a man of the first rank in the Mogul empire; a nobleman. It is the plural of the Arabic ameer.

in Ancient Geography, a city of Egypt sacred to the sun, and by the Greeks, on that account, called Heliopolis. (See HELIOPOLIS). It was remarkable for the wisdom and learning of its priesthood, and for the spacious building in which they cultivated the studies of philosophy and astronomy. The priests of On were esteemed more noble than all the other priests of Egypt. They were always privy counsellors and ministers of state; and therefore, when Pharaoh resolved to make Joseph prime minister, he very wisely gave him in marriage a daughter of the priest of On, thereby incorporating him into the most venerable cast in Egypt. Bishop Warburton thinks that the superior nobility of the priests of On was chiefly owing to their high antiquity and great learning. That they were much given to the study of astronomy, we know from the testimony of Strabo; and indeed nothing is more probable than that they should be attached to the study of that system over which their god, the Sun, presided, not only in his moral, but also in his natural capacity. The learned prelate affirms, that "whether they received the doctrine from original tradition, or invented it at hazard (which last supposition he thinks more probable, though we are of a very different opinion), it is certain they taught that the Sun is in the centre of its system, and that all the other bodies move round it in perpetual revolutions. This noble theory (he continues) came with the rest of the Egyptian learning into Greece (being brought thither by Pythagoras, who received it from Oenophis*, a* Plut. de pr. of On); and after having given the most distinguished lustre to his school, it sunk into obscurity, and suffered a total eclipse throughout a long succession of learned and unlearned ages; till these times restored its ancient splendour, and immovably fixed it on the unerring principles of science."

If it be true, as some philosophers allege, that Moses appears from the first chapter of Genesis to have been acquainted with the true solar system, this account of the origin of that system is extremely probable. As it is of no importance to the civil or religious constitution of a state whether the system of Ptolemy or that of Copernicus be admitted by the people, we cannot reasonably suppose that the Jewish lawgiver was taught astronomy by a revelation from Heaven. But there can be no doubt of his knowing as much of that science as the priests of On; for we know that he was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and therefore, if he held the sun to be in the centre of the system, it is morally certain that the same thing was held by that priesthood.