[Albert the Bear], markgrave of Brandenburg, called the Bear, "not from his looks or qualities, for he was a tall handsome man, but from the cognisance on his shield, an able man, had a quick eye as well as a strong hand, and could pick what way was straightest among crooked things, was the shining figure and the great man of the North in his day, got much in the North and kept it, got Brandenburg for one there, a conspicuous country ever since," says Carlyle, "and which grows more so in our late times" (1100-1175).
[Albert Nyan`za], a lake in Equatorial Africa, in the Nile basin, discovered by Sir Samuel Baker in 1864, 150 m. long by 40 broad, and 2500 feet above sea-level.
[Alber`ta] (26), a fertile region with large forests in British America, on the E. slope of the Rocky Mountains, the south abounding in cattle ranches, and the mountainous districts in minerals.
[Alberti], an illustrious Florentine family, rivals of the Medicis and the Albrizzi.
[Alber`tus Magnus], one of the greatest of the scholastic philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages, teacher of Thomas Aquinas, supreme in knowledge of the arts and sciences of the time, and regarded by his contemporaries in consequence as a sorcerer (1190-1280).
[Albi], a town of some antiquity and note in S. of France, 22 m. NE. of Toulouse.
[Albigen`ses], a religious sect, odious, as heretical, to the Church, which sprung up about Albi, in the S. of France, in the 12th century, against which Pope Innocent III. proclaimed a crusade, which was carried on by Simon de Montfort in the 13th century, and by the Inquisition afterwards, to their utter annihilation.
[Albinos], persons or animals with preternaturally pale skin and fair hair, also with pupils of a red or pink colour, and eyes too weak to bear full light.
[Albinus], an able professor of anatomy and therapeutics at Leyden (1696-1770).
[Albion], a white cliff, the ancient name of Great Britain.