Apaches (a˙-pä´chez), a warlike race of North-American Indians, numbering between 5000 and 6000, and inhabiting Arizona, New Mexico, and
Oklahoma. The final surrender of the tribe took place in 1886, but a few in Mexico still maintain their independence and hostility to the whites. The name Apache was assumed by Parisian hooligans, notorious for their criminal outrages.
Ap´anage, an allowance which the younger princes of a reigning house in some European countries receive from the revenues of the country, generally together with a grant of public domains, that they may be enabled to live in a manner becoming their rank.
Ap´atite, a translucent but seldom transparent mineral, which crystallizes in a regular six-sided prism, usually terminated by a truncated six-sided pyramid. It passes through various shades of colour, from white to yellow, green, blue, and occasionally red, scratches fluor-spar but is scratched by felspar, and has a specific gravity of about 3.5. It is a compound of calcium phosphate with calcium fluoride or chloride. It occurs principally in igneous rocks, particularly diorites. The very coarse-grained granites of Ontario contain apatite crystals of corresponding size, which have been picked out as a source of artificial phosphate manures. Apatite supplies to soils almost all the phosphorus available for plants in a state of nature.
Ape, a common name of a number of quadrumanous animals inhabiting the Old World (Asia and the Asiatic Islands, and Africa), and including a variety of species. The word ape was formerly applied indiscriminately to all quadrumanous mammals; but it is now limited to the anthropoid or man-like monkeys. The family includes the chimpanzee, gorilla, orang-outang, &c., and has been divided into three genera, Troglodўtes, Simia, and Hylobătes. See Chimpanzee, Gibbon, Gorilla, Monkey, Orang, &c.
Apeldoorn (ä´pel-dōrn), a town of Holland, province of Guelderland, 17 miles north of Arnhem, with manufactures of paper. The royal palace Loo is here. Pop. 44,474.
Apelles (a-pel´ēz), the most famous of the painters of ancient Greece and of antiquity, was born in the fourth century B.C., probably at Colophon. Ephorus of Ephesus was his first teacher, but attracted by the renown of the Sicyonian school he went and studied at Sicyon. In the time of Philip he went to Macedonia, and there a close friendship between him and Alexander the Great was established. The most admired of his pictures was that of Venus rising from the sea and wringing the water from her dripping locks. His portrait of Alexander with a thunderbolt in his hand was no less celebrated. He died about the end of the century. Among the anecdotes told of Apelles is the one which gave rise to the Latin proverb, 'Ne sutor ultra crepidam'—'Let not the shoemaker go beyond the shoe'. Having heard a cobbler point out an error in the drawing of a shoe in one of his pictures he corrected it, whereupon the cobbler took upon him to criticize the leg, and received from the artist the famous reply.
Ap´ennines (Lat. Mons Apenninus), a prolongation of the Alps, forming the 'backbone of Italy'. Beginning at Savona, on the Gulf of Genoa, the Apennines traverse the whole of the peninsula and also cross over into Sicily, the Strait of Messina being regarded merely as a gap in the chain. The average height of the mountains composing the range is about 4000 feet, and nowhere do they reach the limits of perpetual snow, though some summits exceed 9000 feet in height. Monte Corno, called also Gran Sasso d'Italia (Great Rock of Italy), which rises among the mountains of the Abruzzi, is the loftiest of the chain, rising to the height of 9541 feet, Monte Majella (9151) being next. Monte Gargano, which juts out into the Adriatic from the ankle of Italy, is a mountainous mass upwards of 5000 feet high, completely separated from the main chain. On the Adriatic side the mountains descend more abruptly to the sea than on the western or Mediterranean side, and the streams are comparatively short and rapid. On the western side are the valleys of the Arno, Tiber, Garigliano, and Volturno, the largest rivers that rise in the Apennines, and the only ones of importance in the peninsular portion of Italy. They consist almost entirely of limestone rocks, and are exceedingly rich in the finest marbles. On the south slopes volcanic masses are not uncommon. Mount Vesuvius, the only active volcano on the continent of Europe, is an instance. The lower slopes are well clothed with vegetation, the summits are sterile and bare.
Apenrade (ä´pen-rä-de), a seaport in Schleswig-Holstein, on a fiord of the Little Belt, beautifully situated, and carrying on a considerable fishing industry. Pop. 7800.
Ape´rient, a medicine which, in moderate doses, gently but completely opens the bowels: examples, castor-oil, Epsom salts, senna, &c.