Bengal. Its first tributaries in Assam, after crossing the frontier, are the Kundil and the Digaru, flowing from the Mishmi hills on the north, and the Tengapani and Dihing, which take their rise on the Singpho hills to the south-east. Shortly afterwards it receives the Dihang, flowing from the north-east; but its principal confluent is the Dihong, which, deriving its origin, under the name of the Tsangpo, from a spot in the vicinity of the source of the Sutlej, flows in a direction precisely opposite to that river, and traversing the table-land of Tibet, at the back of the great Himalaya range, falls into the Brahmaputra in 27 deg. 48' N. lat., 95 deg. 26' E. long., after a course of nearly 1000 m. Doubts were long entertained whether the Dihong could be justly regarded as the continuation of the Tsangpo, but these were practically set at rest by the voyage of F.J. Needham in 1886. Below the confluence, the united stream flows in a south-westerly direction, forming the boundary between the districts of Lakhimpur and Darrang, situated on its northern bank, and those of Sibsagar and Nowgong on the south; and finally bisecting Kamrup, it crosses over the frontier of the province and passes into Bengal. In its course it receives on the left side the Dihing, a river having its rise at the south-eastern angle of the province; and lower down, on the opposite side, it parts with a considerable offset termed the Buri Lohir, which, however, reunites with the Brahmaputra 60 m. below the point of divergence, bearing with it the additional waters of the Subansiri, flowing from Tibet. A second offset, under the name of the Kalang river, rejoins the parent stream a short distance above the town of Gauhati. The remaining rivers are too numerous to be

## particularized. The streams of the south are not rapid, and have no

considerable current until May or June. Among the islands formed by the intersection and confluence of the rivers is Majuli, or the Great Island, as it is called by way of pre-eminence. This island extends 55 m. in length by about 10 in breadth, and is formed by the Brahmaputra on the south-east and the Buri Lohit river on the north-west. In the upper part of the valley, towards the gorge where the Brahmaputra enters, the country is varied and picturesque, walled in on the north and east by the Himalayas, and thickly wooded from the base to the snow-line. On either bank of the Brahmaputra a long narrow strip of plain rises almost imperceptibly to the foot of the hills. Gigantic reeds and grasses occupy the low lands near the banks of the great river; expanses of fertile rice-land come next; a little higher up, dotted with villages encircled by groves of bamboos and fruit trees of great size and beauty, the dark forests succeed, covering the interior table-land and mountains. The country in the vicinity of the large rivers is flat, and impenetrable from dense tangled jungle, with the exception of some very low-lying tracts which are either permanent marshes or are covered with water during the rains. Jungle will not grow on these depressions, and they are covered either with water, reeds, high grasses or rice cultivation. On or near such open spaces are collected all the villages. As the traveller proceeds farther down the valley, the country gradually opens out into wide plains. In the western district of Kamrup the country forms one great expanse, with a few elevated tracts here and there, varying from 200 to 800 ft. in height.

_Soils._--The soil is exceedingly rich and well adapted to all kinds of agricultural purposes, and for the most part is composed of a rich black loam reposing on a grey sandy clay, though occasionally it exhibits a light yellow clayey texture. The land may be divided into three great classes. The first division is composed of hills, the largest group within the valley being that of the Mikir Mountains, which stand out upon the plain. Another set of hills project into the valley at Gauhati. But these latter are rather prolongations of spurs from the Khasi chain than isolated groups belonging to the plains. The other hills are all isolated and of small extent. The second division of the lands is the well-raised part of the valley whose level lies above the ordinary inundations of the Brahmaputra. The channels of some of the hill streams, however, are of so little depth that the highest lands in their neighbourhood are liable to sudden floods. On the north bank of the great river, lands of this sort run down the whole length of the valley, except where they are interrupted by the beds of the hill streams. The breadth of these plains is in some places very trifling, whilst in others they comprise a tract of many miles, according to the number and the height of the rocks or hills that protect them from the aberrations of the river. The alluvial deposits of the Brahmaputra and of its tributary streams may be considered as the third general division of lands in Assam. These lands are very extensive, and present every degree of fertility and elevation, from the vast _chars_ of pure sand, subject to annual inundations, to the firm islands, so raised by drift-sand and the accumulated remains of rank vegetable matter, as no longer to be liable to flood. The rapidity with which wastes, composed entirely of sand newly washed forward by the current during floods, become converted into rich pasture is astonishing. As the freshets begin to lessen and retire into the deeper channels, the currents form natural embankments on their edges, preventing the return of a small portion of water which is thus left stagnant on the sands, and exposed to the

## action of the sun's rays. It slowly evaporates, leaving a thin crust

of animal and vegetable matter. This is soon impregnated with the seeds of the _Saccharum spontaneum_ and other grasses that have been

## partly brought by the winds and partly deposited by the water. Such

places are frequented by numerous flocks of aquatic birds, which resort thither in search of fish and mollusca. As vegetation begins to appear, herds of wild elephants and buffaloes are attracted by the supply of food and the solitude of the newly-formed land, and in their turn contribute to manure the soil.

_Geology._--Geographically the Assam hills lie in the angle between the Himalayas and the Burmese ranges, but geologically they belong to neither. The older rocks are like those of Bengal, and the newer beds show no sign of either the Himalayan or the Burmese folding--on the top of the plateau they are nearly horizontal, but along the southern margin they are bent sharply downwards in a simple monoclinal fold. The greater part of the mass is composed of gneiss and schists. The Sylhet traps near the southern margin are correlated with the Rajmahal traps of Bengal. The older rocks are overlaid unconformably by Cretaceous beds, consisting chiefly of sandstones with seams of coal, the whole series thinning rapidly towards the north and thus indicating the neighbourhood of the old shore-line. The fossils are very similar to those of the South Indian Cretaceous, but very different from those of the corresponding beds in the Nerbudda valley. The overlying Tertiary series includes nummulitic beds and valuable seams of coal.

The border ranges of the east and south of Assam belong to the Burmese system of mountain chains (see BURMA), and consist largely of Tertiary beds, including the great coal seams of Upper Assam. The Assam valley is covered by the alluvial deposits of the Brahmaputra.

Of the mineral productions by far the most valuable is coal. Compared with the Gondwana coal of the peninsula of India the Tertiary coal seams of Assam are remarkable for their purity and their extraordinary thickness. The "Thick Seam" of Margherita, in Upper Assam, averages 50 ft., and in some places reaches as much as 80 ft. The average percentage of ash in 27 assays of Assam coal was 3.8 as against 16.3 in 17 assays of Raniganj coal. The coal seams are commonly associated with petroleum springs. Gold is found in the alluvial deposits, but the results of exploration have not been very promising.

_Earthquakes_.--Assam is liable to earthquakes. There was a severe earthquake in Cachar on the 10th of January 1869, a severe shock in Shillong and Gauhati in September 1875, and one in Silchar in October 1882; but by far the severest shock known is that which occurred on the evening of 12th June 1897. The area of this seismic disturbance extended over north-eastern India, from Manipur to Sikkim; but the focus was in the Khasi and Garo hills. In the station of Shillong every masonry building was levelled to the ground. Throughout the country bridges were shattered, roads were broken up like ploughed fields, and the beds of rivers were dislocated. In the hills there were terrible landslips, which wrecked the little Cherrapunji railway and caused 600 deaths. The total mortality recorded was 1542, including two Europeans at Shillong. The levels of the country were so affected that the towns of Goalpara and Barpeta became almost uninhabitable during the rains.

_Fauna._--The zoology of Assam presents some interesting features. Wild elephants abound and commit many depredations, entering villages in large herds, and consuming everything suitable to their tastes. Many are caught by means of female elephants previously tamed, and trained to decoy males into the snares prepared for subjecting them to captivity. A considerable number are tamed and exported from Assam every year. Many are killed every year in the forests for the sake of the ivory which they furnish. The government _keddah_ establishment from Dacca captures large numbers of elephants in the province, and the right of hunting is also sold by auction to private bidders. The annual catch of the latter averages about two hundred. The rhinoceros is found in the denser parts of the forests and generally in swampy places. This animal is hunted and killed for its skin and its horn. The skin affords the material for the best shields. The horn is sacred in the eyes of the natives. Contrary to the usual belief, it is stated that, if caught young, the rhinoceros is easily tamed and becomes strongly attached to his keeper. Tigers abound, and though many are annually destroyed for the sake of the government reward, their numbers seem scarcely, if at all, to diminish. Leopards and bears are numerous; and the sand-badger, the _Arctonyx collaris_ of Cuvier, a small animal somewhat resembling a bear, but having the snout, eyes and tail of a hog, is found. Among the most formidable animals known is the wild buffalo or _gaur_ which is of great size, strength and fierceness. The fox and the jackal exist, and the wild hog is very abundant. Goats, deer of various kinds, hares, and two or three species of antelope are found, as are monkeys in great variety. The porcupine, the squirrel, the civet cat, the ichneumon and the otter are common. The birds are too various to admit of enumeration. Wild game is plentiful; pheasants, partridges, snipe and water-fowl of many descriptions make the country a tempting field for the sportsman. Vultures and other birds of prey are met with. Crocodiles (commonly called alligators) swarm in all parts of the Brahmaputra, and are very destructive to the fish, of which hundreds of varieties are found, and which supply a valuable article of food. The most destructive of the _ferae naturae_, as regards human life, are, however, the snakes. Of these, several poisonous species exist, including the cobra and karait (_Naja tripudians_ and _Bungarus caeruleus_). The bite of a fairly-grown healthy serpent of either of these species is deadly; and it is ascertained that more deaths occur from snake-bite than from all the other wild beasts put together. Among the non-poisonous serpents the python ranks first. This is an enormous boa-constrictor of great length and weight, which drops upon his prey from the branch of a tree, or steals upon it in the thick grass. He kills his victim by rolling himself round the body till he breaks its ribs, or suffocates it by one irresistible convolution round its throat. He seldom or never attacks human beings unless in self-defence, and loss of life from this cause is scarcely ever reported.

_Agriculture._--The principal and almost the only food-grain of the plains portion of the province is rice. The production of this staple is carried on generally under the same conditions as in Bengal; but the times of sowing and reaping and the names given to the several crops vary much in different parts of the province. In 1901-1902 out of a total cultivated area of 1,736,000 acres, there were 1,194,000 acres under rice. In addition jute is grown to a considerable extent in Goalpara and Sylhet; cotton is grown in large quantities along the slopes of the Assam range. Rubber is grown in government plantations and is also brought in by the hill tribes; while lac, mustard and potatoes are also produced.

_Tea Plantations._--The most important article of commerce produced in Assam is tea. The rice crop covers a very great proportion of the cultivated land, but it is used for local consumption, and the Brahmaputra valley does not produce enough for its own consumption, large quantities being imported for the coolies. The tea plantations are the one great source of wealth to the province, and the necessities of tea cultivation are the chief stimulants to the development of Assam. The plant was discovered in 1823 by Mr Robert Bruce, who had proceeded thither on a mercantile exploration. The country, however, then formed part of the Burmese dominions. But war with this monarchy shortly afterwards broke out, and a brother of the first discoverer, happening to be appointed to the command of a division of gunboats employed in some part of the operations, followed up the pursuit of the subject, and obtained several hundred plants and a considerable quantity of seed. Some specimens were ultimately forwarded to the superintendent of the botanic garden at Calcutta. In 1832 Captain F. Jenkins was deputed by the governor-general of India, Lord William Bentinck, to report upon the resources of the country, and the tea plant was brought to his especial notice by Mr Bruce; in 1834 a minute was recorded by the governor-general on the subject, in which it is stated that his attention had been called to it in 1827 before his departure from England. In accordance with the views of that minute, a committee was appointed to prosecute inquiries, and to promote the cultivation of the plant. Communications were opened with China with a view to obtain fresh plants and seeds, and a deputation, composed of gentlemen versed in botanical studies, was despatched to Assam. Some seeds were obtained from China; but they proved to be of small importance, as it was clearly ascertained by the members of the Assam deputation that both the black and the green tea plants were indigenous here, and might be multiplied to any extent; another result of the Chinese mission, that of procuring persons skilled in the cultivation and manufacture of black tea, was of more material benefit. Subsequently, under Lord Auckland, a further supply of Chinese cultivators and manufacturers was obtained--men well acquainted with the processes necessary for the production of green tea, as the former set were with those requisite for black. In 1838 the first twelve chests of tea from Assam were received in England. They had been injured in some degree on the passage, but on samples being submitted to brokers, and others of long experience and tried judgment, the reports were highly favourable. It was never, however, the intention of government to carry on the trade, but to resign it to private adventure as soon as the experimental course could be fairly completed. Mercantile associations for the culture and manufacture of tea in Assam began to be formed as early as 1839; and in 1849 the government disposed of their establishment, and relinquished the manufacture to the ordinary operation of commercial enterprise. In 1851 the crop of the principal company was estimated to produce 280,000 lb. Since then the enterprise has rapidly developed. Tea is now cultivated in all the plains district of the provinces. When the industry was first established, the land which was supposed to be best for the plant was hill or undulating ground; but now it has been found in the Surma valley that with good drainage the heaviest crops of tea can be raised from low-lying land, even such as formerly supported rice cultivation. At the close of the year 1905 there were 942 gardens in all, with 422,335 acres, and employing 464,912 coolies. The majority of gardens are owned by Europeans, 405,486 acres belonging to them as against 16,849 to Indians. The total out-turn for the province in 1905 was 193,556,047 lb. Between 1893 and 1898 there was a great extension of tea cultivation, with the result that the industry began to suffer from the congestion that follows over-production. Also to meet the requirements of the industry, an enormous number of coolies had to be brought into the province from other parts of India, and in recent years the supply of labour has begun to fall off, causing a rise in the cost of production. For these reasons there was a crisis in the tea industry of Assam, which was relieved to some extent by the reduction of the English duty on tea in 1906.

_Tea-Garden Coolies._--The labour required on the tea gardens is almost entirely imported, as the natives of the province are too prosperous to do such work. During the decade 1891-1901, 596,856 coolies were imported, or about a tenth of the total population of the province. The importation of coolies is controlled by an elaborate system of legislation, which provides for the registration of contracts, the medical inspection of coolies during the journey, and supervision over rates of pay, &c., on the gardens. The first labour act was passed in 1863, and since then the law on the subject has been changed by successive enactments. The measure now in force is called

## Act VI. of 1901. Under this act the maximum term of the labour

contract is fixed at four years, and a minimum monthly wage is laid down, the payment of which, however, is contingent on the completion of a daily task by the labourer. Labourers under contract deserting are liable to fine and imprisonment, and, subject to certain restrictions, may be arrested without warrant by their employers. In addition to the labourers engaged under this act, a large number are employed under contract enforceable by Act XIII, of 1859, which provides penalties for breach of the contract, but does not allow of the arrest of deserters without warrant. Neither does this act regulate in any way the terms of the contract, nor contain any special provisions for the protection of the labourer. Many labourers on the conclusion of their first engagement under Act VI. of 1901 enter into renewed contracts under Act XIII. of 1859. In 1905 there were in all 664,296 labourers, and 24,209 fresh importations, of whom 62% chose the old act.

_Railways._--The Assam-Bengal railway runs from the seaport of Chittagong to the Surma valley, and thence across the hills to Dibrugarh, at the head of the Brahmaputra valley, with a branch to Gauhati lower down the Brahmaputra. The hill section of this line was found exceedingly difficult of construction, and extensive damage was done by the earthquake of 1897; but it is now complete. This railway is financed by the government, though worked by a company, and therefore ranks as a state line. At the end of 1904 its open mileage was 576 m. There are several short lines of light railway or tramway in the province. The most important is the Dibru-Sadiya railway, at the head of the Brahmaputra valley, with a branch to the coal-fields.

_Trade_.-The external trade of Assam is conducted partly by steamer,

## partly by native boat, and to a small extent by rail. In the

Brahmaputra valley steamers carry as much as 86% of the exports, and 94% of the imports. In the Surma valley native boats carry about 43% of both. In 1904-1905 the total exports were valued at 726 lakhs of rupees. The chief items were tea, rice in the husk, oil-seeds, tea-seed, timber, coal and jute. The imports were valued at 457 lakhs of rupees. The chief items were cotton piece-goods, rice not in the husk, sugar, grain and pulse, salt, iron and steel, tobacco, cotton twist and yarn, and brass and copper. No less than two-thirds of the total trade is conducted with Calcutta. The trans-frontier trade is insignificant; and most of it is conducted with the Bengal state of Hill Tippera. The trade through Chittagong is increasing owing to the opening of the hill-section of the Assam-Bengal railway, which gives direct communication between the districts of Upper Assam and the port of Chittagong, and the incorporation of that port in the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam.

_Inhabitants._--The total population of Assam, according to the census of 1901, was 6,126,343, of whom 3,429,099 were Hindus, 1,581,317 Mahommedans and 1,068,334 Animists. The number of foreigners in the population due to immigration by the tea-garden coolies was 775,844. But in spite of this immigration the rate of increase in the population was only 5.9% in the decade, and with the immigrants deducted 1.36%. Amongst native-born Assamese during the decade there was a serious decrease in Nowgong and some other districts, due to _kalaazar_ and other diseases. The Assamese are an interesting race, of distinct origin from the neighbouring Bengalis. A large proportion of them derive their origin from tribes who came from the Himalayan ranges, from Burma or from the Chinese frontier. The most important of these are the Ahoms or Ahams, an offshoot of the Shan race of northern Burma. They were the last conquerors of Assam before the Burmese, and they long preserved their ancient traditions, habits and institutions. Hinduism first made its encroachments among their kings and nobility. Several generations ago they gave up eating beef, and they are now completely Hinduized, except in a few remote recesses of Assam. Hinduism has also impressed its language upon the province, and the vernacular Assamese possesses a close affinity to Bengali, with the substitution of _s_ for the Bengali _ch_, of a guttural _h_ for the Bengali _h_ or _sh_, and a few other dialectic changes. Indeed, so close was the resemblance that for a time Bengali was used as the court and official language of the province under British rule. But with the development of the country the Assamese tongue asserted its claims to be treated as a distinct vernacular, and a resolution of government (1873) re-established it as the language of official life and public business.

The Assam peasant, living in a half-populated province, and surrounded by surplus land, is indolent, good-natured and, on the whole, prosperous. He raises sufficient food for his wants with very little labour, and, with the exception of a few religious ceremonies, he has no demand made upon him for money, saving the light rental of his fields. Under the peaceful influences of British rule, he has completely lost his ancient warlike instincts, and forgotten his predatory habits. In complexion he is a shade or two fairer than the Bengali. His person is in general short and robust, but devoid of the grace and flexibility of the Hindu. A flat face, with high cheek-bones, presents a physiognomy resembling the Chinese, and suggests no idea of beauty. His hair is abundant, black, lank and coarse, but the beard is scanty, and usually plucked out, which gives him an effeminate appearance. The women form a striking contrast to the men; there is more of feminine beauty in them than is commonly seen in the women of Bengal, with a form and feature somewhat approaching the European. The habits of life of the Assamese peasantry are pre-eminently domestic. Great respect is paid to old age; when parents are no longer capable of labour they are supported by their children, and scarcely any one is allowed to become a burden to the public. They have also in general a very tender regard for their offspring, and are generous and kind to their relations. They are hospitable to people of their own caste, but to no others. The use of opium is very general.

_Hill Tribes._--The hill and frontier tribes of Assam include the Nagas, Singphos, Daphlas, Miris, Khamtis, Mishmis, Abors, &c., nearly all of whom, excepting the Nagas, are found near the frontiers of Lakhimpur district. The principal of these, in point of numbers, are the Nagas, who inhabit the hills and forests along the eastern and south-eastern frontier of Assam. They reside partly in the British district of the Naga hills and partly in independent territory under the political control of the deputy-commissioner of the adjoining districts. They cultivate rice, cotton, yams and Indian corn, and prepare salt from the brine springs in their hills. The different tribes of Nagas are independent of and unconnected with one another, and are often at war with each other. The Singphos are another of the main population of the same race, who occupy in force the hilly country between the Patkai and Chindwin rivers, and are nominally subject to Burma. The Akas, Daphlas, Miris, Abors, Mishmis and Khamtis are described under separate headings. Under regulation V. of 1873, an inner line has been laid down in certain districts, up to which the protection of British authority is guaranteed, and beyond which, except by special permission, it is not lawful for British subjects to go. This inner line has been laid down in Darrang towards the Bhutias, Akas and Daphlas; in Lakhimper towards the Daphlas, Miris, Abors, Mishmis, Khamtis, Singphos and Nagas; and in Sibsagar towards the Nagas. The inner line formerly maintained along the Lushai border has since 1895 been allowed to fall into desuetude, but Lushais visiting Cachar are required to take out passes from the superintendent of the Lushai hills. The line is marked at intervals by frontier posts held by military police and commanding the roads of access to the tract beyond; and any person from the plains who has received permission to cross the line has to present his pass at these posts.

_History._--Assam was the province of Bengal which remained most stubbornly outside the limits of the Mogul empire and of the Mahommedan polity in India. Indeed, although frequently overrun by Mussulman armies, and its western districts annexed to the Mahommedan vice-royalty of Bengal, the province maintained an uncertain independence till its invasion by the Burmese towards the end of the 18th century, and its final cession to the British in 1826. It seems to have been originally included, along with the greater part of north-eastern Bengal, in the old Hindu territory of Kamrup. Its early legends point to great religious revolutions between the rival rites of Krishna and Siva as a source of dynastic changes. Its roll of kings extends deep into prehistoric times, but the first rajah capable of indentification flourished about the year 76 A.D. Kamrup, the Pragjotishpur of the ancient Hindus, was the capital of a legendary king Narak, whose son Bhagadatta distinguished himself in the great war of the _Mahabharata_.

When Hsuan Tsang visited the country in A.D. 640, a prince named Kumar Bhaskara Barman was on the throne. The people are described as being of small stature with dark yellow complexions; they were fierce in appearance, but upright and studious. Hinduism was the state religion, and the number of Buddhists was very small. The soil was deep and fertile, and the towns were surrounded by moats with water brought from rivers or banked-up lakes. Subsequently we read of Pal rulers in Assam. It is supposed that these kings were Buddhist and belonged to the Pal dynasty of Bengal. Although the whole of Kamrup appears from time to time to have been united into one kingdom under some unusually powerful monarch, it was more often split up into numerous petty states; and for several centuries the Koch, the Ahom and the Chutia powers contested for the Assam valley. In the early part of the 13th century the Ahoms or Ahams, from northern Burma and the Chinese frontiers, poured into the eastern districts of Assam, founded a kingdom, and held it firmly for several centuries. The Ahoms were Shans from the ancient Shan kingdom of Pong. Their manners, customs, religion and language were, and for a long time continued to be, different from those of the Hindus; but they found themselves compelled to respect the superior civilization of this race, and slowly adopted its customs and language. The conversion of their king Chuchengpha to Hinduism took place in the year A.D. 1655, and all the Ahoms of Assam gradually followed his example. In medieval history, the Assamese were known to the Mussulman population as a warlike, predatory race, who sailed down the Brahmaputra in fleets of innumerable canoes, plundered the rich districts of the delta, and retired in safety to their forests and swamps. As the Mahommedan power consolidated itself in Bengal, repeated expeditions were sent out against these river pirates of the north-east. The physical difficulties which an invading force had to contend with in Assam, however, prevented anything like a regular subjugation of the country; and after repeated efforts, the Mussulmans contented themselves with occupying the western districts at the mouth of the Assam valley. The following details will suffice for the history of a struggle in which no great political object was attained, and which left the Assamese still the same wild and piratical people as when their fleets of canoes first sallied forth against the Bengal delta. In 1638, during the reign of the emperor Shah Jahan, the Assamese descended the Brahmaputra, and pillaged the country round the city of Dacca; they were expelled by the governor of Bengal, who retaliated upon the plunderers by ravaging Assam. During the civil wars between the sons of Shah Jahan, the king of Assam renewed his predatory incursions into Bengal; upon the termination of the contest, Aurangzeb determined to avenge these repeated insults, and despatched a considerable force for the regular invasion of the Assamese territory (1660-1662). His general, Mir Jumla, defeated the rajah, who fled to the mountains, and most of the chiefs made their submission to the conqueror. But the rains set in with unusual violence, and Mir Jumla's army was almost annihilated by famine and sickness. Thus terminated the last expedition against Assam by the Mahommedans, whose fortunes in this country were never prosperous. A writer of the Mahommedan faith says:--"Whenever an invading army has entered their territories, the Assamese have sheltered themselves in strong posts, and have distressed the enemy by stratagems, surprises and alarms, and by cutting off their provisions. If these means failed, they have declined a battle in the field, but have carried the peasants into the mountains, burned the grain and left the country desert. But when the rainy season has set in upon the advancing enemy, they have watched their opportunity to make excursions and vent their rage; the famished invaders have either become their prisoners or been put to death. In this manner powerful and numerous armies have been sunk in that whirlpool of destruction, and not a soul has escaped." The same writer states that the country was spacious, populous and hard to be penetrated; that it abounded in dangers; that the paths and roads were beset with difficulties; and that the obstacles to conquest were more than could be expressed. The inhabitants, he says, were enterprising, well-armed and always prepared for battle. Moreover, they had lofty forts, numerously garrisoned and plentifully provided with warlike stores; and the approach to them was opposed by thick and dangerous jungles, and broad and boisterous rivers. The difficulties in the way of successful invasion are of course not understated, as it was the object of the writer to exalt the prowess and perseverance of the faithful. He accounts for their temporary success by recording that "the Mussulman hordes experienced the comfort of fighting for their religion, and the blessings of it reverted to the sovereignty of his just and pious majesty." The short-lived triumph of the Mussulmans might, however, have warranted a less ambitious tone. About the middle of the 17th century the chief became a convert to Hinduism. By what mode the conversion was effected does not clearly appear, but whatever were the means employed, it seems that the decline of the country commenced about the same period. Internal dissensions, invasion and disturbances of every kind convulsed the province, and neither prince nor people enjoyed security. Late in the 18th century some interference took place on the part of the British government, then conducted by Lord Cornwallis; but the successor of that nobleman, Sir John Shore, adopting the non-intervention policy, withdrew the British force, and abandoned the country to its fate. Its condition encouraged the Burmese to depose the rajah, and to make Assam a dependency of Ava. The extension of their encroachments on a portion of the territory of the East India Company compelled the British government to take decisive steps for its own protection. Hence arose the series of hostilities with Ava known in Indian history as the first Burmese War, on the termination of which by treaty in February 1826, Assam remained a British possession. In 1832 that portion of the province denominated Upper Assam was formed into an independent native state, and conferred upon Purandhar Singh, the ex-rajah of the country; but the administration of this chief proved unsatisfactory, and in 1838 his principality was reunited with the British dominions. After a period of successful administration and internal development, under the lieutenant-governor of Bengal, it was erected into a separate chief-commissionership in 1874.

In 1886 the eastern Dwars were annexed from Bhutan; and in 1874 the district of Goalpara, the eastern Dwars and the Garo hills were incorporated in Assam. In 1898 the southern Lushai hills were transferred from Bengal to Assam, and the north and south Lushai hills were amalgamated as a district of Assam, and placed under the superintendent of the Lushai hills. Frontier troubles occasionally occur with the Akas, Daphlas, Abors and Mishmis along the northern border, arising out of raids from the independent territory into British districts. In October 1905 the whole province of Assam was incorporated in the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam.

See E.A. Gait, _The History of Assam_ (1906).

ASSAMESE, the Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Assam valley. In 1901 the number of its speakers was 1,350,846. It is closely related to Bengali and Oriya, forming with them and with Bihari the Eastern Group of the Indo-Aryan vernaculars. For further particulars see BENGALI.

ASSAROTTI, OTTAVIO GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1753-1829), the founder of schools for the education of deaf-mutes in Italy, was born at Genoa in 1753. After qualifying himself for the church, he entered the society of the Pietists, "Scuole Pie," who devoted themselves to the training of the young. His superior learning caused him to be appointed to lecture on theology to the students of the order. In 1801 he heard of the Abbe Sicard's training of deaf-mutes in Paris, and resolved to try something similar in Italy. He began with one pupil, and had by degrees collected a small number round him, when, in 1805, Napoleon, hearing of his endeavours, ordered a convent to be given him for a school-house, and funds for supporting twelve scholars to be taken from the convent revenues. This order was scarcely attended to till 1811, when it was renewed, and in the following year Assarotti, with a considerable number of pupils, took possession of the new school. Here he continued, with the exception of a short interval in 1814, till his death in 1829. A pension, which had been awarded him by the king of Sardinia, he bequeathed to his scholars.

ASSARY, or ASSARION, a Roman copper coin, the "farthing" of Matthew x. 29.

ASSASSIN (properly _Hashishin_, from _Hashish_, the opiate made from the juice of hemp leaves), a general term for a secret murderer, originally the name of a branch of the Shiite sect (see SHIITES), known as Isma'ilites, founded by Hassan (ibn) Sabbah at the end of the 11th century, and from that time active in Syria and Persia until crushed in the 13th century by the Mongols under Hulaku (Hulagu) in Persia, and by the Mameluke Bibars in Syria. The father of Hassan Sabbah, a native of Khorasan, and a Shiite, had been frequently compelled to profess Sunnite orthodoxy, and from prudential motives had sent his son to study under an orthodox doctor at Nishapur. Here Hassan made the acquaintance of Nizam-ul-Mulk, afterwards vizier of the sultan Malik-Shah (see SELJUKS). During the reign of Alp-Arslan he remained in obscurity, and then appeared at the court of Malik-Shah, where he was at first kindly received by his old friend the vizier. Hassan, who was a man of great ability, tried to supplant him in the favour of the sultan, but was outwitted and compelled to take his departure from Persia. He went to Egypt (1078-79), and, on account of his high reputation, was received with great honour by the lodge at Cairo. He soon stood so high in the caliph Mostansir's favour as to excite against him the jealousy of the chief general, and a cause of open enmity soon arose. The caliph had nominated first one and then another of his sons as his successor, and in consequence a party division took place among the leading men. Hassan, who adopted the cause of Nizar, the eldest son, found his enemies too strong for him, and was forced to leave Egypt. After many adventures he reached Aleppo and Damascus, and after a sojourn there, settled near Kuhistan (Kohistan). He gradually spread his peculiar modification of Isma'ilite doctrine, and, having collected a considerable number of followers, formed them into a secret society. In 1090 he obtained, by stratagem, the strong mountain fortress of Alamut in Persia, and, removing there with his followers, settled as chief of the famous society afterwards called the Assassins.

The speculative principles of this body were identical with those of the Isma'ilites, but their external policy was marked by one peculiar and distinctive feature--the employment of secret "assassination" against all enemies. This practice was introduced by Hassan, and formed the essential characteristic of the sect. In organization they closely resembled the western lodge at Cairo. At the head was the supreme ruler, the _Sheik-al-Jabal_ (_Jebel_), i.e. Chief, or, as it is commonly translated, Old Man of the Mountains. Under him were three _Da'i-al-Kirbal_, or, as they may be called, grand priors, who ruled the three provinces over which the sheik's power extended. Next came the body of _Da'is_, or priors, who were fully initiated into all the secret doctrines, and were the emissaries of the faith. Fourth were the _Refiqs_, associates or fellows, who were in process of initiation, and who ultimately advanced to the dignity of _da'is_. Fifth came the most distinctive class, the _Fedais_ (i.e. the devoted ones), who were the guards or assassins proper. These were all young men, and from their ranks were selected the agents for any deed of blood. They were kept uninitiated, and the blindest obedience was exacted from and yielded by them. When the sheik required the services of any of them, the selected _fedais_ were intoxicated with the _hashish_. When in this state they were introduced into the splendid gardens of the sheik, and surrounded with every sensual pleasure. Such a foretaste of paradise, only to be granted by their supreme ruler, made them eager to obey his slightest command; their lives they counted as nothing, and would resign them at a word from him. Finally, the sixth and seventh orders were the _Lasiqs_, or novices, and the common people. Hassan well knew the efficacy of established law and custom in securing the obedience of a mass of people; accordingly, upon all but the initiated, the observances of Islam were rigidly enforced. As for the initiated, they knew the worthlessness of positive religion and morality; they believed in nothing, and scoffed at the practices of the faithful.

The Assassins soon began to make their power felt. One of their first victims was Hassan's former friend, Nizam-ul-Mulk, whose son also died under the dagger of a secret murderer. The death by poison of the sultan Malik-Shah was likewise ascribed to this dreaded society, and contributed to increase their evil fame. Sultan Sinjar, his successor, made war upon them, but he was soon glad to come to terms with enemies against whose operations no precaution seemed available. After a long and prosperous rule Hassan died at an advanced age in 1124. He had previously slain both his sons, one on suspicion of having been concerned in the murder of a _da'i_ at Kuhistan, the other for drinking wine, and he was therefore compelled to name as his successor his chief _da'i_, Kia-Busurg-Omid.

During the fourteen years' reign of this second leader, the Assassins were frequently unfortunate in the open field, and their castles were taken and plundered; but they acquired a stronghold in Syria, while their numerous murders made them an object of dread to the neighbouring princes, and spread abroad their evil renown. A long series of distinguished men perished under the daggers of the _fedais_; even the most sacred dignity was not spared. The caliph Mostarshid was assassinated in his tent, and not long after, the caliph Rashid suffered a similar fate. Busurg-Omid was succeeded by his son Mahommed I., who, during the long period of twenty-five years, ruthlessly carried out his predecessor's principles. In his time Massiat became the chief seat of the Syrian branch of the society. Mahommed's abilities were not great, and the affections of the people were drawn towards his son Hassan, a youth of great learning, skilled in all the wisdom of the initiated, and popularly believed to be the promised Imam become visible on earth. The old sheik prevented any attempt at insurrection by slaying 250 of Hassan's adherents, and the son was glad to make submission. When, however, he attained the throne, he began to put his views into effect. On the 17th of the month Ramadan, 1164, he assembled the people and disclosed to them the secret doctrines of the initiated; he announced that the doctrines of Islam were now abolished, that the people might give themselves up to feasting and joy. Soon after, he announced that he was the promised Imam, the caliph of God upon earth. To substantiate these claims he gave out that he was not the son of Mahommed, but was descended from Nizar, son of the Egyptian caliph Mostansir, and a lineal descendant of Isma'il. After a short reign of four years Hassan was assassinated by his brother-in-law, and his son Mahommed II. succeeded. One of his first acts was to slay his father's murderer, with all his family and relatives; and his long rule, extending over a period of forty-six years, was marked by many similar deeds of cruelty. He had to contend with many powerful enemies, especially with the great Atabeg sultan Nureddin, and his more celebrated successor, Saladin, who had gained possession of Egypt after the death of the last Fatimite caliph, and against whom even secret assassination seemed powerless. During his reign, also, the Syrian branch of the society, under their _da'i_, Sinan, made themselves independent, and remained so ever afterwards. It was with this Syrian branch that the Crusaders made acquaintance; and it appears to have been their emissaries who slew Count Raymund of Tripoli and Conrad of Montferrat.

Mahommed II. died from the effects of poison, administered, it is believed, by his son, Jelaleddin Hassan III., who succeeded. He restored the old form of doctrine--secret principles for the initiated, and Islam for the people--and his general piety and orthodoxy procured for him the name of the new Mussulman. During his reign of twelve years no assassinations occurred, and he obtained a high reputation among the neighbouring princes. Like his father, he was removed by poison, and his son, 'Ala-ed-din Mahommed III., a child of nine years of age, weak in mind and body, was placed on the throne. Under his rule the mild principles of his father were deserted, and a fresh course of assassination entered on. In 1255, after a reign of thirty years, 'Ala-ed-din was slain, with the connivance of his son, Rukneddin, the last ruler of the Assassins. In the following year Hulaku (Hulagu), brother of the Tatar, Mangu Khan, invaded the hill country of Persia, took Alamut and many other castles, and captured Rukneddin (see MONGOLS). He treated him kindly, and, at his own request, sent him under escort to Mangu. On the way, Rukneddin treacherously incited the inhabitants of Kirdkuh to resist the Tatars. This breach of good faith was severely punished by the khan, who ordered Rukneddin to be put to death, and sent a messenger to Hulaku (Hulagu) commanding him to slay all his captives. About 12,000 of the Assassins were massacred, and their power in Persia was completely broken. The Syrian branch flourished for some years longer, till Bibars, the Mameluke sultan of Egypt, ravaged their country and nearly extirpated them. Small bodies of them lingered about the mountains of Syria, and are believed still to exist there. Doctrines somewhat similar to theirs are still to be met with in north Syria.

See J. von Hammer, _Geschichte der Assassinen_ (1818); S. de Sacy, _Memoires de l'lnstitut_, iv. (1818), who discusses the etymology fully; _Calcutta Review_, vols. lv., lvi.; A. Jourdain in Michaud's _Histoire des Croisades_, ii. pp. 465-484, and trans. of the Persian historian Mirkhond in _Notices et extraits des manuscrits_, xiii. pp. 143 sq.; cf. R. Dozy, _Essai sur l'histoire de l'Islamisme_ (Leiden and Paris, 1879); ch. ix. (G. W. T.)

ASSAULT (from Lat. _ad_, to or on, and _saltare_, to leap), in English law, "an attempt or offer with force or violence to do corporal hurt to another, as by striking at another with a stick or other weapon, or without a weapon, though the party misses his aim." Notwithstanding ancient opinions to the contrary, it is now settled that mere words, be they ever so provoking, will not constitute an assault. Coupled with the attempt or threat to inflict corporal injury, there must in all cases be the means of carrying the threat into effect. A _battery_ is more than a threat or attempt to injure the person of another; the injury must have been inflicted, but it makes no difference however small it may be, as the law does not "draw the line between degrees of violence," but "totally prohibits the first and lowest stage of it." Every battery includes an assault. A common assault is a misdemeanour, and is punishable by imprisonment with or without hard labour to the extent of one year, and if it occasions bodily harm, with penal servitude for three years, or imprisonment to the extent of two years, with or without hard labour. There are various different kinds of assaults which are provided against by particular enactments of parliament, such as the Offences against the Person Act 1861, the Prevention of Crimes Act 1871, &c.; and there are also certain aggravated assaults for which the punishment is severer than for common assault, as an assault with intent to murder, with intent to commit a rape, &c. In certain cases an assault and battery is sometimes justifiable, as in the case where a person in authority, as a parent or schoolmaster, inflicts moderate punishment upon a child, or in certain cases of self-defence, or in defence of one's goods and chattels. An assault may be both a tort and a crime, giving a civil action for damages to the person injured, as well as being the subject of a criminal prosecution.

_United States._--The general principles applicable throughout the United States are the same as in England. Riding a horse threateningly near a person; or riding a bicycle against another (_Mercer v. Corbin_, 117 Indiana Rep. 450); waking one from sleep to present a milk bill (_Richmond v. Fiske_, 160 Mass. 34), are assaults. A minor is liable for damages for an assault (_Hildreth v. Hancock_, 156 Illinois Rep. 618). In Texas it has been held that an assault with a knife is not necessarily an aggravated assault (_Warren v. State_, 3 S.W. 240), and an axe is not necessarily a "deadly weapon" with which to assault (_Gladney v. State_, 12 S.W. 868), and the State must prove that it would be likely to produce death or serious bodily injury (_Melton v. State_, 17 S.W. 257). Neither a pistol nor brass knuckles are necessarily deadly weapons; the State must show their size or manner of use in making the assault (_Ballard v. State_, 13 S.W. 674; _Miles v. State_, 5 S.W. 250). But in 1903 a pistol was held by the Texas Supreme Court to be a deadly weapon if not used simply as a club (_Lockland v. State_, 73 S.W. 1054), and the same court held in 1904 that a pistol is a deadly weapon (_Pace v. State_, 79 S.W. 531), and so the assault was an aggravated assault. In North Carolina it has been held that an axe is _ex vi termini_ a "deadly weapon" (_State v. Shields_, 110 N.C. 49).

ASSAYE, a village of Hyderabad or the Nizam's Dominions, in southern India, just beyond the Berar frontier. The place is celebrated as the site of a battle fought on the 23rd of September 1803 between the combined Mahratta forces Under Sindhia and the rajah of Berar and the British under Major-General Wellesley, afterwards the duke of Wellington. The Mahratta force consisted of 50,000 men, supported by 100 pieces of cannon served by French artillerymen, and entrenched in a strong position. Against this the English had but a force of 4500 men, which, however, after a severe struggle, gained the most complete victory that ever crowned British valour in India. Of the enemy 12,000 were killed and wounded; and General Wellesley lost 1657--one-third of his little force--killed and wounded. Assaye is 261 m. north-west of Hyderabad.

ASSAYING. To "assay" (or "essay"; Fr. _essayer_) is in general to try, or attempt, so to make trial or test. In a restricted sense the term assaying is applied in metallurgy to the determination of the amount of gold or silver in ores or alloys; in this article, however, it will be used in a wider technical signification, and will include a description of the methods for the quantitative determination of those elements in ores which affect their value in metallurgical operations. It would be impossible to give in detail here all the precautions necessary for the successful use of the methods, and the descriptions will therefore be confined to the principles involved and the general manner in which they are applied to secure the desired results.

_Gold and Silver._--Ores containing gold or silver are almost invariably assayed in the dry way; that is, by fusion with appropriate fluxes and ultimate separation of the elements in the metallic form. One of the customs which has grown out of our peculiar system of weights is the form of statement of the results of such an assay. Instead of expressing the amounts of gold and silver in percentages of the weight of ore, they are expressed in ounces to the ton, the ounce being the troy ounce and the ton that of 2000 avoirdupois pounds. To simplify calculation and to enable the assayer to use the metric system of weights employed in all chemical calculations, the "assay ton" ("A.T." = 29.166 grammes) has been devised, which bears the same relation to the ton of 2000 lb. avoirdupois that one milligram does to the troy ounce; when one assay ton of ore is used, each milligram of gold or silver found represents one ounce to the ton.

The assay of an ore for gold or silver consists of two operations. In the first the gold or silver is made to combine or alloy with metallic lead, the other constituents of the ore being separated from the lead as slag. In the second, the lead button containing the gold or silver is cupelled and the resulting gold or silver button is weighed. The first is conducted in one of two ways, known respectively as the crucible method and the scorification method. The crucible method is generally used for ores containing gold in small amounts and for certain classes of silver ores. The amount of ore taken for assay is generally one-half "A.T.," but in very low-grade ores one, two, and sometimes even four "A.T.s" are used. In the scorification method one-tenth of an "A.T." is the amount commonly taken. While in both methods the same result is sought, the means employed are quite different. In the scorification method the ore is mixed in the scorifier (a shallow dish of burned clay) with from ten to twenty times its weight of granulated metallic lead (test lead) and a little borax glass, and heated in a muffle, the front of which is at first closed. When the lead melts and begins to oxidize, the lead oxide, or so-called litharge, combines with or dissolves the non-metallic and readily oxidizable constituents of the ore, while the gold and silver alloy with the lead. As the slag thus formed flows off to the sides of the scorifier, the assay clears and the melted metallic lead forms an "eye" in the middle. The door of the muffle is then opened and the current of air which is drawn over the scorifier rapidly oxidizes the lead, while the melted litharge gradually closes over the metal. When the "eye" has quite disappeared the door is closed and the temperature raised to make the slag very liquid. The scorifier is taken from the muffle in a pair of tongs and the contents poured into a mould, the lead forming a button in the bottom while the slag floats on top. When cold, the contents of the mould are taken out and the lead button hammered into the form of a cube, the slag, which is glassy and brittle, separating readily from the metal, which is then ready for cupellation. In the crucible method the ore is mixed with from once to twice its weight of flux, which varies in composition, but of which the following may be taken as a type:--

Sodium bicarbonate . . . 8 parts. Potassium carbonate . . . 3 " Powdered borax . . . . . 4 " Flour . . . . . . . . . . 1 " Litharge . . . . . . . . 9 "

The mixture is charged into a round clay crucible from 100 mm. to 125 mm. high, and heated either in a muffle or in a crucible furnace at a gradually increasing heat for forty or fifty minutes. At the expiration of this time, when the charge should be perfectly liquid and in a tranquil state of fusion, the crucible is removed from the furnace and the contents are poured into a mould. The resulting lead button hammered into shape and carefully cleansed from slag is ready for the cupel. If the button is too large for cupellation, or if it is hard, it may be scorified either alone or mixed with test lead before cupellation. The character and amount of the flux necessarily depend upon the character of the ore, the object being to concentrate in the lead button all the gold and silver while dissolving and carrying off in the slag the other constituents of the ore. Under the most favourable conditions there is a slight loss of gold and silver in the fusion, the scorification and the cupellation, both by absorption in the slag and by actual volatilization and absorption in the cupel. In ores containing much copper, this metal is largely concentrated in the lead button, making it hard, and necessitating repeated scorifications and, in some cases, a preliminary removal of the copper by solution of the ore in nitric acid. This leaves the gold in the insoluble residue, which is filtered off, and the silver in the solution is thrown down by hydrochloric acid. The resulting precipitate of silver chloride is filtered, and the residue and the precipitate are scorified together. Ores containing much arsenic or sulphur are generally roasted at a low heat and the assay is made on the roasted material.

The process of cupellation is briefly as follows:--The gold alloy is fused with a quantity of lead, and a little silver if silver is already present. The resulting alloy, which is called the _lead button_, is then submitted to fusion on a very porous support, made of bone-ash, and called a _cupel_. The fusion being effected in a current of air, the lead oxidizes. The heat is sufficient to keep the resulting lead oxide fused, and the porous cupel has the property of absorbing melted lead oxide without taking up any of the metallic globule, exactly in the same way that blotting-paper will absorb water whilst it will not touch a globule of mercury. The heat being continued, and the current of air always passing over the surface of the melted lead button, and the lead oxide being sucked up by the cupel as fast as it is formed, the metallic globule rapidly diminishes in size until at last all the lead has been got rid of. Now, if this were the only action, little good would have been gained, for we should simply have put lead into the gold alloy, and then taken it out again; but another action goes on whilst the lead is oxidizing in the current of air. Other metals, except the silver and gold, also oxidize, and are carried by the melted litharge into the cupel. If the lead is therefore rightly proportioned to the standard of alloy, the resulting button will consist of only gold and silver, and these are separated by the operation of _parting_, which consists in boiling the alloy (after rolling it to a thin plate) in strong nitric acid, which dissolves the silver and leaves the gold as a coherent sponge. To effect this parting properly, the proportion of silver to gold should be as 3 to 1. The operation by which the alloy is brought to this standard is termed _quartation_ or _inquartation_, and consists in fusing the alloy in a cupel with lead and the quantity of fine silver or fine gold necessary to bring it to the desired composition.

_Lead._--The "dry" or fire assay for lead is largely used for the valuation of lead ores, although it is being gradually replaced by volumetric methods. One part of the ore is mixed with from three to five parts of a flux of the following composition:--

Potassium carbonate . . . . . 40.6 % Sodium bicarbonate . . . . . 31.3 " Borax . . . . . . . . . 15.6 " Flour . . . . . . . . . 12.5 "

The mixture is charged into a clay crucible and heated for twenty minutes at a good red heat. When the mixture has been in a tranquil state of fusion for a few minutes it is poured into a mould. When cold, the button is hammered, cleaned carefully from slag, and weighed. The proportion is calculated from the amount of ore used, and the result is expressed in parts in a hundred or percentage of the ore. Various impurities, such as copper, antimony and sulphur, go into the lead button, so that the result is generally too high. The most accurate method for the determination of lead in ores is the gravimetric method, in which it is weighed as lead sulphate after the various impurities have been separated. Nearly all lead ores contain more or less sulphur; and as in the process of solution in nitric acid this is oxidized to sulphuric acid which unites with the lead to form the very insoluble lead sulphate, it is simpler to add sulphuric acid to convert all the lead into sulphate and then evaporate until the nitric acid is expelled. The salts of iron, copper, &c., are then dissolved in water and filtered from the insoluble silica, lead sulphate, and calcium sulphate, which are washed with dilute sulphuric acid. The insoluble matter is treated with a hot solution of alkaline ammonium acetate, which dissolves the lead sulphate, the other materials being separated by filtration. The lead sulphate, re-precipitated in the filtrate by an excess of sulphuric acid and alcohol, is then filtered on an asbestos felt in a Gooch crucible, washed with dilute sulphuric acid and alcohol, ignited, and weighed. Lead sulphate contains 68.30% of metallic lead.

There are several volumetric methods for assaying lead ores, but the best known is that based on the precipitation of lead by ammonium molybdate in an acetic acid solution. The lead sulphate, obtained as described above and dissolved in ammonium acetate, is acidulated with acetic acid diluted with hot water and heated to boiling-point. A standardized solution of ammonium molybdate is then added from a burette. As long as the solution contains lead, the addition of the molybdate solution causes a precipitation of white lead molybdate. An excess of the precipitant is shown by a drop of the solution imparting a yellow colour to a solution of tannin, prepared by dissolving one part of tannin in 300 of water; drops of this solution are placed on a white porcelain plate, and as the precipitant is added to the lead solution a drop of the latter is removed from time to time on a glass stirring-rod and added to one of the drops on the porcelain plate. The appearance of a yellow colour shows that all the lead has been precipitated and that the solution contains an excess of molybdate. From the reading of the burette the lead is calculated. The molybdate solution should be of such a strength that 1 cc. will precipitate 0.01 gramme of lead. It is standardized by dissolving a weighed amount of lead sulphate in ammonium acetate and proceeding as described above.

_Zinc._--Chemically the ores of zinc consist of the silicates, carbonates, oxides, and sulphides of zinc associated with other metals, some of which complicate the methods of assay. The most modern and the most generally accepted method is volumetric, and is based on the reaction between zinc chloride and potassium ferrocyanide, by which insoluble zinc ferrocyanide and soluble potassium chloride are formed; the presence of the slightest excess of potassium ferrocyanide is shown by a brownish tint being imparted by the solution to a drop of uranium nitrate. The ore (0.5 gramme) is digested with a mixture of potassium nitrate and nitric acid. A saturated solution of potassium chlorate in strong nitric acid is added, and the mass evaporated to dryness. It is then heated with a mixture of ammonium chloride and ammonia, filtered and washed with a hot dilute solution of the same mixture. The filtrate diluted to 200 cc. is carefully neutralized with hydrochloric acid, and excess of 6 cc. of the strong acid is added, and the solution saturated with hydrogen sulphide, which precipitates the copper and cadmium, metals which would otherwise interfere. Without filtering, the standard solution is added from a burette, and from time to time a drop of the solution is removed on the glass stirring-rod and added to a drop or two of a strong solution of uranium nitrate, previously placed on a white porcelain plate. The appearance of a brown tint in one of these tests shows the end of the reaction. When cadmium is not present the copper may be precipitated by boiling the acidulated ammoniacal solution with test lead and titrating, as before described, without removing the lead and copper from the solution. The ferrocyanide solution is standardized by dissolving 1 gramme of pure zinc in 6 cc. of hydrochloric acid, adding ammonium chloride, and titrating as before. This method is modified in practice by the character of the ores, carbonates and silicates free from sulphides being decomposed by hydrochloric acid, with the addition of a little nitric acid.

_Copper._--The fire assay for copper ores was abandoned years ago and the electrolytic method took its place; this in turn is now largely replaced by volumetric methods. In the electrolytic method from 0.5 to 5 grammes of ore are treated in a flask or beaker, with a mixture of 10 cc. of nitric and 10 cc. of sulphuric acid, until thoroughly decomposed. When this liquid is cold it is diluted with cold water, heated until all the soluble salts are dissolved, transferred to a tall, narrow beaker, and diluted to about 150 cc. The electrodes are attached to a frame connected with the battery and the beaker is placed on a stool, which can be raised so that the electrodes are immersed in the liquid and reach the bottom of the beaker. The electrodes consist of two cylinders of platinum (placed one inside the other) about 75 mm. high, the smaller of the two 37 mm. and the larger 50 mm. in diameter, both pierced with 10 to 12 holes 5 mm. in diameter, evenly distributed over the surfaces to facilitate diffusion of the liquids. The surfaces of the cylinders are roughened with a sand blast to increase the areas and make the deposited metals adhere more firmly. Each cylinder has a platinum wire fused to the upper circumference to connect with a clamp from which a wire leads to the proper pole of the battery. The smaller cylinder is generally the negative electrode on which the copper is deposited. The framework carrying the clamps is arranged so that a number of determinations may be made at one time, the wires from the clamps running from a rheostat, so arranged that currents of any strength may be used simultaneously. The cylinder, having been carefully weighed, is placed in position, the beaker containing the solution is adjusted, and the current passed until all the copper is precipitated. This generally requires from two to twelve hours. The cylinders are then removed from the solution and washed with distilled water, the one holding the deposited copper being washed with alcohol, dried and weighed; the increase in weight represents the copper contents of the ore. The deposited copper should be firmly adherent and bright rosy red in colour. Silver, arsenic and cadmium, if present, are precipitated with the copper and affect the accuracy of the results; they should be removed by special methods.

Volumetric methods are more expeditious and require less apparatus. The potassium cyanide method is based on the fact that, when potassium cyanide is added to an ammoniacal solution of a salt of copper, the insoluble copper cyanide is formed, the end of the reaction being indicated by the disappearance of the blue colour of the solution. One gramme of the ore is treated in a flask with a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids and evaporated until all the nitric acid is expelled. After cooling a little, water is added, and then a few grammes of aluminium foil free from copper. On this foil the copper in the solution is all precipitated by electrolytic action in a few minutes, and the aluminium is dissolved by the addition of an excess of sulphuric acid. Water is added, and as soon as the gangue and copper particles have settled the clear solution is decanted, and the residue washed several times in the same way. The copper is then dissolved in 5 cc. of nitric acid; if silver is present a drop or two of hydrochloric acid is added, the solution diluted to about 50 cc., and filtered. To the filtrate (or, if no silver is present, to the diluted nitric acid solution) 10 cc. of ammonia are added, and a standard solution of potassium cyanide is run in from a burette until the blue colour has nearly disappeared. The solution is filtered to get rid of the precipitate, and the titration is finished in the nearly clear nitrate, which should be always about 200 cc. in volume. The titration is complete when the blue colour is so faint that it is almost imperceptible after the flask has been vigorously shaken. The potassium cyanide solution is standardized by dissolving 0.5 gramme of pure copper in 5 cc. of nitric acid, diluting, adding 10 cc. of ammonia, and titrating exactly as described above.

When potassium iodide is added to a solution of cupric acetate, the reaction Cu(C2H3O2)2 + 2KI = CuI + 2K(C2H3O2) + I takes place; that is, for each atom of copper one atom of iodine is liberated. If a solution of sodium thiosulphate (hyposulphite) is added to this solution, hydriodic acid, sodium iodide and tetrathionate are formed; and if a little starch solution has been added, the end of the reaction is indicated by the disappearance of the blue colour, due to the iodide of starch. The amount of iodine liberated is therefore a measure of the copper in the solution, and when the sodium thiosulphate has been carefully standardized the method is extremely accurate. The ore is treated as described in the cyanide method until the copper precipitated by the aluminium foil has been washed and dissolved in 5 cc. of nitric acid; then 0.25 gramme of potassium chlorate is added, and the solution boiled nearly dry to oxidize any arsenic present to arsenic acid. The solution is cooled, 50 cc. water added, then 5 cc. ammonia, and the solution is boiled for five minutes. Next 5 cc. of glacial acetic acid are added, the solution cooled, and 5 cc. of a solution of potassium iodide (300 grammes to the litre) and the standard solution of sodium thiosulphate run in from a burette until the brown colour has nearly disappeared. A few drops of starch solution are then added, and when the blue colour has nearly vanished a drop or two of methyl orange makes the end reaction very sharp. The thiosulphate solution is standardized by dissolving 0.3 to 0.5 gramme of pure copper in 3 cc. of nitric acid, adding 50 cc. of water and 5 cc. of ammonia, and titrating as above after the addition of 5 cc. of glacial acetic acid and 5 cc. of the potassium iodide solution.

_Iron._--The methods used in the assay for iron are volumetric, and are all based on the property possessed by certain reagents of oxidizing iron from the ferrous to the ferric state. Two salts are in common use for this purpose, potassium permanganate and potassium bichromate. It is necessary in the first place, after the ore is in solution, to reduce all the iron to the ferrous condition; then the carefully standardized solution of the oxidizing reagent is added until all the iron is in the ferric state, the volume of the standard solution used being the measure of the iron contained in the ore. The end of the reaction when potassium permanganate is employed is known by the change in colour of the solution. As the solution of potassium permanganate, which is deep red in colour, is dropped into the colourless iron solution, it is quickly decolorized while the iron solution gradually assumes a yellowish tinge, the first drop of the permanganate solution in excess giving it a pink tint. With potassium bichromate solution, which is yellow, the iron solution becomes green from the chromium chloride or sulphate formed, and the end of the reaction is determined by removing a drop of the solution on the stirring-rod and adding it to a drop of a dilute solution of potassium ferricyanide on a white tile. So long as the solution contains a ferrous salt, the drop on the tile changes to blue; hence the absence of a blue coloration indicates the complete oxidation of all the ferrous salt and the end of the reaction. One gramme of ore is usually taken for assay and treated in a small flask or beaker with 10 cc. of hydrochloric acid. All the iron in the ore generally dissolves upon heating, and a white residue is left. Occasionally this residue contains a small amount of iron in a difficultly soluble form; in that case the solution is slightly diluted with water and filtered into a larger flask. The residue in the filter is ignited and fused with a little sodium carbonate and nitrate, or with sodium peroxide. The product is treated with water, filtered, and the residue dissolved in hydrochloric acid and added to the main solution. This solution, which should not exceed 50 cc. or 75 cc. in volume, contains the iron in the ferric state and is ready for reduction.

In the reduction by metallic zinc, about 3 grammes of granulated or foliated zinc are placed in the flask, which is closed with a small funnel; when the iron is reduced, add 10 cc. of sulphuric acid, and as soon as all the zinc is dissolved the solution is ready for titration. In the reduction by stannous chloride the solution of the ore in the flask is heated to boiling, and a strong solution of stannous chloride is added until the solution is completely decolorized; then 60 cc. of a solution of mercuric chloride (50 grammes to the litre) are run in and the contents of the flask poured into a dish containing 600 cc. of water and 60 cc. of a solution containing 200 grammes of manganous sulphate, 1 litre of phosphoric acid (1.3 sp. gr.), 400 cc. of sulphuric acid, and 1600 cc. of water. The solution is then ready for titration with the standard permanganate solution.

The permanganate or bichromate solution is standardized by dissolving 0.5 of a gramme of pure iron wire in a flask, in hydrochloric acid, oxidizing it with a little potassium chlorate, boiling off all traces of chlorine, deoxidizing by one of the methods described above, and titrating with the solution. As the wire always contains impurities, the absolute amount of iron in the wire must be determined and the correction made accordingly. Pure oxalic acid may also be used, which, in the presence of sulphuric acid, is oxidized by the standard solution according to the reaction:--

5(H2C2O42H2O) + 3H2SO4 + 2KMnO4 = 10CO2 + 2MnSO4 + K2SO4 + 18H2O.

The reaction in case of ferrous sulphate is:--

10FeSO4 + 2KMnO4 + 8H2SO4 = 5Fe2(SO4)3 + K2SO4 + 2MnSO4 + 8H2O;

that is, the same amount of potassium permanganate is required to oxidize 5 molecules of oxalic acid that is necessary to oxidize 10 molecules of iron in the form of ferrous sulphate to ferric sulphate, or 63 parts by weight of oxalic acid equal 56 parts by weight of metallic iron. Ammonium ferrous sulphate may also be used; it contains one-seventh of its weight of iron. (A. A. B.)

ASSEGAI, or ASSAGAI (from Berber-Arab _as-zahayah_, through Portuguese _azagaia_), a weapon for throwing or hurling, a light spear or javelin made of wood and pointed with iron, particularly the spear used by the Zulu and other Kaffir tribes of South Africa. In addition to the long-handled assegai there is a shorter weapon for use at close quarters.

ASSELIJN, HANS (1610-1660), Dutch painter, was born at Diepen, near Amsterdam. He received instruction from Esaias Vandevelde (1587-1630), and distinguished himself particularly in landscape and animal painting, though his historical works and battle pieces are also admired. He travelled much in France and Italy, and modelled his style greatly after Bamboccio (Peter Laer). He was one of the first Dutch painters who introduced a fresh and clear manner of painting landscapes in the style of Claude Lorraine, and his example was speedily followed by other artists. Asselijn's pictures were in high estimation at Amsterdam, and several of them are in the museums of that city. Twenty-four, painted in Italy, were engraved.

ASSEMANI, the name of a Syrian Maronite family of famous Orientalists.

1. JOSEPH SIMON, a Maronite of Mount Lebanon, was born in 1687. When very young he was sent to the Maronite college in Rome, and was transferred thence to the Vatican library. In 1717 he was sent to Egypt and Syria to search for valuable MSS., and returned with about 150 very choice ones. The success of this expedition induced the pope to send him again to the East in 1735, and he returned with a still more valuable collection. On his return he was made titular archbishop of Tyre and librarian of the Vatican library. He instantly began to carry into execution most extensive plans for editing and publishing the most valuable MS. treasures of the Vatican. His two great works are the _Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana rec. manuscr. codd. Syr., Arab., Pers., Turc., Hebr., Samarit., Armen., Aethiop., Graec., Aegypt., Iber., et Malab., jussu et munif. Clem. XI._ (Rome, 1719-1728), 9 vols. folio, and _Ephraemi Syri opera omnia quae extant, Gr., Syr., et Lat._, 6 vols. folio (Rome, 1737-1746). Of the _Bibliotheca_ the first three vols. only were completed. The work was to have been in four parts--(1) Syrian and allied MSS., orthodox, Nestorian and Jacobite; (2) Arabian MSS., Christian and Mahommedan; (3) Coptic, Aethiopic, Persian and Turkish MSS.; and (4) Syrian and Arabian MSS. not distinctively theological; only the first part was completed, but extensive preparations were made for the others. There is a German abridgment by A.F. Pfeiffer.

2. JOSEPH ALOYSIUS, brother of Joseph Simon, and professor of Oriental languages at Rome. He died in 1782. Besides aiding his brother in his literary labours, he published, in 1749-1760, _Codex Liturgicus Ecclesiae Universae in xv. libris_ (this is incomplete), and _Comment. de Catholicis sive Patriarchis Chaldaeorum et Nestorianorum_ (Rome, 1775).

3. STEPHEN EVODIUS, nephew of Joseph Simon and Joseph Aloysius, was the chief assistant of his uncle Joseph Simon in his work in the Vatican library. He was titular archbishop of Apamea in Syria, and held several rich prebends in Italy. His literary labours were very extensive. His two most important works were a description of certain valuable MSS. in his _Bibliotheae Mediceo-Laurentianae et Palatinae codd. manuscr. Orientalium Catalogus_ (Flor. 1742), fol., and his _Acta SS. Martyrum Orientalium._ He made several translations from the Syrian, and in conjunction with his uncle he began the _Bibliothecae Apostol. Vatic. codd. manusc. Catal., in tres partes distributus._ Only three vols. were published, and the fire in the Vatican library in 1768 consumed the manuscript collections which had been prepared for the continuation of the work.

4. SIMON, grandnephew of Joseph Simon, was born at Tripoli in 1752, and was professor of Oriental languages in Padua. He died in 1820. He is best known by his masterly detection of the literary imposture of Vella, which claimed to be a history of the Saracens in Syria.

ASSEMBLY, UNLAWFUL, the term used in English law for an assembly of three or more persons with intent to commit a crime by force, or to carry out a common purpose (whether lawful or unlawful), in such a manner or in such circumstances as would in the opinion of firm and rational men endanger the public peace or create fear of immediate danger to the tranquillity of the neighbourhood. In the Year Book of the third year of Henry VII.'s reign assemblies were referred to as not punishable unless _in terrorem populi domini regis_. It has been suggested (Criminal Code Commission, 1879) that legislation first became necessary at a time when it was usual for those landed proprietors who were on bad terms with one another to go to market at the head of bands of armed retainers (Statute of Northampton, 1328, 2 Edw. III. c. 3). An assembly, otherwise lawful, is not made unlawful if those who take part in it know beforehand that there will probably be organized opposition to it, and that it may cause a breach of the peace (_Beatty v. Gillbanks_, 1882, 9 Q.B.D. 308). All persons may, and must if called upon to do so, assist in dispersing an unlawful assembly (_Redford v. Birley_, 1822, 1 St. Tr. n.s. 1215; _R. v. Pinney_, 1831, 3 St. Tr. n.s. 11). An assembly which is lawful cannot be rendered unlawful by proclamation unless the proclamation is one authorized by statute (_R. v. Fursey_, 1833, 3 St. Tr. n.s. 543, 567; _R. v. O'Connell_, 1831, 2 St. Tr. n.s. 629, 656; see also the Prevention of Crimes [Ireland] Act 1887). Meetings for training or drilling, or military movements, are unlawful assemblies unless held under lawful authority from the crown, the lord-lieutenant, or two justices of the peace (Unlawful Drilling Act 1820, s. 11).

An unlawful assembly which has made a motion towards its common purpose is termed a _rout_, and if the unlawful assembly should proceed to carry out its purpose, e.g. begin to demolish a particular enclosure, it becomes a riot (q.v.). All three offences are misdemeanours in English law, punishable by fine and imprisonment. The common law as to unlawful assembly extends to Ireland, subject to the special legislation referred to under the title RIOT. The law of Scotland includes unlawful assembly under the same head as rioting.

_British Dominions Abroad._--The law of the British colonies as a general rule as to unlawful assemblies follows the common law of England. The definitions in the Criminal Codes of Canada (1892, s. 79) and Queensland (1899, s. 61) are substantially the same as the common-law definition above given. Under the Indian Penal Code (s. 141) an assembly of five or more persons is designated an unlawful assembly if the common object of the persons composing that assembly is--(1) to overawe by criminal force, or show of criminal force, the legislative or executive government of India, or the government of any presidency or any lieutenant-governor, or any public servant in the exercise of the lawful power of such public servant; (2) to resist the execution of any law or of any legal process; (3) to commit any mischief or "criminal trespass" or other offence; (4) by means of criminal force or show of criminal force to any person, to take or obtain possession of any property, or to deprive any person of the enjoyment of a right of way, or of the use of water, or other corporeal right of which he is in possession or enjoyment, or to enforce any right or supposed right; or (5) by means of criminal force or show of criminal force, to compel any person to do what he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do what he is legally entitled to do (see Mayne, _Ind. Cr. Law_, ed. 1896, p. 480). In South Africa and Mauritius the law on this subject is derived from the Roman Dutch and French law (see RIOT.)

_United States._--The common-law definition of unlawful assembly is accepted in the United States subject to the special legislation of the constituent states. The New York Penal Code (s. 451) declares that whenever three or more persons being assembled attempt or threaten any act tending towards a breach of the peace or injury to person or property, or any unlawful act, such assembly is unlawful (see Bishop, _Amer. Crim. Law_, 8th ed., 1892, vol. i. s. 534, vol. ii. s. 1256).

ASSEN, the capital of the province of Drente, Holland, 16 m. by rail S. of Groningen, at the junction of the two canals which run north and south to Groningen and Meppel respectively. Pop. (1900) 11,329. It is

## partly surrounded by a small forest belonging to the state. Assen

possesses schools (a gymnasium and burgher school), a chamber of commerce, a museum of antiquities and a court-house. Peat-cutting forms a considerable industry. Many prehistoric remains found in the neighbourhood are in the museum at Leiden. Until the 19th century Assen was a small place built round the convent in which Otto II. (of Lippe), bishop of Utrecht, was murdered after being taken prisoner at Koevorden in 1237.

ASSER, or ASSERIUS MENEVENSIS (d. c. 910), English bishop, and author of a life of Alfred the Great, was a native of the western part of Wales, and was related to Nobis, bishop of St David's. He became a monk at St David's, and having acquired some reputation for learning, he was invited by King Alfred to his court. The king met the monk at Denu (probably East or West Dean, near Seaford in Sussex), but Asser did not at once accept the invitation of Alfred, and returned to Wales to consult his colleagues. He then agreed to spend six months of each year with the king and six months in his own land; but his first stay at the royal court extended to eight months, and it is probable that the annual visit to Wales was curtailed if not altogether discontinued. It is difficult to fix the date of Asser's arrival in England, but it was probably about 885. He assisted the king in his studies, received from him the monasteries of Congresbury and Banwell, and sometime later "Exeter and its diocese in Saxonland and Cornwall." He became bishop of Sherborne before 900, and his death is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the date 910, although it is possible that it occurred a year or two earlier. The scanty details of Asser's life are taken from his biography of Alfred, from which it is inferred that he was acquainted with one or two Frankish biographies, and possibly had visited the continent of Europe.

Asser's work, _Annales rerum gestarum Alfredi magni_, was written about 893, and consists of a chronicle of English history from 849 to 887, and an account of Alfred's life, largely drawn from personal knowledge, down to 887. The only manuscript of which there is any record dates from about 1000, and was destroyed by fire in 1731. From this manuscript an edition was printed in 1574 under the direction of Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury; but this contained many interpolations and alterations which were copied by subsequent editors. The text has since been the subject of careful study, and the edition edited by W.H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904) distinguishes between the original work of Asser and the later additions. Some doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of the work, especially by T. Wright in the _Biographia Britannica literaria_ (London, 1842), who ascribes the life to a monk of St Neots; but the latest scholarship regards it as the work of Asser, although all the difficulties which surround the authorship have not been removed. The life was largely used by subsequent chroniclers, among others by Florence of Worcester, Simeon of Durham, Roger of Hoveden, and William of Malmesbury.

See W.H. Stevenson, Introduction to Asser's _Life of King Alfred_ (Oxford, 1904); R. Pauli, Introduction to _Konig Aelfred_ (Berlin, 1851).

ASSESSMENT, (from Lat. _assessare_, to sit beside, to judge), a term expressing either an official valuation of income or property for purposes of taxation, or the amount so determined (see TAXATION and VALUATION). It is also applied to the amount of damages fixed by a jury in a court of law (see DAMAGES).

An _assessment committee_ is a statutory committee appointed under the Union Assessment Acts 1862, 1880, for the purpose of making out the valuation lists upon which the poor-law rate is based.

An _assessment policy_, in life insurance, is a policy issued at a fixed premium, the excess of which over the portion necessary to meet current claims and expenses goes to form a reserve fund which is devoted to various forms of benefit for the policy-holders. See INSURANCE and FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.

ASSESSOR (Lat. _assessare_, _assidere_, to sit by), a Roman term originally applied to a trained lawyer who sat beside a governor of a province or other magistrate, to instruct him in the administration of the laws (see Roll, _De assessoribus magistratuum Romanorum_, Leipzig, 1872). The system is still exemplified in Scotland, where it is usual in the larger towns for municipal magistrates, in the administration of their civil jurisdiction, to have the aid of professional assessors. In England, by the Judicature Act 1873, the court of appeal and the High Court may in any cause or matter call in the aid of assessors. The Patents Act 1907 makes special provision for assessors in patent and trade-mark cases. By the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1891 the House of Lords may, in appeals in admiralty actions, call in the aid of assessors, while in the admiralty division of the High Court it is usual for the Elder Brethren of Trinity House to assist as nautical assessors. In admiralty cases in the county courts, too, the judge is frequently assisted by assessors of "nautical skill and experience" (County Court Admiralty Jurisdiction Act 1868). In the ecclesiastical courts assessors assist the bishop in proceedings under the Church Discipline Act 1840, s. 11, while under the Clergy Discipline Act 1892, s. 2, they assist the chancellor in determining questions of fact. By the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876, s. 14, the king in council may make rules for the attendance of archbishops and bishops as assessors in the hearing of ecclesiastical cases by the judicial committee of the privy council.

The term "assessor" is also very generally applied to persons appointed to ascertain and fix the value of rates, taxes, &c., and in this sense the word is used in the United States.

In France and in all European countries where the civil law system prevails, the term _assesseur_ is applied to those assistant judges who, with a president, compose a judicial court.

In Germany an _Assessor_, or _Beisitzer_, is a member of the legal profession who has passed four years in actual practice and become qualified for the position of a judge.

ASSETS (from the O. Nor. Fr. _assetz_, mod. Fr. _assez_, "enough"), in English law, strictly the property of a debtor in the hands of his representative sufficient for the satisfaction of his creditors or legatees. Thus the property of a bankrupt is termed his assets and is the fund out of which his liabilities must be paid. All property of the debtor is assets, and it is not necessary that it should have been reduced into possession by him.

The creditors of a debtor are either secured or unsecured. A secured creditor, e.g. a mortgagee, has a prior claim to be paid his debt out of his security. If on realization of the security there is a balance after paying the debt, such balance becomes assets for the unsecured creditors; if there is a deficit, then the creditor becomes an unsecured creditor for such deficit. The unsecured creditors were formerly divided into creditors by specialty and by simple contract, the first being creditors secured by instrument under seal who ranked in priority to simple contract creditors. But by Hinde Palmer's Act [the Executors Act] 1869 all unsecured creditors rank alike.

Assets are divisible into legal assets and equitable assets, and the former class is again divisible into assets real and personal. These distinctions, though formerly of great importance, have now lost most of their meaning, but it is necessary briefly to describe the nature of these divisions and their consequences. The distinction between assets legal and equitable depends entirely upon the remedy open to the creditor to recover his debt and in no way upon the nature of the property from which the debt is sought to be recovered. If the creditor had to sue the executor of a debtor at law to obtain payment out of the property, that property was legal assets; but if the only remedy open to the creditor to get at the property was to bring an action in chancery for the administration of the estate, then the assets were equitable.

Legal assets, as has been said, were divided into real and personal assets. The personal assets were those which devolved _virtute officii_ on the executor or administrator; such assets are since Hinde Palmer's Act available equally for specialty and simple contract creditors. The real assets consisted of those descending to the heir or devised to a devisee, and were at law only liable for specialty debts. However, by the Land Transfer Act 1897 it is provided that the real estate of a deceased shall devolve upon the executor and "shall be administered in the same manner ... and with the same incidents as if it were personal estate." The distinction, therefore, between assets real and personal has practically ceased to exist, and only continues in regard to such property as is not included in the act, the most important of which is land held in copyhold.

The equitable assets were treated otherwise. In the eyes of equity all unsecured creditors stand upon the same footing, and a creditor suing for administration of the estate sued on behalf of himself and all other creditors of the estate, and the distinction between specialty and simple contract creditors was ignored. Land was not at law liable to satisfy simple contract creditors; but if a testator expressly charged it with payment of his debts or devised it to his executors upon trust to pay his debts, equity treated it as equitable assets and so made it available to satisfy simple contract creditors; and finally by an act of 1833 it was provided that real estate should in all cases be assets to be administered by equity for the benefit of simple contract creditors as well as creditors by specialty. It will be seen therefore that, generally speaking, all creditors have now the same remedies against the executors either at law or in equity. The only property as to which these distinctions at all survive is that not touched by the Land Transfer Act 1897.

The act of 1833 just mentioned does not, however, deal with legacies, which continue to be payable only out of personalty unless they are expressly charged upon the realty by the testator; it has been contended that the effect of the Land Transfer Act 1897 has been to alter this and make the realty assets for the purpose of paying legacies, but this view is believed to be unsound.

It is necessary for the representative so to distribute the assets that any fund primarily liable shall bear its proper burden, and that as far as possible all debts and legacies may be paid; this is said to be "marshalling the assets," and a few examples of the principal cases of marshalling will make this clear. If the personalty is exhausted in satisfying the creditors the legatees are left without a fund from which to be paid. But inasmuch as the creditor could have got paid out of the realty, as well as the personalty, it is not fair that the legatee should suffer by the creditor's choice, and he will therefore get payment from the real estate. So again if one legacy is charged upon the real estate and another is not, then if the former be paid out of the personalty the latter will stand in its place and be paid from the real estate.

Finally it shall be noticed that an insolvent estate may be administered in bankruptcy. In such a case the law of bankruptcy regulates the order in which the assets are divided among the creditors (see BANKRUPTCY), but by the Judicature Act 1875, it is provided that an insolvent estate may be administered in the chancery division, and in such a case "the same rules shall prevail and be observed as to the respective rights of secured and unsecured creditors and as to the debts and liabilities provable and as to the valuation of annuities and future and contingent liabilities respectively as may be in force for the time being under the law of bankruptcy." This clause must be construed strictly, and it is only in the three cases specifically mentioned that the rules of bankruptcy will be imported into the administration of an insolvent estate by the chancery division.

In a less strict sense, the term "assets," or "an asset," is used derivatively as a synonym for any property, or as opposed to "liabilities." Cecil Rhodes once spoke of the British flag as a "great commercial asset" in South Africa, meaning merely that the imperial connexion was a source of strength and credit.

ASSIDEANS (the Anglicized form, derived through the Greek, of the Hebrew _Hasidim_, "the pious"), the name of a party or sect which stood out against the Hellenization of the Jews in the 2nd century B.C. After the massacre of those who fled from the forces of Antiochus Epiphanes and would not resist on the sabbath, Mattathias (or Judas) decided to set aside the law and was joined by a company of Assideans, brave men of Israel every one, who offered themselves willingly for the law (1 Macc. ii. 42, cf. 2 Macc. viii. 1). On the appointment of Alcimus (162 B.C.), "a descendant of Aaron" as high-priest, "the Assideans were the first who sought peace" (1 Macc. vii. 13 f.); but the treacherous murder of sixty of them (ib. 16) threw them back into the arms of Judas. According to 2 Macc. xiv., Alcimus identified them with the whole party of the rebels, of which they were only one, though the most important, section.

See Schurer, _Geschichte des judischen Volkes_, i. 203; art. in _Jewish Encyclopaedia_, s.v. "Hasidim" (S.M. Dubnow). (J. H. A. H.)

ASSIGNATS (from Lat. _assignatus_, assigned), a form of paper-money issued in France from 1789 to 1796. Assignats were so termed, as representing land _assigned_ to the holders.

The financial strait of the French government in 1789 was extreme. Coin was scarce, loans were not taken up, taxes had ceased to be productive, and the country was threatened with imminent bankruptcy. In this emergency assignats were issued to provide a substitute for a metallic currency. They were originally of the nature of mortgage bonds on the national lands. These lands consisted of the church property confiscated, on the motion of Mirabeau, by the Constituent Assembly on the 2nd of November 1789, and the crown lands, which had been taken over by the nation on the 7th of October (see FRENCH REVOLUTION).

The assignats were first to be paid to the creditors of the state. With these the creditors could purchase national land, the assignats having, for this purpose, the preference over other forms of money. If the creditor did not care to purchase land, it was supposed that he could obtain the face-value for them from those who desired land. Those assignats which were returned to the state as purchase-money were to be cancelled, and the whole issue, it was argued, would consequently disappear as the national lands were distributed.

A first issue was made of 400,000,000 francs' worth of assignats, each note being of 100 francs' value and bearing interest daily at a rate of 5%. They were to be redeemed by the product of the sales, and from certain other sources, at the rate of 120,000,000 francs in 1791, 100,000,000 francs in 1792, 80,000,000 francs in 1793 and 1794, and the surplus in 1795. The success of the issue was undoubted, and, possibly, if the assignats had been restricted, as Mirabeau at first desired, to the extent of one-half the value of the lands sold, they would not have shared the usual fate of inconvertible paper money. Mirabeau was a strenuous advocate of the assignats. "They represent," he said, "real property, the most secure of all possessions, the soil on which we tread." "There cannot be a greater error than the fear so generally prevalent as to the over-issue of assignats ... reabsorbed progressively in the purchase of the national domains, this paper-money can never become redundant."

In 1790 the interest was reduced to 3%, and as the treasury had again become exhausted, a further issue was decided upon; it was also decreed that the assignats were to be accepted as legal tender, all public departments being instructed to receive them as the equivalent of metallic money. This second issue amounted to 800,000,000 francs and carried no interest. It was solemnly declared in the decree authorizing the issue that the maximum issue was never to exceed twelve hundred millions. This pledge, however, was soon broken, and further issues brought the total up to 3,750,000,000 francs. The consequence of these further issues was instant depreciation, and the note of 100 francs nominal value sank to less than 20 francs coin. Recourse was then had to protective legislation. The first step was to decree the penalty of six years' imprisonment against any person who should sell specie for a more considerable quantity of assignats, or who should stipulate a different price for commodities according as the payment was to be made in specie or in assignats. For the second offence the penalty was to be twenty years' imprisonment (August 1, 1793), for which the death penalty was ultimately substituted (May 10, 1794). This severe provision was, however, repealed after the fall of Robespierre. Notwithstanding these precautions, the value of assignats still declined, till the proportion to specie had become that of six to one. Then came the passing by the Convention on the 3rd of May 1793 of the absurd "maximum." The decree required all farmers and corn-dealers to declare the quantity of corn in their possession and to sell it only in recognized markets. No person was to be allowed to lay in more than one month's supply. A maximum price was fixed, above which no one was to buy or sell under severe penalties. These measures were soon stultified by further issues, and by June 1794 the total number of assignats aggregated nearly 8,000,000,000, of which only 2,464,000,000 had returned to the treasury and been destroyed. The extension of the "maximum" to all commodities only increased the confusion. Trade was paralysed and all manufacturing establishments were closed down. Attempts by the Convention to increase the value of the assignats were of no avail. Too many causes operated in favour of their depreciation: the enormous issue, the uncertainty as to their value if the Revolution should fail, the relation they bore to both specie and commodities, which retained their value and refused to be exchanged for a money of constantly diminishing purchasing power. Even between the assignats themselves there were differences. The royal assignats, which had been issued under Louis XVI., had depreciated less than the republican ones. They were worth from 8 to 15% more, a fact due to the hope that in case of a counter-revolution they would be less likely to be discredited.

The Directory was guilty of even greater abuses in dealing with the assignats. By 1796 the issues had reached the enormous figure of 45,500,000,000 francs, and even this gigantic total was swollen still more by the numerous counterfeits introduced into France from the neighbouring countries. The assignats had now become totally valueless--the abolition of the "maximum" the previous year (1795) had produced no effect, and, though, by various payments into the treasury, the total number had been reduced to about 24,000,000,000 francs, their face-value was about 30 to 1 of coin. At this value they were converted into 800,000,000 francs of land-warrants, or _mandats territoriaux_, which were to constitute a mortgage on all the lands of the republic. These _mandats_ were no more successful than the assignats, and even on the day of their issue were at a discount of 82%. They had an existence of six months, and were finally received back by the state at about the seventieth part of their face-value in coin.

AUTHORITIES.--L.A. Thiers, _Histoire de la revolution francaise_, gives a full and graphic account of the assignats, the causes of their depreciation, &c.; J. Garnier, _Traite des Finances_ (1862); J. Bresson, _Histoire financiere de la France_ (1829); R. Stourm, _Les Finances de l'ancien regime et de la revolution_ (1885); F.A. Walker, _Money_ (1891); Henry Higgs, in the _Cambridge Modern History_, vol. viii. (1904). (T. A. I.)

ASSIGNMENT, ASSIGNATION, ASSIGNEE (from Lat. _assignare_, to mark out), terms which, as derivatives of the verb "to assign," are of frequent technical use in law. To assign is to make over, and the term is generally used to express a transference by writing, in contradistinction to a transference by actual delivery. In England the usual expression is assignment, in Scotland it is assignation. The person making over is called the _assignor_ or _cedent_; the recipient, the _assign_ or _assignee_. An assignee may be such either _by deed_, as when a lessee assigns his lease to another, or _in law_, as when property devolves upon an executor. The law as to assignment in connexion with each particular subject, as the assignment of a chose in

## action, assignment in contract, of dower, of errors, of a lease, &c.,

will be found under the respective headings. In a colloquial sense, "assignation" means a secretly contrived meeting between lovers.

ASSINIBOIA, a name formerly applied to two districts of Canada, but not now held by any. (1) A district formed in 1835 by the Hudson's Bay Company, having in it Fort Garry at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in Rupert's Land, North America. It extended over a circular area, with a radius of 50 m. from Fort Garry. It was governed by a local council nominated by the Hudson's Bay Company. It ceased to exist when Rupert's Land was transferred to Canada in 1870. (2) A district of the North-west Territories, which was given definite existence by an act of the Dominion parliament in 1875. Assiniboia extended from the western boundary of Manitoba (99 deg. W. in 1875, and 101 deg. 25' W. in 1881) to 111 deg. W., and from 49 deg. N. to 52 deg. N. The name was a misnomer, as it barely touched the Assiniboine river. To the north of the district lay the district of Saskatchewan, so that when the two were united by the Dominion act of 1905, they were somewhat changed in boundaries and the name Saskatchewan was given to the new province. The derivation of Assiniboia is from two Ojibway words, _assini_ meaning a stone, and the termination "to cook by roasting"; from these came a name first applied to a Dakota or Sioux tribe living on the Upper Red river; afterwards when this tribe separated from the Dakotas, its name was given to the branch of the Red river which the tribe visited, the river being known as the Assiniboine and the tribe as Assiniboin.

ASSINIBOIN ("Stone-Cookers"), a tribe of North American Indians of Siouan stock. Their name (see above) is said to refer to their method of boiling water by dropping red-hot stones into it. Their former range was between the Missouri and the middle Saskatchewan on both sides of the Canadian frontier. In 1904 there were 1234 in the United States, all on reservations in Montana; and in 1902 there were 1371 in Canada.

See _Handbook of American Indians_, ed. F.W. Hodge (Washington, 1907).

ASSISE (from the Fr., derived from Lat. _assidere_, to sit beside), a geological term for two or more beds of rock united by the occurrence of the same characteristic species or genera.

ASSISI (anc. _Asisium_), a town and episcopal see of Umbria, Italy, in the province of Perugia, 15 m. E.S.E. by rail from the town of Perugia. Pop. (1901) town, 5338; commune, 17,240. The town occupies a fine position on a mountain (1345 ft. above sea-level) with a view over the valleys of the Tiber and Topino. It is mainly famous in connexion with St Francis, who was born here in 1182, and returned to die in 1226. The Franciscan monastery and the lower and upper church of St Francis were begun immediately after his canonization in 1228, and completed in 1253, being fine specimens of Gothic architecture. The crypt was added in 1818, when the sarcophagus containing his remains was discovered. The lower church contains frescoes by Cimabue, Giotto and others, the most famous of which are those over the high altar by Giotto, illustrating the vows of the Franciscan order; while the upper church has frescoes representing scenes from the life of St Francis (probably by Giotto and his contemporaries) on the lower portion of the walls of the nave, and scenes from Old and New Testament history by pupils of Cimabue on the upper. The church of Santa Chiara (St Clare), the foundress of the Poor Clares, with its massive lateral buttresses, fine rose-window, and simple Gothic interior, was begun in 1257, four years after her death. It contains the tomb of the saint and 13th-century frescoes and pictures. Santa Maria Maggiore is also a good Gothic church. The cathedral (San Rufino) has a fine facade with three rose-windows of 1140; the interior was modernized in 1572. The town is dominated by the medieval castle (1655 ft.), built by Cardinal Albornoz (1367) and added to by Popes Pius II. and Paul III. Two miles to the east in a ravine below Monte Subasio is the hermitage _delle Carceri_ (2300 ft.), partly built, partly cut out of the solid rock, given to St Francis by Benedictine monks as a place of retirement. Below the town to the south-west, close to the station, is the large pilgrimage church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, begun in 1569 by Pope Pius V., with Vignola as architect; but not completed until 1640. It contains the original oratory of St Francis and the cell in which he died. Adjacent is the garden in which the saint's thornless roses bloom in May. Half a mile outside the town to the south-east is the convent of San Damiano, erected by St Francis, of which St Clare was first abbess.

In the early middle ages Assisi was subject to the dukes of Spoleto; but in the 11th century it seems to have been independent. It became involved, however, in the disputes of Guelphs and Ghibellines, and was frequently at war with Perugia. It was sacked by Perugia and the papal troops in 1442, and even after that continued to be the prey of factions. The place is now famous as a resort of pilgrims, and is also important for the history of Italian art. The poet Metastasio was born here in 1698.

See L. Duff-Gordon, _Assisi_ ("Mediaeval Towns" series, London, 1900). For ancient history see ASISIUM. (T. As.)

ASSIUT, or SIUT, capital of a province of Upper Egypt of the same name, and the largest and best-built town in the Nile Valley south of Cairo, from which it is distant 248 m. by rail. The population rose from 32,000 in 1882 to 42,000 in 1900. Assiut stands near the west bank of the Nile across which, just below the town, is a barrage, completed in 1902, consisting of an open weir, 2733 ft. long, and over 100 bays or sluices, each 16-1/2 ft. wide, which can be opened or closed at will. At the western end of the barrage begins the Ibrahimia canal, the feeder of the Bahr Yusuf, the largest irrigation canal of Egypt. The Ibrahimia canal is skirted by a magnificent embankment planted with shady trees leading from the river to the town. There are several bazaars, baths and handsome mosques, one noted for its lofty minaret, and here the American Presbyterian mission has established a college for both sexes. Assiut is famous for its red and black pottery and for ornamental wood and ivory work, which find a ready market all over Egypt. It is one of the chief centres of the Copts. Here also is the northern terminus of the caravan route across the desert, which, passing through the Kharga oasis, goes south-west to Darfur. It is known as the Arbain, or forty days road, from the time occupied on the journey. Assiut (properly Asyut) is the successor of the ancient Lycopolis (Eg. Sioout), capital of the 13th nome of Upper Egypt. Here were worshipped two canine gods (see ANUBIS), Ophois (Wepwoi) being the principal god of the city, while Anubis apparently presided over the necropolis. No ruins are visible, the mounds of the old city being for the most part hidden under modern buildings; but the slopes of the limestone hills behind it are pierced with an infinity of rock-cut tombs, some of which were large and decorated with sculptures, paintings and long inscriptions. The archaeological commission of the _Description de l'Egypte_ visited them in 1799, when the walls of many of the large tombs were still almost intact; in the first half of the 19th century (and to some extent later) an immense amount of destruction was caused by blasting for stone. Three of the tombs illustrate one of the darkest periods in Egypt's history, when the princes of Siut played a leading part in the struggle between Heracleopolis and Thebes (Dyns. IX.-XI.); another, of the XIIth Dynasty, contains a remarkable inscription detailing the contracts made by the nomarch with the priests of the temples of Ophois and Anubis for perpetual services at his tomb (see Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt, Historical Documents_, vol. i. pp. 179, 258). Remains of the mummies of dogs and similar animals sacred to these deities are scattered among the debris on the hillside in abundance. Lycopolis was the birthplace of Plotinus, the founder of Neo-Platonism (A.D. 205-270). From the 4th century onwards its grottoes were the dwellings of Christian hermits, amongst whom John of Lycopolis was the most celebrated. (F. Ll. G.)

ASSIZE, or ASSISE (Lat. _assidere_, to sit beside; O. Fr. _assire_, to sit, _assis_, seated), a legal term, meaning literally a "session," but in fact, as Littleton has styled it, a _nomen aequivocum_, meaning sometimes a jury, sometimes the sittings of a court, and sometimes the ordinances of a court or assembly.

It originally signified the form of trial by a jury of sixteen persons, which eventually superseded the barbarous judicial combat; this jury was named the grand assize and was sworn to determine the right of seisin of land (see EVIDENCE). The grand assize was abolished in 1833; but the term assize is still applicable to the jury in criminal causes in Scotland.

In the only sense in which the word is not now almost obsolete, assize means the periodical session of the judges of the High Court of Justice, held in the various counties of England, chiefly for the purposes of gaol delivery and trying causes at _nisi prius_. Previous to Magna Carta (1215) writs of assize had all to be tried at Westminster, or to await trial in the locality in which they had originated at the septennial circuit of the justices in eyre; but, by way of remedy for the great consequent delay and inconvenience, it was provided by this celebrated act that the assizes of _mort d'ancestor_ and _novel disseisin_ should be tried annually by the judges in every county. By successive enactments, the civil jurisdiction of the justices of assize was extended, and the number of their sittings increased, till at last the necessity of repairing to Westminster for judgment in civil actions was almost obviated to country litigants by an act, passed in the reign of Edward I., which provided that the writ summoning the jury to Westminster should also appoint a time and place for hearing such causes within the county of their origin. The date of the alternative summons to Westminster was always subsequent to the former date, and so timed as to fall in the vacation preceding the Westminster term, and thus "_Unless before_," or _nisi prius_, issues came to be dealt with by the judges of assize before the summons to Westminster could take effect. The _nisi prius_ clause, however, was not then introduced for the first time. It occurs occasionally in writs of the reign of Henry III. The royal commissions to hold the assizes are--(1) general, (2) special. The general commission is issued twice a year to the judges of the High Court of Justice, and two judges are generally sent on each circuit. It covers commissions--(1) of oyer and terminer, by which they are empowered to deal with treasons, murders, felonies, &c. This is their largest commission; (2) of _nisi prius_ (q.v.) (3) of gaol delivery, which requires them to try every prisoner in gaol, for whatsoever offence committed; (4) of the peace, by which all justices must be present at their county assizes, or else suffer a fine. Special commissions are granted for inquest in certain causes and crimes. See also the articles CIRCUIT; JURY.

Assizes, in the sense of ordinances or enactments of a court or council of state, as the "assize of bread and ale," the "assize of Clarendon," the "assize of arms," are important in early economic history. As early as the reign of John the observance of the _assisae venalium_ was enforced, and for a period of 500 years thereafter it was considered no unimportant part of the duties of the legislature to regulate by fixed prices, for the protection of the lieges, the sale of bread, ale, fuel, &c. (see ADULTERATION). Sometimes in city charters the right to assize such articles is specially conceded. Regulations of this description were beneficial in the repression of fraud and adulteration. Assizes are sometimes used in a wider legislative connexion by early chroniclers and historians--the "assisae of the realme," e.g. occasionally meaning the organic laws of the country. For the "assizes of Jerusalem" see CRUSADES.

The term assize, originally applying to an assembly or court, became transferred to actions before the court or the writs by which they were instituted. The following are the more important.

_Assize of darrien presentment_, or last presentation, was a writ directed to the sheriff to summon an assize or jury to enquire who was the last patron that presented to a church then vacant, of which the plaintiff complained that he was deforced or unlawfully deprived by the defendant. It was abolished in 1833 and the action of _quare impedit_ (q.v.) substituted. But by the Common Law Procedure Act 1860, no _quare impedit_ can be brought, so that an action in the king's bench of the High Court was substituted for it.

Assize of _mort d'ancestor_ was a writ which lay where a plaintiff complained of an "abatement" or entry upon his freehold, effected by a stranger on the death of the plaintiff's father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, &c. It was abolished in 1833.

Assize of _novel disseisin_ was an action to recover lands of which the plaintiff had been "disseised" or dispossessed. It was abolished in 1833. See Pollock and Maitland, _Hist. Eng. Law._

_Assize, clerk of_, an officer "who writes all things judicially done by the justices of assizes in their circuits." He has charge of the commission, and takes recognizances, records, judgments and sentences, grants certificates of conviction, draws up orders, &c. By the Clerks of Assize Act 1869 he must either have been for three years a barrister or solicitor in actual practice, or have acted for three years in the capacity of subordinate officer of a clerk of assize on circuit.

_United States._--There are no assize courts in the United States; it is not the custom for supreme court judges of the states to go on circuit, but the judges of the United States Supreme Court do sit as members of the United States circuit courts in the several states periodically throughout the year. These courts are not assize courts, but are federal as distinguished from state courts, and have a special and limited jurisdiction. In the several states the highest court is divided into departments, in each of which there are courts presided over by supreme court judges residing in that department, thus avoiding the assize court or circuit-going system.

ASSMANNSHAUSEN, a village of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, on the right bank of the Rhine and the railway from Frankfort-on-Main to Niederlahnstein. Pop. 1100. It has a lithium spring, baths and a _Kurhaus_, and is famed for its red wine (Assmannshauser), which resembles light Burgundy. From here a railway ascends the Niederwald.

ASSOCIATE (Lat. _associatus_, from _ad_, to, and _sociare_ to join). one who is united with another, and so generally a companion--in particular a subordinate member of an institution or society, as an associate of the Royal Academy, or one holding a degree in a learned society lower than that of fellow. In English law the associates are officers of the supreme court, whose duties are to draw up the list of causes, enter verdicts, hand the records to the parties, &c., and generally to conduct the business of trials. By the Judicature (Officers) Act 1879 they were styled masters of the supreme court, but the office is now amalgamated with the crown office department, of which they are clerks.

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS, or MENTAL ASSOCIATION, a term used in psychology to express the conditions under which representations arise in consciousness, and also for a principle put forward by an important historical school of thinkers to account generally for the facts of mental life. Modern physiological psychology has so altered the approach to this subject that much of the older discussion has become antiquated, but it may be recapitulated here for historical purposes.

_Earlier Theory._--In the long and erudite Note D**, appended by Sir W. Hamilton to his edition of Reid's Works, many anticipations of modern statements on association are cited from the works of ancient or medieval thinkers; and for Aristotle, in particular, the glory is claimed of having at once originated the doctrine and practically brought it to perfection.[1] As translated by Hamilton, but without his interpolations, the classical passage from the _De Memoria et Reminiscentia_ runs as follows:--

"When, therefore, we accomplish an act of reminiscence, we pass through a certain series of precursive movements, until we arrive at a movement on which the one we are in quest of is habitually consequent. Hence, too, it is that we hunt through the mental train, excogitating from the present or some other, and from similar or contrary or coadjacent. Through this process reminiscence takes place. For the movements are, in these cases, sometimes at the same time, sometimes parts of the same whole, so that the subsequent movement is already more than half accomplished."

The passage is obscure, but it does at all events indicate the various principles commonly termed contiguity, similarity and contrast. Similar principles are stated by Zeno the Stoic, by Epicurus (see Diog. Laert. vii. S 52, x. S 32), and by St Augustine (_Confessions_, x. e. 19). Aristotle's doctrine received a more or less intelligent expansion and illustration from the ancient commentators and the schoolmen, and in the still later period of transition from the age of scholasticism to the time of modern philosophy, prolonged in the works of some writers far into the 17th century, Hamilton adduced not a few philosophical authorities who gave prominence to the general fact of mental association--the Spaniard Ludovicus Vives (1492-1540) especially being most exhaustive in his account of memory.

In Hobbes's psychology much importance is assigned to what he called, variously, the succession, sequence, series, consequence, coherence, train of imaginations or thoughts in mental discourse. But not before Hume is there express question as to what are the distinct principles of association. John Locke had, meanwhile, introduced the phrase "Association of Ideas" as the title of a supplementary chapter incorporated with the fourth edition of his _Essay_, meaning it, however, only as the name of a principle accounting for the mental peculiarities of individuals, with little or no suggestion of its general psychological import. Of this last Hume had the strongest impression; he reduced the principles of association to three--Resemblance, Contiguity in time and place, Cause and (or) Effect. Dugald Stewart put forward Resemblance, Contrariety, and Vicinity in time and place, though he added, as another obvious principle, accidental coincidence in the sounds of words, and further noted three other cases of relation, namely, Cause and Effect, Means and End, Premisses and Conclusion, as holding among the trains of thought under circumstances of special attention. Reid, preceding Stewart, was rather disposed to make light of the subject of association, vaguely remarking that it seems to require no other original quality of mind but the power of habit to explain the spontaneous recurrence of trains of thinking, when become familiar by frequent repetition (_Intellectual Powers_, p. 387).

Hamilton's own theory of mental reproduction, suggestion or association is a development, greatly modified, of the doctrine expounded in his _Lectures on Metaphysics_ (vol. ii. p. 223, seq.), which reduced the principles of association first to two--Simultaneity and Affinity, and these further to one supreme principle of Redintegration or Totality. In the ultimate scheme he posits no less than four general laws of mental succession concerned in reproduction: (1) _Associability_ or possible co-suggestion (all thoughts of the same mental subject are associable or capable of suggesting each other); (2) _Repetition_ or direct remembrance (thoughts coidentical in modification, but differing in time, tend to suggest each other); (3) _Redintegration_, direct remembrance or reminiscence (thoughts once coidentical in time, are, however, different as mental modes, again suggestive of each other, and that in the mutual order which they originally held); (4) _Preference_ (thoughts are suggested not merely by force of the general subjective relation subsisting between themselves, they are also suggested in proportion to the relation of interest, from whatever source, in which they stand to the individual mind). Upon these follow, as special laws:--A, Primary--modes of the laws of Repetition and Redintegration--(1) law of Similars (Analogy, Affinity); (2) law of Contrast; (3) law of Coadjacency (Cause and Effect, &c.); B, Secondary--modes of the law of Preference, under the law of Possibility--(1) laws of Immediacy and Homogeneity; (2) law of Facility.

_The Associationist School._--This name is given to the English psychologists who aimed at explaining all mental acquisitions, and the more complex mental processes generally under laws not other than those which have just been set out as determining simple reproduction. Hamilton, though professing to deal with reproduction only, formulates a number of still more general laws of mental succession--law of Succession, law of Variation, law of Dependence, law of Relativity or Integration (involving law of Conditioned), and, finally, law of Intrinsic or Objective Relativity--as the highest to which human consciousness is subject; but it is in a sense quite different that the psychologists of the so-called Associationist School intend their appropriation of the principle or principles commonly signalized. As far as can be judged from imperfect records, they were anticipated to some extent by the experientialists of ancient times, both Stoic and Epicurean (cf. Diogenes Laertius, as above). In the modern period, Hobbes is the first thinker of permanent note to whom this doctrine may be traced. Though, in point of fact, he took anything but an exhaustive view of the phenomena of mental succession, yet, after dealing with trains of imagination, or what he called mental discourse, he sought in the higher departments of intellect to explain reasoning as a discourse in words, dependent upon an arbitrary system of marks, each associated with, or standing for, a variety of imaginations; and, save for a general assertion that reasoning is a reckoning--otherwise, a compounding and resolving--he had no other account of knowledge to give. The whole emotional side of mind, or, in his language, the passions, he, in like manner, resolved into an expectation of consequences, based on past experience of pleasures and pains of sense. Thus, though he made no serious attempt to justify his analysis in detail, he is undoubtedly to be classed with the associationists of the next century. They, however, were wont to trace their psychological theory no further back than to Locke's _Essay_. Bishop Berkeley was driven to posit expressly a principle of suggestion or association in these terms:--"That one idea may suggest another to the mind, it will suffice that they have been observed to go together, without any demonstration of the necessity of their coexistence, or so much as knowing what it is that makes them so to coexist" (_New Theory of Vision_, S 25); and to support the obvious application of the principle to the case of the sensations of sight and touch before him, he constantly urged that association of sound and sense of language which the later school has always put in the foreground, whether as illustrating the principle in general or in explanation of the supreme importance of language for knowledge. It was natural, then, that Hume, coming after Berkeley, and assuming Berkeley's results, though he reverted to the larger inquiry of Locke, should be more explicit in his reference to association; but he was original also, when he spoke of it as a "kind of attraction which in the mental world will be found to have as extraordinary effects as in the natural, and to show itself in as many and as various forms" (_Human Nature_, i. 1, S 4). Other inquirers about the same time conceived of association with this breadth of view, and set themselves to track, as psychologists, its effects in detail.

David Hartley in his _Observations on Man_, published in 1749 (eleven years after the _Human Nature_, and one year after the better-known _Inquiry_, of Hume), opened the path for all the investigations of like nature that have been so characteristic of English psychology. A physician by profession, he sought to combine with an elaborate theory of mental association a minutely detailed hypothesis as to the corresponding action of the nervous system, based upon the suggestion of a vibratory motion within the nerves thrown out by Newton in the last paragraph of the _Principia_. So far, however, from promoting the acceptance of the psychological theory, this physical hypothesis proved to have rather the opposite effect, and it began to be dropped by Hartley's followers (as F. Priestley, in his abridged edition of the _Observations_, 1775) before it was seriously impugned from without. When it is studied in the original, and not taken upon the report of hostile critics, who would not, or could not understand it, no little importance must still be accorded to the first attempt, not seldom a curiously felicitous one, to carry through that parallelism of the physical and psychical, which since then has come to count for more and more in the science of mind. Nor should it be forgotten that Hartley himself, for all his paternal interest in the doctrine of vibrations, was careful to keep separate from its fortunes the cause of his other doctrine of mental association. Of this the point lay in no mere restatement, with new precision, of a principle of coherence among "ideas," but in its being taken as a clue by which to follow the progressive development of the mind's powers. Holding that mental states could be scientifically understood only as they were analysed, Hartley sought for a principle of synthesis to explain the complexity exhibited not only in trains of representative images, but alike in the most involved combinations of reasonings and (as Berkeley had seen) in the apparently simple phenomena of objective perception, as well as in the varied play of the emotions, or, again, in the manifold conscious adjustments of the motor system. One principle appeared to him sufficient for all, running, as enunciated for the simplest case, thus: "Any sensations A, B, C, &c., by being associated with one another a sufficient number of times, get such a power over the corresponding ideas (called by Hartley also vestiges, types, images) _a, b, c_, &c., that any one of the sensations A, when impressed alone, shall be able to excite in the mind _b, c_, &c., the ideas of the rest." To render the principle applicable in the cases where the associated elements are neither sensations nor simple ideas of sensations, Hartley's first care was to determine the conditions under which states other than these simplest ones have their rise in the mind, becoming the matter of ever higher and higher combinations. The principle itself supplied the key to the difficulty, when coupled with the notion, already implied in Berkeley's investigations, of a coalescence of simple ideas of sensation into one complex idea, which may cease to bear any obvious relation to its constituents. So far from being content, like Hobbes, to make a rough generalization to all mind from the phenomena of developed memory, as if these might be straightway assumed, Hartley made a point of referring them, in a subordinate place of their own, to his universal principle of mental synthesis. He expressly put forward the law of association, endued with such scope, as supplying what was wanting to Locke's doctrine in its more strictly psychological aspect, and thus marks by his work a distinct advance on the line of development of the experiential philosophy.

The new doctrine received warm support from some, as Law and Priestley, who both, like Hume and Hartley himself, took the principle of association as having the like import for the science of mind that gravitation had acquired for the science of matter. The principle began also, if not always with direct reference to Hartley, yet, doubtless, owing to his impressive advocacy of it, to be applied systematically in special directions, as by Abraham Tucker (1768) to morals, and by Archibald Alison (1790) to aesthetics. Thomas Brown (d. 1820) subjected anew to discussion the question of theory. Hardly less unjust to Hartley than Reid or Stewart had been, and forward to proclaim all that was different in his own position, Brown must yet be ranked with the associationists before and after him for the prominence he assigned to the associative principle in sense-perception (what he called external affections of mind), and for his reference of all other mental states (internal affections) to the two generic capacities or susceptibilities of Simple and Relative Suggestion. He preferred the word Suggestion to Association, which seemed to him to imply some prior connecting process, whereof there was no evidence in many of the most important cases of suggestion, nor even, strictly speaking, in the case of contiguity in time where the term seemed least inapplicable. According to him, all that could be assumed was a general constitutional tendency of the mind to exist successively in states that have certain relations to each other, of itself only, and without any external cause or any influence previous to that operating at the moment of the suggestion. Brown's chief contribution to the general doctrine of mental association, besides what he did for the theory of perception, was, perhaps, his analysis of voluntary reminiscence and constructive imagination--faculties that appear at first sight to lie altogether beyond the explanatory range of the principle. In James Mill's _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_ (1829), the principle, much as Hartley had conceived it, was carried out, with characteristic consequence, over the psychological field. With a much enlarged and more varied conception of association, Alexander Bain re-executed the general psychological task, while Herbert Spencer revised the doctrine from the new point of view of the evolution-hypothesis. John Stuart Mill made only occasional excursions into the region of psychology proper, but sought, in his _System of Logic_ (1843), to determine the conditions of objective truth from the point of view of the associationist theory, and, thus or otherwise being drawn into general philosophical discussion, spread wider than any one before him its repute.

The Associationist School has been composed chiefly of British thinkers, but in France also it has had distinguished representatives. Of these it will suffice to mention Condillac, who professed to explain all knowledge from the single principle of association (_liaison_) of ideas, operating through a previous association with signs, verbal or other. In Germany, before the time of Kant, mental association was generally treated in the traditional manner, as by Wolff. Kant's inquiry into the foundations of knowledge, agreeing in its general purport with Locke's, however it differed in its critical procedure, brought him face to face with the newer doctrine that had been grafted on Locke's philosophy; and to account for the fact of synthesis in cognition, in express opposition to associationism, as represented by Hume, was, in truth, his prime object, starting, as he did, from the assumption that there was that in knowledge which no mere association of experiences could explain. To the extent, therefore, that his influence prevailed, all inquiries made by the English associationists were discounted in Germany. Notwithstanding, under the very shadow of his authority a corresponding, if not related, movement was initiated by J.F. Herbart. Peculiar, and widely different from anything conceived by the associationists, as Herbart's metaphysical opinions were, he was at one with them, and at variance with Kant, in assigning fundamental importance to the psychological investigation of the development of consciousness, nor was his conception of the laws determining the interaction and flow of mental presentations and representations, when taken in its bare psychological import, essentially different from theirs. In F.E. Beneke's psychology also, and in more recent inquiries conducted mainly by physiologists, mental association has been understood in its wider scope, as a general principle of explanation.

The associationists differ not a little among themselves in the statement of their principle, or, when they adduce several principles, in their conception of the relative importance of these. Hartley took account only of Contiguity, or the repetition of impressions synchronous or immediately successive; the like is true of James Mill, though, incidentally, he made an express attempt to resolve the received principle of Similarity, and through this the other principle of Contrast, into his fundamental law--law of Frequency, as he sometimes called it, because upon frequency, in conjunction with vividness of impressions, the strength of association, in his view, depended. In a sense of his own, Brown also, while accepting the common Aristotelian enumeration of principles, inclined to the opinion that "all suggestion may be found to depend on prior coexistence, or at least on such proximity as is itself very probably a modification of coexistence," provided account be taken of "the influence of emotions and other feelings that are very different from ideas, as when an analogous object suggests an analogous object by the influence of an emotion which each separately may have produced before, and which is, therefore, common to both." To the contrary effect, Spencer maintained that the fundamental law of all mental association is that presentations aggregate or cohere with their like in past experience, and that, besides this law, there is in strictness no other, all further phenomena of association being incidental. Thus in particular, he would have explained association by Contiguity as due to the circumstance of imperfect assimilation of the present to the past in consciousness. A. Bain regarded Contiguity and Similarity logically, as perfectly distinct principles, though in actual psychological occurrence blending intimately with each other, contiguous trains being started by a first (it may be, implicit) representation through Similarity, while the express assimilation of present to past in consciousness is always, or tends to be, followed by the revival of what was presented in contiguity with that past.

The highest, philosophical interest, as distinguished from that which is more strictly psychological, attaches to the mode of mental association called Inseparable. The coalescence of mental states noted by Hartley, as it had been assumed by Berkeley, was farther formulated by James Mill in these terms:--

"Some ideas are by frequency and strength of association so closely combined that they cannot be separated; if one exists, the other exists along with it in spite of whatever effort we make to disjoin them."--(_Analysis of the Human Mind_, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 93.)

J.S. Mill's statement is more guarded and particular:--

"When two phenomena have been very often experienced in conjunction, and have not, in any single instance, occurred separately either in experience or in thought, there is produced between them what has been called inseparable, or, less correctly, indissoluble, association; by which is not meant that the association must inevitably last to the end of life--that no subsequent experience or process of thought can possibly avail to dissolve it; but only that as long as no such experience or process of thought has taken place, the association is irresistible; it is impossible for us to think the one thing disjoined from the other."--(_Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy_, 2nd ed. p. 191.)

It is chiefly by J.S. Mill that the philosophical application of the principle has been made. The first and most obvious application is to so-called necessary truths--such, namely, as are not merely analytic judgments but involve a synthesis of distinct notions. Again, the same thinker sought to prove Inseparable Association the ground of belief in an external objective world. The former application, especially, is facilitated, when the experience through which the association is supposed to be constituted is understood as cumulative in the race, and transmissible as original endowment to individuals--endowment that may be expressed either, subjectively, as latent intelligence, or, objectively, as fixed nervous connexions. Spencer, as before suggested, is the author of this extended view of mental association.

_Modern Criticism._--Of recent years the associationist theory has been subjected to searching criticism, and it has been maintained by many writers that the laws are both unsatisfactorily expressed and insufficient to explain the facts. Among the most vigorous and comprehensive of these investigations is that of F.H. Bradley in his _Principles of Logic_ (1883). Having admitted the psychological fact of mental association, he attacks the theories of Mill and Bain primarily on the ground that they purport to give an account of mental life as a whole, a metaphysical doctrine of existence. According to this doctrine, mental activity is ultimately reducible to particular feelings, impressions, ideas, which are disparate and unconnected, until chance Association brings them together. On this assumption the laws of Association naturally emerge in the following form:--(1) The _law of Contiguity._--"Actions, sensations and states of feeling, occurring together or in close connexion, tend to grow together, or cohere, in such a way that, when any one of them is afterwards presented to the mind, the others are apt to be brought up in idea" (A. Bain, _Senses and Intellect_, p. 327). (2) The _law of Similarity._--"Present actions, sensation, thoughts or emotions tend to revive their like among previous impressions or states" (A. Bain, _ibid._ 457. Compare J.S. Mill, _Logic_, ii. p. 440, 9th ed.). The fundamental objection to (1) is that ideas and impressions once experienced do not recur; they are particular existences, and, as such, do not persevere to recur or be presented. So Mill is wrong in speaking of two impressions being "frequently experienced." Bradley claims thus to reduce the law to "When we have experienced (or even thought of) several pairs of impressions (simultaneous or successive), which pairs are like one another; then whenever an idea occurs which is like all the impressions on one side of these pairs, it tends to excite an idea which is like all the impressions on the other side." This statement is destructive of the title of the law, because it appears that what were contiguous (the impressions) are not associated, and what are associated (the ideas) were not contiguous; in other words, the association is not due to contiguity at all.

Proceeding to the law of Similarity (which in Mill's view is at the back of association by contiguity), and having made a similar criticism of its phrasing, Bradley maintains that it involves an even greater absurdity; if two ideas are to be recognized as similar, they must both be present in the mind; if one is to call up the other, one must be absent. To the obvious reply that the similarity is recognized _ex post facto_, and not while the former idea is being called up, Bradley replies simply that such a view reduces the law to the mere statement of a phenomenon and deprives it of any explanatory value, though he hardly makes it clear in what sense this necessarily invalidates the law from a psychological point of view. He further points out with greater force that in point of fact mere similarity is not the basis of ordinary cases of mental reproduction, inasmuch as in any given instance there is more difference than similarity between the ideas associated.

Bradley himself bases association on identity plus contiguity:--"Any part of a single state of mind tends, if reproduced, to re-instate the remainder," or "any element tends to reproduce those elements with which it has formed one state of mind." This law he calls by the name "redintegration," understood, of course, in a sense different from that in which Hamilton used it. The radical difference between this law and those of Mill and Bain is that it deals not with particular units of thoughts but with universals or identity between individuals. In any example of such reproduction the universal appears in a

## particular form which is more or less different from that in which it

originally existed.

_Psychophysical Researches._--Bradley's discussion deals with the subject purely from the metaphysical side, and the total result practically is that association occurs only between universals. From the point of view of empirical psychologists Bradley's results are open to the charge which he made against those who impugned his view of the law of similarity, namely that they are merely a statement--not in any real sense an explanation. The relation between the mental and the physical phenomena of association has occupied the attention of all the leading psychologists (see PSYCHOLOGY). William James holds that association is of "objects" not of "ideas," is between "things thought of"--so far as the word stands for an effect. "So far as it stands for a cause it is between processes in the brain." Dealing with the law of Contiguity he says that the "most natural way of accounting for it is to conceive it as a result of the laws of habit in the nervous system; in other words to ascribe it to a physiological cause." Association is thus due to the fact that when a nerve current has once passed by a given way, it will pass more easily by that way in future; and this fact is a physical fact. He further seeks to maintain the important deduction that the only primary or ultimate law of association is that of neural habit.

The objections to the associationist theory are summed up by G.F. Stout (_Analytic Psychol._, vol. ii. pp. 47 seq.) under three heads. Of these the first is that the theory as stated, e.g. by Bain, lays far too much stress on the mere connexion of elements hitherto entirely separate; whereas, in fact, every new mental state or synthesis consists in the development or modification of a pre-existing state or psychic whole. Secondly, it is quite false to regard an association as merely an aggregate of disparate units; in fact, the _form_ of the new idea is quite as important as the elements which it comprises. Thirdly, the phraseology used by the associationists seems to assume that the parts that go to form the whole retain their identity unimpaired; in fact, each part or element is _ipso facto_ modified by the very fact of its entering into such combination.

The experimental methods now in vogue have to a large extent removed the discussion of the whole subject of association of ideas, depending in the case of the older writers on introspection, into a new sphere. In such a work as E.B. Titchener's _Experimental Psychology_ (1905), association is treated as a branch of the study of mental reactions, of which association reactions are one division.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See PSYCHOLOGY; and the works of Bradley, Stout, and James, above quoted, and general works on psychology: articles in _Mind_ (passim); A. Bain, _Senses and Intellect_ (4th ed., 1894), and in _Mind_, xii. (1887) pp. 237-249; John Watson, _An Outline of Philosophy_ (1898); H. Hoffding, _Hist. of Mod. Philos._ (Eng. trans., Lond., 1900), _Psychologie in Umrissen auf Grundlage der Erfahrung_ (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1893); Jas. Sully, _The Human Mind_ (1892), and _Outlines of Psych._ (Lond., 1892); E.B. Titchener, _Outline of Psych._ (New York, 1896), and in his trans. of O. Kulpe's _Outlines of Psych._ (New York, 1895,); Jas. Ward in _Mind_, viii. (1883), xii. (1887), new series ii. (1893), iii. (1894); G.T. Ladd, _Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory_ (Lond., 1894); C.L.C. Morgan, _Introd. to Comparative Psych._ (Lond., 1894); W. Wundt, _Princip. of Physiol. Psych._ (Eng. trans., 1904), _Human and Animal Psych._ (Eng. trans., 1894), pp. 282-307; _Outlines of Psych._ (Eng. trans., 1897); E. Claparede, _L'Association des idees_ (1903). For associationism in Greek philosophy see J.I. Beare, _Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition_ (Oxford, 1906),