AUTONOMY—AVA. 
  
officer—a very celebrated chess-player—was con- 
cealed in the interior of the figure. The figure is 
said to have been constructed for the purpose of 
effecting the officer’s escape out of Russia, where 
his life was forfeited. So far as the mental process 
was concerned, the chess-player was not, therefore, 
an A. ; but great ingenuity was evinced in its move- 
ment of the pieces (see Chambers's Jowrnal, vol. 
Xii., p. 66). In 1845, Mr John Clark of Bridge- 
water exhibited an A. Latin Versifier, which he 
himself described as a practical illustration of the 
law of evolution. ¢The machine,’ he said, ¢ contains 
letters in alphabetical arrangement ; out of these, 
through the medium of numbers, rendered tangible 
by being expressed by indentures on wheel-work, the 
instrument selects such as are requisite to form the 
verse conceived ; the components of words suited to 
form hexameters being alone previously calculated, 
the harmonious combination of which will be found 
to be practically interminable” An automatic group, 
consisting of a child, monkey, hare, and goat, was 
exhibited in this country in 1856, the motions of the 
animals being very perfect. M. Houdin, the cele- 
brated conjuror, is the inventor of some striking 
automata. Automata have also been constructed to 
play on the piano, and to set up type. The latter 
are very ingenious machines, but hitherto they have 
not been successful enough to warrant their general 
introduction. They are, however, in use in some 
printing-offices in London. One practical difficulty 
they have not yet overcome, is the spacing out of 
the lines ; that has to be done by the human hand. 
See Hutton’s Mathematical Recreations; Memoirs of 
Robert Houdin. Lond. 1859. Chapman and Hall. 
AUTO'NOMY (Gr. self-legislation) is the arrange- 
ment by which the citizens of a state manage their 
own legislation and government ; and this evidently 
may, with certain restrictions, be the case also within 
limited bodies of the same people, such as parishes, 
corporations, religious sects. The term A. is used to 
designate the characteristic of the political condition 
of ancient Greece, where every city or town com- 
munity claimed the right of independent sovereign 
action. The idea of two or more town communities 
sinking their individual independence, and forming 
the larger aggregate unity which we understand by 
a state, seems to have been intolerable to the Greek 
mind. 
AUTUN (Bibracte, Augustodunum), a town in 
France, department of the Saéne-et-Loire, in 
the Burgundian district of Autunois. Pop. 9348. 
It is situated on the river Arroux, is the seat of a 
bishop, and has a fine cathedral. Cloth, carpets, 
leather, stockings, and paper are manufactured in 
the place.—The ancient Bibracte was the chief city 
of the Adui, and had a much frequented Druid 
school ; and at a later period, under the Romans, 
when it got the name of Augustodunum, it was no 
less famous for its school of rhetoric. A. was 
pillaged by the Saracens in 725,and nearly destroyed 
by the Normans in 888. There still exist at A. many 
ruins of Roman temples, gates, triumphal arches, and 
other antiquities. At the Council of A. (1094), King 
Philip I. was excommunicated for divorcing his 
queen, Bertha. 
AUVERGNE, a southern central district of 
France, was before the revolution a separate pro- 
vince, composing almost exclusively the modern 
departments of Cantal and Puy-de-Dome. Between 
the Allier and the upper course of the Dordogne 
and the Lot, A. rises into a highland region, having 
Bourbonnais, Limousin, and Rouergue, as terraces 
of descent into the western plains, while on the east 
it joins the Cevennes and the southern highlands. 
summits betray a volcanic formation, but also the 
great masses of basalt and trachyte that break 
through the crust of granite and gneiss, render it 
probable that this was a chief focus of plutonic 
action. Among the summits that have apparently 
been at one time volcanoes, the most remarkable 
are Cantal (6093), Mont-d’Or (6188), Puy-de-D6me 
(4806), and Pariou; the latter, adjoining Puy-de- 
Dome, is basin-shaped on the top, and one of the 
finest specimens of an ancient and extinct volcano : 
all are now covered with verdure, A. falls naturally 
into two divisions—Upper A., to the south, and 
Limagne, on the left bank of the Allier, is distin- 
guished for extraordinary fertility. The climate is 
colder in the mountainous districts than the southern 
position, with a less elevation, would lead us to 
expect, and is remarkable for furious winds and 
violent thunder-storms ; but in the deep valleys the 
heat of summer is often oppressive. The lava- 
covered plateaus are desert, but the pulverised 
volcanic earths that cover the slopes and valleys 
form a rich and fruitful soil, as is shewn by the 
crops of grain, garden produce, fine fruits, wine, 
abundance of chestnuts in the south, and of walnuts 
in the north, as well as by extensive thriving forests, 
along with flax and hemp fields and meadow-lands, 
neglected condition ; but the breeding of cattle, 
especially of mules, is well managed. A. produces 
iron, lead, copper, antimony, and coal, and is rich 
in mineral springs. 
The Auvergnese are a highland people, rude in 
their manners, poor, ignorant, at the same time 
honest and kind, though not free from the propen- 
agriculture, and by going to Paris as labourers. 
Domestic manufactures, therefore, remain confined 
to weaving, tanning, and paper-making. A. has, 
however, produced distinguished men. It was the 
native place of statesmen and warriors of the 15th 
and 16th centuries; and also of the Arnauld (q.v.) 
family, so distinguished in the history of Port 
Clermont and Aurillac (q.v.). The country derived 
its name from the Averni, who long defended their 
fastnesses against Ceesar, as later against the Goths, 
Burgundians, and Franks, with whom they at last 
coalesced. 
AUXT'LIARY SCREW. See SCREW-PROPELLER. 
AUXT'LIARY VERBS. See Verss, CoNJUGA- 
TION. 
A’'VA, in 1819 made the capital of the Burman 
empire (which it had been twice before, in 1364 
and 1761), is. situated in lat. 21° 51’ N., and 
long. 95° 58 E. It stands on a well-watered and 
fertile plain, on the south-east bank of the river 
Irawaddy, here about 4000 feet broad. The river, 
at this point, receives two affluents, and these 
being joined by a canal, the whole city is rendered 
circumnavigable. The name is a corruption, made 
by the Hindus and Malays, of Aengwa or Aen-ua, 
meaning fish-pond, given it from being built where 
there were formerly seven fish-ponds, of which 
five still remain; but in native official documents, 
the name of Ratnapura, or the City of Pearls, is 
used. The city, which is or was 5! miles in cir- 
cumference, is surrounded by a wall 15 feet high, 
and 10 feet thick, with a bank of earth on the 
inside, and a ditch on the outside, and has 21 
gates. Pop. in 1826, 30,000, but now much less, on 
account of the seat of government having been trans- 
ferred to Monchobo after the earthquake of 1839, 
  
Not only do the cone and dome-like shapes of the 
578 
which destroyed nearly all the important buildings. 
Lower A., to the north ; in which last the valley of - 
in the poorer districts. Agriculture is in a rather 
sity to revenge. They live by cattle-keeping and | 
Royal and of Jansenism. In more recent times, | 
Lafayette and Polignac may be named. Chief towns, | 
  
    
   
   
   
   
   
   
    
   
    
    
  
  
   
  
   
  
  
  
   
   
   
    
    
   
    
     
   
   
    
    
   
  
  
  
  
  
   
   
   
  
   
   
  
   
   
   
  
   
   
  
  
  
    
    
  
   
TN =D Heih 
A Lad~ 08 7 e 08