ATACA`MA, an all but rainless desert in the N. of Chile, abounding in silver and copper mines, as well as gold in considerable quantities.

ATAHUALPA, the last of the Incas of Peru, who fell into Pizarro’s hands through perfidy, and was strangled by his orders in 1533, that is, little short of a year after the Spaniards landed in Peru.

ATALAN`TA, a beautiful Grecian princess celebrated for her agility, the prize of any suitor who could outstrip her on the racecourse, failure being death; at last one suitor, Hippomenes his name, accepted the risk and started along with her, but as he neared the goal, kept dropping first one golden apple, then another, provided him by Venus, stooping to lift which lost her the race, whereupon Hippomenes claimed the prize.

AT`AVISM, name given to the reappearance in progeny of the features, and even diseases, of ancestors dead generations before.

ATBA`RA, or Black River, from the Highlands of Abyssinia, the lowest tributary of the Nile, which it joins near Berber.

ATE`, in the Greek mythology the goddess of strife and mischief, also of vengeance; was banished by her father Zeus, for the annoyance she gave him, from heaven to earth, where she has not been idle since.

ATHABA`SCA, a province, a river, and a lake in British N. America.

ATHALIA, the queen of Judah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, celebrated for her crimes and impiety, for which she was in the end massacred by her subjects, 9th century B.C.

ATHANASIAN CREED, a statement, in the form of a confession, of the orthodox creed of the Church as against the Arians, and damnatory of every article of the heresy severally; ascribed to Athanasius at one time, but now believed to be of later date, though embracing his theology in affirmation of the absolute co-equal divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in the Trinity.

ATHANASIUS, Christian theologian, a native of Alexandria, and a deacon of the Church; took a prominent part against Arius in the Council at Nice, and was his most uncompromising antagonist; was chosen bishop of Alexandria; driven forth again and again from his bishopric under persecution of the Arians; retired into the Thebaid for a time; spent the last 10 years of his life as bishop at Alexandria, where he died; his works consist of treatises and orations bearing on the Arian controversy, and in vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity viewed in the most absolute sense (296-373).

ATHEISM, disbelief in the existence of God, which may be either theoretical, in the intellect, or practical, in the life, the latter the more common and the more fatal form of it.

ATHEISM, MODERN, ascribed by Ruskin to “the unfortunate persistence of the clergy in teaching children what they cannot understand, and in employing young consecrate persons to assert in pulpits what they do not know.”

ATHELNEY, ISLE OF, an island in a marsh near the confluence of the Tone and Parret, Somerset; Alfred’s place of refuge from the Danes.