Page 626 : ESCURIAL — ESSAY
Individual articles:
point, having five docks for iron-ore and a large one for other products, and, besides, is in the center of a vegetable, grain and lumber-region. The city has a good public-school system, a high-school, a public library, St. Joseph's high-school and a national bank. It is served by the C. & N. W. and the M. & St. P. railways. Population, 13,194.
Escurial (es-kū′ri-al) or Escorial (ĕs-kō′-rĭ-al), a monastery, royal palace and burial place of the Spanish kings, situated 31 miles northwest of Madrid, on the slope of the Sierra Guadarrama, 3,700 feet above the sea. It was built by Philip II, and dedicated to St. Lawrence in memory of a victory which occurred on St. Lawrence's day. The main building is 706 feet long and 550 broad. A smaller square building, used as the royal palace, projects from the east side. It was begun in 1563 and finished in 1584. It held one of the finest collections of pictures in Europe until 1837, when a hundred of the best were taken to Madrid. The burial place of the royal family, called the Pantheon, is an eight-sided room beneath the church. The kings of Spain, from Charles V to Alfonso XII, all but Philip V and Ferdinand II, are buried here in marble tombs, placed one above another in niches in the wall. The Escorial was much injured by fire in 1872.
Esdraelon (ĕs′drȧ′ē-lŏn) or Plain of Jezreel, a valley in Palestine, extending along the River Kishon from Mt. Hermon to Mt. Carmel. It is a fertile plain, and is in the shape of a triangle, its longest side measuring 18 miles in length. Here Gideon defeated the Midianites, and in 1799 the French under Napoleon conquered the Turks. As late as 1867 the plain was annually overrun and wasted by the Arabs, but is now in a high state of cultivation. See Haifa, by Laurence Oliphant.
Eskimo (ĕs′kĭ-mṓ) or Esquimaux, a people numbering about 40,000, who are spread over the most northern parts of America, the Arctic Islands, Greenland and about 400 miles of the nearest coast of Asia. They have been found as far north as discoverers have gone, living usually within 20 miles of the seashore. They are the most thinly scattered people in the world. They seem to be allied to the American Indians, being about the same height, with slightly brown skin and coarse, black hair. They live by hunting and fishing, the seal furnishing them with food, clothes and fuel. Their houses are built of wood or stone (covered with sod) or of snow, with a funnel-shaped, half-underground passage for an entrance. The rooms are heated by lamps, and the sleeping places, somewhat like stalls, are arranged in rows along the sides, with often 50 and sometimes 200 inmates to a house. Men and women wear the same dress—a pair of trousers and a coat or sack, with a hood attached to draw up over the head, made of skins. The women use the hood as a cradle for carrying their children. The Eskimos are divided into tribes, and the tribes again into groups, while one of the oldest and most respected men is obeyed as chief of a house or wintering-place. The Eskimo of Labrador, southern Alaska and western Greenland are Christians. The name is supposed to come from an Indian word, meaning eaters of raw meat. Their name for themselves is Inuit or, in Greenland, Kaladlit. See The Eskimo Tribes, by Dr. H. Rink.
Esperanto, an artificial language invented by a Russian scholar named Zamenhof and first given to the public in 1887. It is designed to meet the requirements of a universal language. It seems necessary that any language to be universally adopted must be an artificial one, since national jealousy prevents the adoption of a living language, as English or French. A great advantage would necessarily be given to any nation whose language was thus universally adopted. On the other hand, the adoption of a dead language like Latin is out of the question, as it is too difficult for general acquisition. Esperanto is claimed to be very easy to learn for any person familiar with any one of the main European languages, as its vocabulary is made up of only such words as are common, though in varying forms, to the main languages of Europe.
Esquimault (ĕs-kwī′ma̤lt). The western suburb of the city of Victoria (British Columbia). Until recently it was the headquarters of the North Pacific fleet. The ships, save one or two, have been withdrawn and the Dominion has undertaken the maintenance of the fortifications, which are amongst the strongest in the empire. Esquimault has a splendid harbor. It was formerly used exclusively by the navy, but will now be opened to merchant-vessels. There is, besides, a dockyard with a huge dry-dock. Barracks and a naval arsenal complete the equipment of the place, which is heavily fortified.
Essay (The). The essay, as a record of individual observation and personal comment on social life, was first elaborated in France by Michel de Montaigne. His book, published in 1580, has never been excelled in keen penetration, rich knowledge of life, sound judgment and frank and genial conversational comment. Lord Bacon's essays, published in 1597, are rather more like addresses or treatises in their formality; although they are brief, like letters, and pithy, like proverbs. With the rise of the periodicals, the form attained its best English expression in The Tatler and The Spectator of Steele and Addison. These brief sketches of the aspects of contemporary and local life, in their endeavor
