AMNION—AMORITES. 
  
  
proclaimed, from the operation of which the Thirty 
Tyrants, who had formed the oligarchy, and some 
few persons who had acted under them, were 
excluded. Again, Bonaparte, on his return from 
Elba in 1815, issued a decree, which was published 
at Lyon, declaring an A., from the benefits of which 
he excepted thirteen persons whom he named. And 
in our own country, the historical reader will be 
able to recall the act of indemnity passed upon the 
restoration of Charles IL., by which the persons 
actually concerned in his father’s execution, were, as 
a class, excluded from the A. 
A'MNION is the membrane which immediately 
invests the embryo, appearing very early in the 
development of the latter, and adhering closely to 
it. As gestation proceeds, this membrane secretes 
from its inner surface a fluid which separates it from 
the feetus. This fluid, the liquor amnii, consists of 
water, with albumen, salt of soda, and extractive 
matters in solution; it has a specific gravity of 
1008. Tt supplies nutriment to the foetus, preserves 
around it an agreeable temperature, and when gesta- 
tion is completed, by projecting the membrane 
through the os uteri, is the primary agent in opening 
the way for the feetus. At this time, the A. is thin 
and transparent, slightly flocculent on the side next 
its enveloping membrane, the chorion, but smooth 
on the surface next the feetus. Within it, the latter 
is suspended in the fluid which not only serves the 
purposes just mentioned, but protects it from injury. 
For further particulars, see EMBRYO, and for many 
curious superstitions connected with the subject, see 
CAUL. 
AMO'MUM, a genus of plants of the natural 
order Scitaminee (q.v.) or Zingiberacee distin- 
guished by perennial stems; the flowers in close 
heads resembling cones, not upon the leafy stems, 
but arising by themselves from the root, and little 
elevated above the ground ; the corolla without inner 
lateral lobes, and with a very large flat lip; the 
filament flat, extended beyond the anther, with two 
lateral lobes, and an emarginate middle lobe. It 
contains a number of species, natives of tropical 
countries, and almost exclusively of the eastern 
hemisphere, of which several yield the CARDAMOMS 
(q. v.) of commerce, and several the spice known by 
the name of GRAINS OF PARADISE (q. v.). The genus 
A. was formerly more extensive, and included species 
now forming the genus Zingiber (see GINGER), &c. 
AMOO'R, or AMUR, a river formed by the junc- 
tion (about lat. 53° N., and long. 120° E.) of the Shilka 
and the Argoun, which both come from the south- 
west—the former rising in Russian Siberia, near the 
head-waters of the Yenisei; and the latter in Chinese 
Tatary, not far from the sandy plateau of Kobi. 
From this starting-post, the A. presents, on its right, 
a tolerably symmetrical curve, which, after receiving, 
at its most southerly point, the Songari from beyond 
the Wall of China, besides other considerable feeders 
on both sides of either segment, enters, on nearly 
its original parallel, the Gulf of Saghalien, about a 
degree below the Sea of Okhotsk, properly so called. 
For more minute details, the reader must look 
forward to the steadily pursued researches of the 
Russians, who, according to our latest information, 
had, last season, fixed in position about 120 points 
in the various sections of the basin of the A. 
But they have already thrown much light on a 
stream which, always physically interesting, as the 
only bond of union between the central steppes of 
Asia and the world at large, is now, by a recent 
change of its political relations, redeemed from an 
isolation virtually more thorough than that of any of 
the tributaries of the Arctic Sea. The Russians, then, 
have ascertained that the A. offers great facilities 
  
for colonisation, and still greater for navigation. 
To begin with the latter. They have traversed by 
steam, in the season, too, of low water, the entire 
length upwards to the grand fork of the Argoun and 
the Shilka, accomplishing the stretch of 3000 versts, 
or 2000 miles, in 30 days—and that, from want of 
preparation, in spite of the delay of cutting wood, 
and the difficulty of utilising it when green ; and 
they have discovered that even the Chinese, near 
one of their motley garrisons, have a fleet of 30 or 
40 sailing-craft. With respect, again, to colonisation : 
while the stream itself is said to be stocked like a 
fishpond, the Russians have found, more particularly 
on the Lower A., much land fitted for pasturage and 
cultivation, whole oceans, as they express themselves, 
of timber—oak, elm, ash, larch, pine, and maple ; 
vast supplies of limestone, and decisive indications 
of iron ore—the climate, though severe in both its 
extremes, not being more so than in many thriving 
parts of Russia, whether European or Asiatic. Bub 
far beyond these merely local considerations, the 
A. has an extrancous importance, and that not 
merely to Russia itself. Touching, as it nearly does, 
the Yenisei, it forms a far more available continua- 
tion of the eastward route through Siberia than the 
only other possible line, which, crossing to the Lena, 
and following that river to its most easterly point, 
runs from Yakutsk to Okhotsk, by a wretched 
bridle-path of 18 days, through a country as rugged 
as it 1s inhospitable. Nor is the A. likely to be 
less valuable in connection with the south, for 
there, on an arena where might will be everything, 
its waters are ready to carry the proverbially 
aggressive Muscovites within easy reach of the Gulfs 
of Corea and Pe-che-le. But it is towards the east 
that the A. assumes the most serviceable aspect. 
Already has it been a channel of traffic between the 
outside world and Central Asia—carrying down to 
the former the salted pork of the region of the 
Baikal, and bringing up to the latter the produc- 
tions and commodities of more genial climes. This, 
however, is but as a drop in the bucket to the 
ambition of Russia. Even now, the significant 
names of Nicholajesk and Petrowsk stand forth 
as naval stations of the empire—the background, 
as we have seen, being one huge arsenal of naval 
stores—of timber, of iron, and doubtless, at pleasure, 
of hemp. It was at the commencement of the 
reign of Peter the Great that the indefatigable 
Russians, with the open ocean—Russia’s most 
special want—looming in their mind’s eye, were 
arrested on the A. by the Chinese; and it was 
fortunate for the Anglo-Saxon race that that 
gigantic power did not find the fulerum for putting 
forth its strength on the Pacific, till England 
and America had each established a permanent 
foothold on its shores. Even here, however, Russia 
has to face its almost universal enemy, the ice of 
winter. As in the White Sea, as in the Baltic, 
and as, to some 'extent, in the Euxine, the frost 
encumbers this, the newest and noblest outlet ; for, 
in the last four springs, or rather summers, it has 
chained the A., on an average, down to the 21st of 
May. 
A'MORITES, a powerful nation of Canaan, ex- 
tending on both sides of the Jordan. They' were 
vanquished by the Hebrews under Moses, and their 
lands beyond Jordan were distributed among the 
tribes of Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh. Their two 
most famous kings were Sihon, king of Heshbon, 
and Og, king of Bashan. Og was the last of the 
giants, or at least of that gigantic race, the Rephaim. 
In Deut. iii. 11, his iron bedstead is mentioned 
as measuring 13} feet in length ; but the whole 
of this verse, with the exception of the first clause, 
is considered by some an interpolation. The Rabbins 
  
  
  
  
  
  
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