M., La Terre Antarctique de Victoria' (in Annales de Geographie, Vol. XVIII, No. 98, p 97, Paris 1909).

a

EREC AND ENID, metrical romance dealing with the adventures and love of one of the knights of King Arthur. The author is Chrestien de Troyes.

ERECH, e'rěk, an ancient city of Babylonia, on the site of the modern Warka. It was of great extent and of high commercial importance in the Parthian period. Recent excavations have brought much to light regarding its shrines and ruling dynasties. It appears to have been the seat of at least two principal dynasties. Marduk is said to have been its founder according to Assyrian and Babylonian records where the city is often mentioned. Documents dating from the period 721-710 B.C. have recently been discovered. The city contained famous temple of a Nana. (See BABYLONIA). Consult Loftus, Travels and Researches in Chaldea and Susiana, with an Account of the Excavations at Warka' (London 1857), and Meyer, E., Geschichte des Altertums (3d ed., Berlin 1913).

ERECHTHEUM, ē-rěk-thē'ům, the temple of Erechtheus (q.v.) on the north side of the Acropolis (q.v.) at Athens. It was built in honor of Athena, Poseidon and Zeus. The name of Erechtheus is associated, as a local hero or demigod, with that of Athena. In this temple was preserved the oldest existing statue of Athena, which was supposed to have fallen from heaven and the sacred olive-tree created by Athena as a gift to the city, of which she is worshipped at Athena Polias, the protector of the town and state. The building is one of the finest remaining examples of Greek architecture, having been rebuilt after the Peloponnesian War in pure Ionic style after the original building had been destroyed. Its ground plan is unusual, resulting from the union under one roof of three separate chapels, or halls of worship. The porch of the caryatides is one of its distinguishing features. In this porch the place of columns is taken by colossal figures of women whose heads support the capitals on which the entablature rests. The Erechtheum was described in considerable detail by Pausanias. It is one of the best preserved buildings on the Acropolis, in spite of the hard usage to which it was put by the Turks and other invaders. In comparatively recent times it has been restored to some extent, not entirely with pleasing results. Consult Carroll, M., ed., 'The Attica of Pausanias) (New York 1907); Fergusson, J., The Erechtheum' (in Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects, London 1875-76); Fowler, H. N., (The Erechtheion at Athens' (in Papers, Archaological Institute of America, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Vol. I, 1882-83, p. 213, Boston 1885); Frazer, J. G., trans., 'Pausanias's Description of Greece (6 vols., London 1898); Frickenhaus, A., and Washburn, O. M., The Building Inscriptions of the Erechtheum' (in American Journal of Archæology, Ser. II, Vol. X, p. 1, Norwood 1906); Gale, E., The Erechtheum' (in Architectural Record, Vol. XII, p. 498, New York 1902); Gardner, E. A., Ancient Athens) (New York 1907); Inwood, H. W., The Erechtheion at Athens (London 1827); Kolbe, W., 'Die

Bauurkunde des Erechtheion vom Jahre 408' (in Kaiserlich-Deutsches Archeologisches Institut, Mittheilungen, Athenische Abtheilung, Vol. XXVI, p. 223, Athens 1901); Leopold, J., Über das Erechtheion) (Munich 1878); Quaest, A. F. von, 'Das Erechtheion zu Athen (1840); Schultz, A. W., and Gardner, E. A., "The North Doorway of the Erechtheum' (in Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XII, p. 1, London 1891); Stevens, G. P., The Restoration of the Erechtheum' (in Putnam's Monthly, Vol. I, p. 66, New York 1906); Stuart, J., and Revett, N., "The Antiquities of Athens' (London 1837); Thiersch, F., Uber das Erechtheum, etc.) (in Königlich-Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Abhandlungen, Philosophisch-Philologische Klasse, Vols. V-VI, Munich 1849-52); Weller, C. H., Athens and its Monuments' (New York 1913).

ERECHTHEUS, e-rek'thus, or ERICHTHONIUS, Attic hero or demigod, worshipped in the earliest period of Athenian history. He was brought up by Athena, who placed him while yet a babe in a chest, which was entrusted to Agraulo., Pandrosos and Herse, the daughters of Cecrops, with the strict charge that it was not to be opened. Unable to restrain their curiosity, they opened the chest and discovering a child entwined with serpents, were punished with frenzy and threw themselves down the most precipitous part of the Acropolis. Afterward Erechtheus was the chief means of establishing the worship of Athena in Attica, where he instituted the Panathenæa in her honor. He was a god of agriculture and had a joint temple with Athena on the Acropolis. His connection with the serpent is probably that common to the culture gods. Consult Farnell, 'Cults of the Greek States' (Oxford 1896); Frazer, 'Pausanias' (London 1913). See ERECHTHEUM.

EREGLI, ǎ-rā'glē, Turkey (the ancient Heracleia Pontica), a seaport town of the Kastamuni vilayet, 125 miles east of Constantinople, on the Black Sea. Coal is mined in the neighborhood and shipped at this point, about 750,000 tons being the annual output. The harbor is known as Zoungundalk. vious to the war of 1914 French capitalists held a controlling interest in the coal mines of the district. Pop. 6,500.

Pre

EREMACAUSIS, ĕr'ě-ma-kâ'sis, slow combustion (from Greek erěma, gently, and kausis, burning), a term employed by Liebig to denote the gradual combination of the constituents of a combustible substance with the oxygen of the air.

EREMIT VON GAUTING, a'rě-mét fon gow'ting. See HALLBERG-BROICH, THEODOR M. H.

EREMITA, Johannes. See CASSIANUS.

EREMITES (ĕr'e-mīts) OF SAINT FRANCIS, and EREMITES OF SAINT JEROME, two religious orders of the Roman Catholic Church. The order of the Eremites of Saint Francis de Paula was founded by Francis, a native of Paula, in Calabria, 1436, and had there its first house. It received the approval of the Holy See 1474; it is properly styled Order of Minim Hermits of Saint Francis de Paula (Ordo Minimorum Eremitarum Sancti Francisci de Paula). Their founder chose the name

causing it to contract. In this manner it produces a number of reactions on those organs which are rich in this type of muscular fibre. Acting on the heart and blood vessels, it contracts the cardiac muscle and the arterial walls, causing an increase in the force of the heart's contraction and a marked rise in the bloodpressure. It also stimulates the unstriped muscular tissue of the stomach and intestines, occasionally causing purging with violent peristalsis. The organ in the body containing the greatest amount of unstriped muscular tissue is the uterus and naturally the action of ergot would be most forcibly manifested in this organ. It here causes contractions, the uterus becoming hard and pale and forces the blood out of the uterine blood vessels. During pregnancy the action is much more pronounced, since the uterus is so much more dilated. Ergot has many applications in medicine, but its chief uses are to control blood-pressure and to treat uterine disorders. Ergot is usually given as a fluid extract of ergotin, prepared in several ways, as wine of ergot, etc.

ERGOTISM. In the article on ergot it has been shown that there are a great many closely related parasitic fungi, growing on different varieties of grasses. A number of these infected grasses belonging to the ergot family produce, when eaten by cattle, forms of acute and chronic poisoning. These are characterized by changes, particularly in the blood vessels, causing swellings below the knees or ankles, with gangrene of the skin and at times symptoms of paralysis of the extremities. In years in which unusual humid conditions have perImitted the wide and abundant growth of these parasitic fungi, large areas of pasture land have become infected, resulting in widespread poisoning of cattle, almost resembling epidemics.

In Europe, where the eating of rye bread is much more common than in this country, particularly in Russia and Italy, cases of chronic poisoning by ergot occur in man from eating the bread made from infected grain. The chief symptoms here are those referable to changes in the blood vessels of different parts of the body, with secondary consequences. Thus, in some, there is a loss of touch-sensation in the hands and feet, a condition which may go on to the formation of ulcers and gangrene. This is the result of the cutting off of the blood supply to the periphery of the body by the contracting influence of the poison on the walls of the blood vessels. In some cases disease of the spinal cord results. This is thought to be due to the artificially induced anæmia with secondary degenerations in the columns of the cord. This disease, called pellagra, closely resembles a toxic neuritis or locomotor ataxia. Treatment consists usually in a change of food, local antiseptics, tannin used internally to neutralize the alkaloids of the ergot and castor oil. Hot water is often applied locally to dilate the blood vessels and chloral hydrate has been found serviceable when taken internally. See ERGOT; PELLAGRA.

ERIC, e'rik or a'rik, the name of several Danish and Swedish kings. ERIC VII, king of Denmark: b. 1382; d. Rügenwald 1459; the son of Duke Wratislaw of Pomerania, he was selected as her successor by Queen Margaret of Denmark, and in 1412 mounted the throne of

Denmark, Norway and Sweden, united by the Treaty of Calmar. Cruel and cowardly in character, he lost Sweden in 1437 through a revolt of the peasants of Dalecarlia, and in 1439 was deposed also in Denmark. ERIC VIII, "THE SAINT," became king of Sweden in 1155, did much to extend Christianity in his dominions and to improve the laws, and fell in battle with the Danes in 1160. ERIC XIV, the last of the name who reigned in Sweden, succeeded in 1560 to the throne of his father, the great Gustavus Vasa, and at once began to exhibit the folly that disgraced his reign. He married a Swedish peasant girl, who acquired an influence over him which was ascribed by the superstitious to witchcraft; she alone was able to control him in the violent paraxysms of blind fury to which he was subject. His capricious cruelties and the disastrous wars that followed on his follies at length alienated his subjects, who threw off their allegiance in 1568 and elected his brother John to the throne. In 1577 he ended his miserable life half voluntarily by a cup of poison. He had a genuine love of letters, and solaced his captivity with music and the composition of psalms. His story has been worked into dramatic form by Swedish poets; in German by Kruse in his tragedy, 'King Erich (1871).

ERIC THE RED, the colonizer of Greenland: b. Norway about 950. After committing homicide he fled to Iceland and in 984, again seeking asylum as a murderer, he reached Greenland (which from the 11th century belonged to Norway). Here he built a chief town, called Gardar, which he settled with Norwegians. His son, Leif Ericson (q.v.), introduced Christianity, but after flourishing for about four centuries the colony was wiped out, probably by some such plague as black death, although recent authorities attribute its disappearance to famine. Consult Nansen's, 'In Northern Mists: Arctic Explorers in Early Times' (New York 1911).

ERICACEE, ĕr-i-kā'sē-ē, the heaths, a family of dicotyledonous, sympetalous shrubs or under-shrubs with small leaves, evergreen in some of the genera, rigid whorled or opposite and without stipules. The flowers are arranged in various styles of inflorescence, and are generally very beautiful, the heath probably excelling all other families in the universal beauty of its blossoms. Different writers number the genera from 40 to 70, and the species from 1,000 to upward of 1,300. They are of very wide distribution. In North American flora, at least 20 genera are represented, among them such plants as the azaleas, rhododendrons, kalmias, trailing arbutus and the heaths, and they are specially abundant in western Europe. They love the temperate and cold countries, and wherever they are found in the tropics they are generally confined to the mountainous, upland regions where the climate resembles that of the temper

ate zones.

ERICHSEN, SIR John Eric, English surgeon: b. Copenhagen, Denmark, 19 July 1818; d. Folkestone, England, 23 Sept. 1896. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1839 and in 1850 professor of surgery at University College. In 1866 he succeeded Quain as professor of clinical surgery in the same college, a post which he held till his retirement in 1875. He was appointed president of University College in 1887, and held that post