Ellwood, Thomas, an early writer among the Quakers, born in 1639, died in 1713. About 1660 he was induced to join the Society of Friends, and soon after published An Alarm to the Priests. He was imprisoned on account of his religion, but subsequently became reader to Milton, and upon reading the MS. of Paradise Lost is said to have suggested to the poet the idea of writing the Paradise Regained. In 1705 and 1709 he published the two parts of his Sacred History. His works include a poetical life of King David, the Davideis, Forgery no Christianity, and an autobiography, The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood: written by his own hand.
Fruit, flowers, and leaves.
Elm, a genus of trees (Ulmus; nat. ord., Ulmaceæ), consisting of eighteen species, natives of the northern temperate zone and mountains of Tropical Asia. They have bisexual flowers with a campanulate calyx, as many stamens as there are divisions in the limb of the calyx, and two styles. Two species are common in Britain, Ulmus campestris and Ulmus montāna, with many varieties. The Ulmus campestris, or common elm, is a fine tree, of rapid and erect growth, and yielding a tall stem, remarkable for the uniformity of its diameter throughout. It is very common as a timber tree in England; but as it rarely produces seed it is questionable whether it is indigenous. It is a native of the south and middle of Europe, and the west of Asia. The average height of a mature tree is 70 or 80 feet, but some reach a height of 150 feet. The wood is brown, hard, of fine grain, not apt to crack, and is used for many purposes. The tree generally attains maturity in seventy or eighty years. Ulmus montāna (the mountain or wych elm), a native of Scotland, grows to a less height than the English elm, is of slower growth, and yields a much shorter bole, but it is far bolder in its ramification and more hardy. It usually attains to the height of about 50 feet. It does not produce suckers, like the English elm, but yields
seed freely. The timber is strong and elastic, and the tree often yields large protuberances of gnarled wood, finely knotted and veined, and much esteemed for veneering. Ulmus glabra, the smooth-leaved elm, is a variety common in some parts of Britain. It first appeared about the middle of the eighteenth century. The most ornamental tree of the genus is Ulmus montāna, variety pendŭla, the weeping elm. The American or white elm (Ulmus americāna) is abundant in the Western States, attaining its loftiest stature between lat. 42° and 46°; here it reaches the height of 100 feet, with a trunk 4 or 5 feet in diameter, rising sometimes 60 or 70 feet before it separates into a few primary limbs. Its wood is not much esteemed. The red or slippery elm (Ulmus fulva) is found throughout a great extent of country in Canada, Missouri, and as far south as lat. 31°; it attains the height of 50 or 60 feet, with a trunk 15 or 20 inches in diameter; the wood is of better quality than that of the white elm. The leaves and bark yield an abundant mucilage. The wahoo (Ulmus alāta), inhabiting from lat. 37° to Florida, Louisiana, and Arkansas, is a small tree, 30 feet high. The branches are furnished on two opposite sides with wings of cork 2 or 3 lines wide; the wood is fine-grained and heavy.
Elmi´na, a British town and seaport on the west coast of Africa, 8 miles west of Cape Coast Castle. It was acquired by Britain in 1872 with the other Dutch possessions on the Gold Coast, when it was claimed by the King of Ashanti, the result being the Ashanti Wars of 1873-4. Pop. 12,500.
Elmi´ra, a town of the United States, N. York, on the Chemung River; with a college for women, founded in 1855, the State reformatory, and a fine court-house. Its industrial establishments comprise rolling-mill, blast-furnace, foundries, and machine-works. Pop. 37,176.
Elmo's Fire, St., a meteoric appearance often seen playing about the masts and rigging of ships. If two flames are visible (Castor and Pollux) the sailors consider it a good omen; if only one (Helena), they regard it as a bad one. The name is derived from St. Elmo, or St. Erasmus, who was broken on the wheel A.D. 304.
Elmshorn, a town in Schleswig-Holstein, 20 miles north-west of Hamburg, on the Krückau, a navigable stream. Pop. 14,790.
Elmsley, Peter, D.D., English scholar, born in 1773, died in 1825. Educated at Oxford, he was one of the original contributors to the Edinburgh Review, and wrote occasionally, at a subsequent period, in the Quarterly. He finally settled at Oxford, on obtaining the headship of St. Alban's Hall and the Camden professorship of ancient history in 1823. He published editions of the Œdipus Tyrannus (1811), Heraclidæ (1815), Medea (1818), Bacchæ (1821), and Œdipus Coloneus (1823).