say of copper is performed by dissolving a weighed amount of ore in nitric acid, and removing sulphur if present by an addition of chlorate of potassium. Muriatic acid is added, and the nitric acid removed by evaporation. The residue is dissolved in water and muriatic acid and filtered; the copper is precipitated from this solution by pure zinc or iron, and the resulting copper sponge is washed by decanting the liquid and replacing it by distilled water, and then quickly dried and weighed as metallic copper; from this weight the value of the ore is easily calculated. The dry assay of copper is still in use in Cornwall, at Swansea, and at some other places. It is, as conducted by metallurgists, often an empirical process, the fluxes being added with very vague ideas as to their true effect. The ores are properly classified into those which contain no sulphur, arsenic, or any foreign metals but iron; those which contain sulphur, iron, arsenic, antimony, &c. Ores of the first class, containing over 3 per cent. of copper, are reduced in a crucible by the addition of three parts of black flux. Poorer ores may be assayed in the wet way. The second class are sulphates or sulphurets. The former are easily decomposed by heat in a platinum crucible, when they may be treated as substances of the first class. The sulphurets, under which general head are included most of the workable ores of commerce, are treated in a great variety of ways. The first operation, after reducing them to fine powder, is to roast or calcine them, to expel the sulphur. This process requires care and experience, and is most thoroughly effected, according to Mitchell, by adding one tenth of their weight of carbonate of ammonia to the roasting mass in the crucible, constantly stirring it in as the calcining goes on. Sulphate of copper is produced by the roasting; and on addition of carbonate of ammonia, by double decomposition, sulphate of ammonia forms, which being volatile can be expelled by heat. The ore is then thoroughly mixed in a mortar with 25 per cent. of its original weight of lime, and 10 to 20 per cent. of fine charcoal, and 13 time its weight of dry carbonate of soda. The whole is to be placed in the same crucible in which the roasting was done, and covered with its weight of glass of borax. It is then subjected to a moderate heat for a quarter of an hour, and to a bright red heat as much longer. On cooling, and breaking the crucible, the button of copper will be found in the bottom. It is well to make two parallel assays of these ores, that one may confirm or disprove the other.-The varieties of lead ores which are most commonly subjected to assay are the sulphurets (galena) and the carbonates. The former is treated by taking 400 or 500 grains, coarsely powdered, and mixing with it one fourth its weight of black flux, one fourth of iron nails, and one eighth of cream of tartar. The crucible should be large enough to contain double the quantity, and the charge

should be covered with common salt half an inch deep. After being exposed to a high heat for ten minutes, the lead may be poured out, or suffered to cool in the crucible. If the ore contain much earthy or pyritous matter, a less proportion of iron filings should be used, and a little fluor spar and borax be added. Galena is conveniently assayed in an iron crucible, the crucible itself furnishing the material for desulphurizing the ore. The usual quantity, say 400 or 500 grains, is mixed with 23 times its weight of carbonate of soda, and put in an iron crucible, which is covered. The galena is decomposed, and sulphuret of iron formed. The lead is poured out into an ingot mould, and the crucible well tapped to obtain all the lead. Another sample is immediately put in while the crucible is hot, and the operation repeated as long as the crucible lasts. The carbonates are assayed with half their weight of black flux, and a little cream of tartar, with a superficial covering of salt.

ASSELYN, Jan, a landscape painter, born in 1610, died in Amsterdam in 1660. He studied under Jan Miel and Isaiah Vandervelde at Antwerp, and under Peter van Laer (Bamboccio) at Rome. In his landscapes taken from the vicinity of Rome, which are enriched with ruins of edifices, and decorated with figures and cattle in the style of Berghem, he imitates the manner of Claude Lorraine. He also painted battle pieces of considerable merit. He was surnamed Krabbetje_ (little crab, crab-like) by the Dutch artists at Rome, on account of a contraction in his fingers.

ASSEMANI. I. Joseph Simon, a Syrian orientalist, born at Tripoli (Tarablus) in 1687, died in Rome, Jan. 14, 1768. After spending many years in the study of eastern languages, he was employed to collect oriental manuscripts for the library of the Vatican, and finally appointed custodian of the collection, which he largely increased. His principal works are: Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino- Vaticana (Rome, 1719-'28); Kalendaria Ecclesia Universa (1755-7); Bibliotheca Juris Orientalis Canonici et Civilis (1762-'4). He edited also an edition of the Opera Ephraemi Syri (1732–'46). II. Stephan Evodius, nephew of the preceding, born at Tripoli in 1707, died Nov. 24, 1782. Like his uncle he devoted himself to the study of oriental languages, and like him was made custodian of that department of the library of the Vatican, from which post he was appointed archbishop of Apamea. His investigations among oriental manuscripts were embodied in his two works, Bibliotheca MediceoLaurentina et Palatine Codices Manuscripti Orientales (Florence, 1742), and Acta Sanc torum Martyrum Orientalium et Occidentalium (Rome, 1748). III. Joseph Aloysius, brother of the preceding, born at Tripoli about 1710, died in Rome, Feb. 9, 1782. Pursuing the same studies as his uncle and brother, he was appointed professor in the Sapienza at Rome. His works are: Codex Liturgicus Ecclesia

ASSEN, a town of the Netherlands, capital of the province of Drenthe, 14 m. S. of Groningen, on the Horn-Diep, which is connected by means of a canal with the Zuyder-Zee; pop. in 1867, 6,443. Near the town are celebrated giants' graves.

cent., and in 1795 were worth only 18 per cent. In 1796 they were redeemed at of their face in mandats, entitling the holder to enter at once upon possession of the public lands at an estimated price. The mandats soon fell to of their nominal value, and in July, 1796, a law was passed authorizing the circulation of mandats at their current value, which resulted in the speedy disappearance of the notes.

ASSER, or Asserius Menevensis, a monk of St. David's or Menevia, in Wales, died about 910. At the request of Alfred the Great he left his monastery for a part of each year to visit the court, where he read Latin with the king and corrected his translations. Alfred gave him many ecclesiastical preferments. Some authorities say he became bishop of Sherborne. Asser's great work is his "Life of Alfred," in Latin. The earliest edition is that of Archbishop Parker, at the end of Walsingham's "History" (1574). The best edition is that of Wise (Oxford, 1722), entitled Annales Rerum Gestarum Alfredi Magni. This is our chief authority for the events of Alfred's public and private life from his birth to 889, and conveys much incidental intelligence about the laws, manners, and general civilization of Wessex. Thomas Wright, in the Biographia Britannica Literaria, maintains that this life was written at a later date, and Asser's name affixed to it. ASSIENTO (Sp. asiento, treaty), a term used to designate the treaties made by Spain with foreign countries for the supply of negro slaves to her South American provinces. The Spanish government, having no settlements on the African coast, encouraged adventurers to supply slaves by securing to them a monopoly of the trade, with other commercial privileges. The Flemish merchants received the contract from Charles V.; Philip II. gave it to the Genoese, under whose title the traffic was chiefly carried on by British traders; and Philip V. to a French company. The terms of this last assiento were the privilege of sending a ship of 500 tons with merchandise free of duty to Spanish America, and the payment of a sum on each imported negro, the minimum number of slaves being fixed at 4,800 annually. This contract was transferred by the same king to the South sea company, but abrogated shortly after at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. It never gave satisfaction to Spain; and the contractors always lost money, their local factors and agents reaping the profits.

ASSIGNATIONS, Russian paper money, introduced early in the reign of Catharine II., about the year 1770, principally to carry on the wars against the Turks. The standard currency was then as now the silver ruble, and the paper assignations on the banks-likewise founded by Catharine-were to represent in full the standard silver coin. But they soon fell until the assignation ruble was worth only one half, one third, and finally one fourth of the original value; and thus it became necessary to specify the nature of the ruble in all transactions. From 1787 the use of assignations as currency was general. In the reign of Paul I. the merchants of St. Petersburg, foreign and domestic, refused to receive assignations at the government standard in payment. Stringent ukases for facilitating the circulation of assignations all over the empire proved unsuccessful, and at the death of Paul (1801), and during the greater part of the reign of Alexander I., the assig nation ruble was generally worth one fourth of the silver. During the wars against Napoleon the issue of assignations increased excessively, but no considerable additional depreciation took place. With peace the assignations rose, and finally the government fixed the standard at 3 rubles 60 copecks, either of copper or assignations, for a silver ruble, one assignation ruble equalling 100 copecks copper, and four copecks copper making one of silver. On account of the facility of carrying large

ASSIGNATS, the paper currency of the French revolution, first issued in the spring of 1790, to be redeemed by the sale of the confiscated property of the clergy and the emigrants. The assignats kept their value above 90 per cent.

amounts in paper, the assignations soon came into such demand as to be worth a premium. This premium naturally increased with the distance inland, and the fluctuations were so irregular that in 1839 a ukase regulated the value of the assignations at 34 to 1 silver, and ordered that henceforth the silver ruble should be the legal unit in all negotiations and legal documents; that a new paper money, called "bills of credit," should be issued, and the old assignations gradually withdrawn from circulation and destroyed. This was accomplished.

ASSIGNMENT, in law, the making over or transferring of any species of property. It also signifies the deed or instrument by which the transfer is operated. The assignment of a lease is the transfer of the assignor's whole estate in the term created by the original lease. The difference between an assignment and an underlease is that the underlease retains the reversion, whereas the assignment parts with it. Assignment in commercial law was formerly much restricted. Bills of lading and bills of exchange were not assignable. All interests in personal property, of which a man has not the actual possession, but merely the right to recover, are choses in action. Thus a debt, whether specialty or simple contract, is a chose in action, a something to be recovered. These were not assignable. These restraints were, however, evaded by a license to use the name of the legal creditor. Even under a bill of sale of goods, the property in them does not pass unless by actual delivery and possession as against bona fide creditors. Both by the English and French law, property in the power and disposition of a debtor may by process of law be transferred to his creditor.

ASSING. I. Rosa Maria, a German poetess, sister of Varnhagen von Ense, born in Düsseldorf, May 28, 1783, died Jan. 22, 1840. The outbreak of the French revolution obliged her family to take up their residence in Strasburg, and in 1796 they removed to Hamburg. After the death of her father in 1799 she became a teacher. In 1816 she married Dr. Assing, a physician of Königsberg, who on her account removed to Hamburg, where his house became a favorite place of literary reunion. The poet Chamisso was a frequent visitor. Rosa's poems have been published, with a memoir of her life, under the title of Rosa Maria's poetischer Nachlass (Altona, 1841). II. Ludmilla, daughter of the preceding, born at Hamburg, Feb. 22, 1827. After the death of her parents she resided in Berlin with her uncle, the celebrated Varnhagen von Ense, occupying a daughter's place in his house, and receiving an unusually complete education. She first published essays in newspapers and reviews, and in 1857 produced a biography of the countess Elisa von Ahlefeldt. Several other biographies followed from her pen. On the death of her uncle she edited the unpublished portion of his Denkwürdigkeiten, issuing the 8th and 9th volumes in 1859. In 1860 she also published Alex55 VOL. II.-3

ander von Humboldt's letters to her uncle, and in 1861-2 the diaries of Varnhagen von Ense himself. The manner in which political events are treated in this collection brought her into disfavor with the court, and in May, 1862, an action was begun against her in Berlin-she having in the autumn of 1861 taken up her residence in Florence-which resulted in her conviction as a traducer of the king, queen, and various personages, and in her sentence to eight months' imprisonment. A similar trial, and sentence to two years' imprisonment, followed the publication of the remaining volumes of the collection in 1864; but she never actually underwent these punishments. She has since translated much from the Italian.

ASSINIBOIN, a river of British North America, rising in lat. 51° 40' N. and about lon. 105° W., and joining the Red river of the North at Fort Garry, Manitoba, in lat. 49° 54′ N. Its course is a distance of over 400 m. At a point 22 m. above Fort Garry it is 120 ft. wide, and has here in summer a mean depth of about 6 ft.; 140 m. from its mouth its breadth becomes 230 ft. and its mean depth over 8 ft.; at 280 m. its depth increases to over 11 ft. with a width of 135 ft. It receives in its course the waters of the Little Souris, Qu'appelle or Calling river, the Rapid river or the Little Saskatchewan, White Sand river, and Beaver creek. At its junction with the Little Souris, 140 m. from Fort Garry, the volume of water is 12,899,040 gallons an hour; while at Lane's Post, 118 m. lower down, this volume is diminished, Mr. Hind asserts, more than one half; a result which he attributes to evaporation. At Fort Ellice the secondary banks are 240 ft. high, forming an eroded valley nearly a mile and a half wide. Parts of its course are bordered by inconsiderable forests of oak, ash, elm, maple, birch, poplar, and aspen.

ASSINIBOINS, a tribe of Indians of the Dakota family, in Montana territory, United States, and in Manitoba and the region round about in British America. They were a part of the Yankton Sioux, but after a bitter quarrel about women separated from the mass of the nation about the beginning of the 17th century, and the two parties have since been hostile. Their own distinctive name is never used: the neighboring Algonquin tribes called them Assinipwalak, Stone Sioux, or Stone Warriors, as some infer from the nature of their country near the Lake of the Woods. The adventurous French missionaries reported them as a nation as early as 1640, and at a very early period they traded furs on Hudson bay. In the British provinces they are divided into Assiniboins of the prairies, who are tall, vigorous, and thievish, and Assiniboins of the woods, who are wretchedly poor. They extend from Souris or Mouse river to the Athabasca, and number some 5,000. There are Roman Catholic and Methodist missions among them at Lake Ste. Anne and Pigeon lake. They are friends and allies of the Crees,

as ale-house licenses, poor-law questions, or ap

ASSIZE, a term of the common law, having reference to several distinct subjects. Its most general uses are to designate an ordinance for regulating the sale of provisions, and the periodical sittings held by the judges of England and law officers in the various circuits of England and Wales, for the trial of lawsuits as well civil as criminal. The term is of uncertain derivation. It may be either from Lat. assido, to assess, or assideo, to sit near or together, both of which are incident to the functions discharged at assizes. Suits for the recovery of land were anciently tried by writ of right, or of assize. On these occasions the sheriff impanelled four knights and twelve assistants to try the matters in dispute. This assize could only be held before a judge of the principal courts at Westminster, whereby enormous expense was entailed on the jurors, the parties, and the witnesses. To remedy this grave inconvenience, provision was made by Magna Charta that an assize should be held annually by a judge in each county. This declaration was enlarged by the statute of Westminster (13 Edward I., c. 3), which gave jurisdiction to the judges to sit in the grand assize, not only for the purpose of settling disputes as to land, but also for the adjudication of all civil actions. The sittings thus held are familiarly known as sittings at nisi prius. This term originated from the form of the process for summoning and impanelling the jury, which, following the words of the statute of Westminster, directs the sheriff to summon a jury to be at Westminster on the first day of term, unless before (nisi prius) a judge shall come to try issues in the county.-The criminal jurisdiction of the court at the assizes is derived from a commission of oyer and terminer and general jail delivery. Courts for these purposes are held at each assize. Two assizes a year are held throughout England and Wales, and in the metropolitan and some other counties which comprise populous districts. Three assizes are held under modern statutes. Courts of quarter sessions are also held in the several counties, cities, and boroughs. The sessions despatch business of a quasi-judicial character,

with a view of relieving the pressure of assize business, jurisdiction has been given to county magistrates sitting in sessions to decide certain criminal causes of minor importance. Under the statute, the assizes are held by two judges of the superior courts of Westminster, one of whom usually presides in the criminal, the other in the civil court. All reserved points of law, exceptions, and other purely legal questions arising out of the proceedings at the trial, are argued subsequently at Westminster before the full court. Final judgment cannot be entered up until after the first four days of the term next after the assizes, which gives opportunity to move the court above for new trials, to set aside verdicts, or to stay judgment for any cause assigned. To obviate the evils of the delay thus afforded by common law, a recent statute gives discretion to the judge at nisi prius to certify for immediate execution, in all cases of simple contract debts. The bar at the assizes, or "upon circuit," as the more correct phrase is, is composed of the same barristers who argue at Westminster, each in his particular circuit, selected at the beginning of his career, and from which by etiquette he cannot deviate except in extraordinary cases.-Assize of Bread, or provisions (assisa venalium), in England, was the ordinance of a royal officer, or of the municipality, fixing the price and quality of bread, beer, meat, fish, coals, and other necessaries. This was anciently fixed by the clerk of the market of the king's household. By some municipal charters this power was delegated to the corporation. The earliest distinct notice of such an assize bears date 1203. All regulations of the kind were abolished for London and its vicinity in 1815, and they have everywhere fallen into disuse.-Assizes of Jerusalem were the laws made in 1099 by Godfrey of Bouillon, and his princes and clergy, for the regulation of the kingdom of Jerusalem, formed in the first crusade.

ASSUAY. See ASUAY.

ASSUMPSIT (Lat., he undertook), in law, the compendious title under which an extensive class of actions are included. After stating the cause of action, the pleadings state that thereupon "the defendant promised to pay." Assumpsit may be either special or common, also called indebitatus assumpsit. Under the former are included actions upon written contracts or agreements of all kinds; actions for derelictions of duty by professional men, carriers, or warehousemen; in short, under every circumstance where a contract is in actual existence or can be predicated from the relations of the parties. Common assumpsit is an action brought for goods sold and delivered, money lent, &c. Theoretically all actions of assumpsit are brought to recover compensation in the nature of damages; but, where those damages can be immediately ascertained by the acts of the parties, as for goods sold and