Alabaster Vase bearing the name of Sargon, from Nim- roud (Layard's Bab. and Sin. p. 167).
phrastus, sets this matter in a clear light, distinguish- ing the alabastrites of natu- ralists as bard, and he adds : " This stone was by the Greeks called also some- times onyx, and by the Lat- ins marmor onychites, from its use in making boxes to preserve precious oint- ments, which boxes were commonly called ' onyxes' and 'alabasters.' So Di- oscorides interprets." It is apprehended that, from certain appearances com- mon to both, the same name was given not only to the common alabaster, called by mineralogists gypsum, and by chemists sulphate «f lime, but also to the car- bonate of Ume, or that hard- er stone from which the al- abastra were usually made. {Penny Cychpmlia, s. v.). By the English word ala- baster is likewise to be understood both that kind which is also known by the name of gypsum, and the Oriental alabaster which is so much valued on account of its translucency, and for its variety of colored streakings, red, yellow, gray, etc., which it owes for the most part to the admixture of oxides of iron. The latter is a fibrous carbonate of lime, of which there are many va- rieties, satin spar being one of the most common. The former is a hydrous sulphate of lime, and forms, when calcined and ground, the well-known substance called plaster of Paris. Both these kinds of alabaster, but especially the latter, are and have been long used for various ornamental purposes, such as the fabrication of vases, boxes, etc., etc. The ancients considered alabaster (carbonate of lime) to be the best material in which to preserve their ointments (Pliny, //. N. xiii, 3). Herodotus (iii, 20) mentions an alabaster vessel of ointment which Cambyses sent, among other things, as a present to the /Ethiopians. Hammond (Annctat. ad Matt, xxvi, 7) quotes Plutarch, Julius Pollux, and Athenauis, to show that alabaster was the material in which ointments were wont to be kept. Pliny (ix, 56) tells us that the usual form of these alabaster ves- I sels was long and slender at the top, and round and full at the bottom. He likens them to the long pearls, called elenchi, which the Roman ladies suspended from their fingers or dangled from their ears. He com- pares also the green pointed cone of a rose-bud to the form of an alabaster ointment-vessel (//. N. xxi, 4). The onyx (Hor. Od. iv, 12, 17, "Nardi parvus onyx"), which Pliny says is another name for alabastrites, must not be confounded with the precious stone of that name, which is a sub-species of the quartz family of minerals, being a variety of agate. Perhaps the name of onyx was given to the pink-colored variety of the calcareous alabaster, in allusion to its resembling the finger-nail {onyx) in color, or else because the calca- reous alabaster bears some resemblance to the agate- onyx in the characteristic lunar-shaped mark of the last-named stone, which mark reminded the ancients of the whitish semicircular spot at the base of the finger-nail. See Marble; Vase.
Alabaster, William, a learned but erratic di- vine, born in Suffolk 1567, and studied both at Cam- bridge and Oxford. In 1596 he went to Cadiz as chaplain to the Earl of Essex, and there joined the Church of Pome. A few years of Romish life dis- gusted him, and in 1610 he returned to the Church of England. He obtained a prebend in St. Paul's, and afterward was made rector of Therfield, where he died ! in 1640. He was a great student of the so-called ca-
ALAH
130
ALB
balistic \eaming. His works are (1) Lexicon Penta- glotton (Heb., Chald., Syr., etc.), Lond. 1637, fol. ; (2) Comm. de Bestia Apocalyptica, 1621. He also wrote a tragedy, ' ' Roxana," of which Dr. Johnson spoke high- ly.—Wood, Athen. Oxon. , Hook, Eccl. Biog. i, 102.
Alah. See Oak.
Al'ameth, a less correct mode (1 Chron. vii, 8) of Anglicizing the name Alemeth (q. v.).
Alam'melech (Heb. Allamme'lek, T^H^X, per- haps king's oak; Sept. 'EAjtuAfx), a town on the border of the tribe of Asher, mentioned between Achshaph and Amad (Josh, xix, 26). Schwarz remarks (Palest. p. 191) that the name may be indicative of a location on the branch of the Kishon still called Nahr eUMelek ; perhaps at the ruins el-IIarbaji (Van de Velde, Memoir, p. 283).
Al'amoth (Heb. A lamoth', Tn~zbv, virgins, as oft- en; Sept. aXiifuuS v. r. dXaipioS and d\i/.iw3r, Vulg. arcana), a musical term used in 1 Chron. xv, 20, ap- parently to denote that the choristers should sing in the female voice, i. e. our treble, or soprano. So Lafage (Hist. Gen. da la Musique) renders it " chant superieur ou a 1' octave" (comp. Mendelssohn, Introd. to Psalms). The word occurs in the same form and signification in the inscription of Psa. xlvi (where the Sept. and Vulg. translate Kpixpta, arcana, i. e. secrets, as if indicative of the contents of the Psalm), and twice again in near- ly the same form (ME^S), namely, in the inscription of Psa. ix (where it has the same sense, but is differ- ently rendered by our translators " upon Muth-," Sept. again inrip rwv Kpv(picoi>, Vulg. occultis), and in Psa. xlviii, 15 (where the context requires the meaningyor- ever, but our version has uunto death," Sept. correctlj- tig rovg aitovaq, Vulg. in scecula). See Muth-labben. Forkel (Gesch. der Musik, i, 142) understands virgin measures (Germ. Jungfernueise), i. e. in maidenly style, but against the propriety of the usage. See Psalms.