EICHHORN, JOHANN GOTTFRIED, a German theologian and Orientalist, born at Dorrenzimmern, Franconia; a man of extensive scholarship; held the chair of Oriental languages in Jena, and afterwards at Goettingen; was the first to apply a bold rationalism to the critical treatment of the Scriptures; he was of the old school of rationalists, now superseded by the historico-critical; his chief works are a Universal Library of Biblical Literature, in 10 vols., Introductions to the Old and to the New Testament, each in 5 vols., and an Introduction to the Apocrypha (1752-1827).

EICHTHAL, GUSTAVE D’, a French publicist, born at Nancy; an adherent of St. Simonianism; wrote “Les Evangiles”; Mrs. Carlyle describes him as “a gentle soul, trustful, and earnest-looking, ready to do and suffer all for his faith” (1804-1886).

EICHWALD, CHARLES EDWARD, an eminent Russian naturalist, born in Mitau, Russia; studied science at Berlin and Vienna; held the chairs of Zoology and Midwifery at Kasan and Wilna, and of Palaeontology at St. Petersburg; his explorations, which led him through most of Europe, Persia, and Algeria, and included a survey of the Baltic shores, as well as expeditions into the Caucasus, are described in his various works, and their valuable results noted (1795-1876).

EIFFEL, GUSTAVE, an eminent French engineer, born at Dijon; early obtained a reputation for bridge construction; designed the great Garabit Viaduct, and also the enormous locks for the Panama Canal; his most noted work is the gigantic iron tower which bears his name; in 1893 became involved in the Panama scandals, and was fined, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment; b. 1832.

EIFFEL TOWER, a structure erected on the banks of the Seine in Paris, the loftiest in the world, being 985 ft. in height, and visible from all parts of the city; it consists of three platforms, of which the first is as high as the towers of Notre Dame; the second as high as Strasburg Cathedral spire, and the third 863 ft; it was designed by Gustave Eiffel, and erected in 1887-1889; there are cafes and restaurants on the first landing, and the ascent is by powerful lifts.

EIGG or EGG, a rocky islet among the Hebrides, 5 m.  SW. of Skye; St. Donnan and 50 monks from Iona were massacred here in 617 by the queen, notwithstanding a remonstrance on the part of the islanders that it would be an irreligious act; here also the Macleods of the 10th century suffocated in a cave 200 of the Macdonalds, including women and children.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, “a sceptical century and a godless,” according to Carlyle’s deliberate estimate, “opulent in accumulated falsities, as never century before was; which had no longer the consciousness of being false, so false has it grown; so steeped in falsity, and impregnated with it to the very bone, that, in fact, the measure of the thing was full, and a French Revolution had to end it”; which it did only symbolically, however, as he afterwards admitted, and but admonitorily of a doomsday still to come.  See “FREDERICK THE GREAT,” BK.  I. CHAP, II., and “HEROES.”