e 
  
  
    
  
AQUATINTA—AQUEDUCT. 
  
  
of a sort of paddle, admirably fitted for use in the 
water, but by means of which they can only move 
very awkwardly on land. The forms of whales and 
fishes are remarkably adapted for progression in 
water ; whilst, instead of the limbs by which other 
vertebrate animals are enabled to move upon the 
land or to fly in the air, their great organ of locomo- 
tion is the tail, or rather the hinder part of the 
elongated body itself, with the tail as the blade of 
the great oar, which all the principal muscles of the 
body concur to move. Remarkable provision is 
made in A. animals of the higher vertebrate classes 
for the maintenance of the requisite animal heat, by 
the character of the fur or plumage ; a purpose which 
the blubber of whales also most perfectly serves. 
In the colder-blooded animals, where no such provi- 
sion is requisite, the structure of the heart is accom- 
modated to the diminished necessity for oxygenation 
of the blood; and although reptiles in their perfect 
state must breathe air, most of them can remain long 
under water without inconvenience. Fishes, and the 
many other animals provided with branchize or gills, 
breathe in the water itself, deriving the necessary 
oxygen, which in their case is comparatively little, 
from the small particles of air with which it is 
mingled. They cannot subsist in water which has 
been deprived of air by boiling. Some A. insects 
carry down with them into the water particles of 
air entangled in hairs with which their bodies are 
abundantly furnished. 
AQUATI'NTA, a mode of etching on copper, by 
which imitations of drawings in Indian ink, bister, 
and sepia are produced. On a plate of copper a 
ground is prepared of black resin, on which the 
design is traced ; a complicated series of manipula- 
tions with varnish and dilute acid is then gone 
through, until the desired result is attained. The 
process of A. has fallen into comparative disuse. 
A'QUA TOFA'NA, a poisonous liquid which 
was much talked of in the south of Italy about 
the end of the 17th c. Its invention is still a 
matter of dubiety, but is ascribed to a Sicilian 
woman named Tofana, who lived first at Palermo, 
but was obliged, from the attention of the author- 
ities having been attracted to her proceedings, to 
| take refuge in Naples. She sold the preparation 
| in small phials, inscribed ¢ Manna of St Nicholas of 
Bari,’ there being a current superstition that from the 
tomb of that saint there flowed an oil of miraculous 
efficacy in many diseases. The poison was especially 
sought after by young wives that wished to get rid 
of their husbands. The number of husbands dying 
suddenly in Rome about the year 1659, raised 
suspicion, and a society of young married women 
was discovered, presided over by an old woman 
named Spara, who had learned the art of poisoning 
from Tofana. Spara and four other members of the 
society were publicly executed. Tofana continued 
to live to a great age in a cloister, in which she had 
taken refuge, but was at last (1709) dragged from it, 
and put to the torture, when she confessed having 
been instrumental to 600 deaths. According to one 
account she was strangled; but others affirm that 
she was still living in prison in 1730. 
The A. T. is usually described as a clear, colourless, 
| tasteless, and inodorous fluid ; five or six drops were 
sufficient to produce death, which resulted slowly 
and without pain, inflammation, or fever; under a 
constant thirst, a weariness of life, and an aversion 
to food, the strength of the person gradually wasted 
away. It is even stated that the poison could be 
made to produce its effects in a determined time, 
long or short, according to the wish of the adminis- 
trator—a notion generally prevalent in those ages 
respcfl(s)ing secret poisoning. The most wonderful 
  
stories are told of the mode of preparing this poison ; 
for example, the spittle of a person driven nearly 
mad by continued tickling was held to be an essen- 
tial ingredient. Later investigations into the real 
nature of the A. T. lead to the belief that it was 
principally a solution of arsenic. 
A'QUA VI'TA (Lat., water of life) is a com- 
mon term applied to ardent spirits. During the 
alchemical epoch, brandy or distilled spirits was 
much used as a medicine, was considered a cure 
for all disorders, and even got the credit of pro- 
longing life ; and as Latin was the tongue employed 
in the conveyance of knowledge in those days, 
this restorer of health and prolonger of life was 
naturally christened A. V., 
A'‘QUEDUCT (Lat. Aque ductus), an artificial 
course or channel by which water is conveyed along 
an inclined plain. When an A. is carried across a 
valley, it is usually raised on arches, and where 
elevated ground or hills intervene, a passage is cut, 
or, if necessary, a tunnel bored for it. Aqueducts 
were not unknown to the Greeks; but there are no 
remains of those which they constructed, and the 
brief notices of them by Pausanias, Herodotus, and 
others, do not enable us to form any distinct notion 
of their character. The aqueducts of the Romans 
were amongst the most magnificent of their works, 
and the noble supply of water which modern Rome 
derives from the three now in use, of which two 
are ancient, gives the stranger a very vivid concep- 
tion of the vast scale on which the ancient city must 
have been provided with one of the most important 
appliances of civilisation and refinement, when nine 
were employed to pour water into its baths and 
fountains. 
The following are the names of the Roman aque- 
ducts, chronologically arranged : 
1. The Aqua Appia, begun by and named after 
the censor Appius Claudius about 313 B.c. It ran a 
course of between 6 and 7 miles, its source being in 
the neighbourhood of Palestrina. With the exception 
of a small portion near the Porta Capena, it was 
subterranean. No remains of it exist. 
2. Anio Vetus, constructed about 273 B.c. by 
M. Curius Dentatus. It also was chiefly under- 
ground. Remains may be traced both at Tivoli 
and near the Porta Maggiore. From the point at 
which it quitted the river Anio, about 20 miles 
above Tivoli, to Rome, is about 43 miles. 
3. Aqua Marcia, named after the pretor Quintus 
Marcius Rex, 145 B.c., had its source between 
Tivoli and Subiaco, and was consequently about 60 
miles long. The noble arches which stretch across 
the Campagna for some 6 miles on the road to 
Frascati, are the portion of this A. which was above 
ground. 
4, Aqua Tepula (126 B.c.) had its source near 
Tusculum, and its channel was carried over the 
arches of the last-mentioned A. 
5. Aqua Julia, :constructed by Agrippa, and 
named after Augustus 34 B. c. Like the Tepulan, it 
was carried along the Marcian Arches, and its source 
was also near Tusculum. Remains of the three 
last-mentioned aqueducts still exist. 
6. Aqua Virgo, also constructed by Agrippa, and 
said to have been named in consequence of the 
spring which supplied it having been pointed out by 
a girl to some of Agrippa’s soldiers when in search 
of water. The Aqua Vergine, as it is now called, 
is still entire, having been restored by the Popes 
Nicholas V. and Pius IV. 1568. The source of the 
Aqua Virgo is near the Anio, in the neighbourhood 
of Torre Salona, on the Via Collatina, and about 14 
miles from Rome. The original object of this A. 
was to supply the baths of Agrippa ; its water now 
  
  
   
  
  
  
    
   
    
   
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
   
  
   
    
  
  
  
  
  
   
   
  
  
    
   
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
   
   
  
  
  
   
  
S - i e o Sag iR T all get S La b 
b 
W 
arx 
a 
i 
ne 
st 
ur 
th 
T} 
wl 
me 
R« 
su 
thi 
wl 
we 
Sn 
to 
rer 
thi 
arc