lled, which was a grand object once, but
had gone about in a superannuated and plainly crazy state some centuries,
was at last put out of pain by Napoleon, August 6, 1806, and allowed to
cease from the world."

ELECTRA (i. e. the Bright One), an ocean nymph, the mother of
ISIS (q. v.).

ELECTRA, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who, with her
brother Orestes, avenged the death of her father on his murderers.

ELECTRIC LIGHT, a brilliant white light due to positive and negative
currents rushing together between two points of carbon or (the
"incandescent" light) to the intense heat in a solid body, caused by an
electric current passing through it.

ELECTRICITY, the name given to a subtle agent called the electric
fluid, latent in all bodies, and first evolved by friction, and which may
manifest itself, under certain conditions, in brilliant flashes of light,
or, when in contact with animals, in nervous shocks more or less violent.
It is of two kinds, negative and positive, and as such exhibits itself in
the polarity of the magnet, when it is called MAGNETIC (q. v.),
and is excited by chemical action, when it is called VOLTAIC (q. v.).

ELEGY, a song expressive of sustained earnest yearning, or mild
sorrow after loss.

ELEMENTAL SPIRITS, a general name given in the Middle Ages to
salamanders, undines, sylphs, and gnomes, spirits superstitiously
believed to have dominion respectively over, as well as to have had their
dwelling in, the four elements--fire, water, air, and earth.

ELEMENTS, originally the four forms of matter so deemed--fire, air,
earth, and water, and afterwards the name for those substances that
cannot be resolved by chemical analysis, and which are now found to
amount to sixty-seven.

ELEPHANT, a genus of mammals, of which there are two species, the
Indian and the African; the latter attains a greater size, and is hunted
for the sake of its tusks, which may weigh as much as 70 lbs.; the former
is more intelligent, and easily capable of being domesticated; the white
elephant is a variety of this species.

ELEPHANT, ORDER OF THE WHITE, a Danish order of knighthood,
restricted to 30 knights, the decoration of which is an elephant
supporting a tower; it was instituted by Canute IV., king of Denmark, at
the end of the 12th century.

ELEPHANTA, an island 6 m. in circuit in Bombay harbour, so called
from its colossal figure of an elephant which stood near the
landing-pla