Alabama

one of the states of the North Amer- ican Republic, situated on the N. shore of the Gulf of Mexico, and bounded W. by Mi i ippi, N. by Tenne ee, and E. by Georgia. It extends N. 330 miles and has an average breadth of 154 miles, and an area of 50,722 square miles. The Alleghany Mountains skirt the N. of the state, and the centre is hilly, but for 60 miles inland from the sea an almost dead level prevails. To the N.E. the country is watered by the Coosa and Talapoosa, which unite just above Montgomery, the capital, to form the Alabama. The latter, flowing 8.W., joins the Tombigbee 45 miles above Mobile, and the united stream is called the Mobile river. The climate is subtropical, but healthy on the higher levels. The soil is fairly productive, and cotton, sugar, and tobacco thrive as well as cereals, cattle, and timber. Iron and coal are abundant and of good quality, but little worked as yet. Discovered by De Soto 1541, the country was occupied by the French 1711, ceded to England 1763, and admitted as a separate State 1819, Alabama, the name of a ve el built at Liverpool which served as a privateer in the service of the Southern States in the American Civil War in 1862. In 1464, after doing much damage to the North, the A/abama was sunk. After the conclusion of the war, compensation was claimed from England, and by the decision of the Geneva tribunal, to which the claim was referred for arbitration after many vain attempts at settlement, and when the relations between the two countries had become very strained, America obtained, in 1872, an award of over three millions sterling.