properly HELGELAND, i.e., HOLY LAND, a small cluster of islets belonging to Great Britain in the German Ocean, about 25 miles off the coast of Holstein, and about the same distance from the mouth of the Elbe. The group consists of Heligoland (which gives name to the whole cluster), Sandy Island, and a great number of banks, reefs, and uninhabited cliffs, of which latter the largest is called the Monk. The islet of Heligoland is only about three miles in circumference. It consists of two distinct parts, the low ground and the rock. The latter, which rises with an almost perpendicular abruptness to the height of between 150 and 200 feet above the sea, consists of a reddish sandstone, and has a very striking aspect from the sea. The flats at its foot produce a little corn, and are chiefly valuable for the excellent double harbour which they present. To the east of them is an excellent roadstead, well sheltered, and capable of accommodating the largest vessels. Heligoland is said to have been at one time much larger than it is now; and Sir C. Lyell, in his Principles of Geology, endeavours to prove, that since the year 800 it has been gradually crumbling away before the action of the currents. Portions of the island, it is quite true, have been Heliodorus swept away; but it has also been thought that the famous map by Meyer, which exhibits the island as containing nine parishes, &c., is a mere fiction. A comparison of the oldest extant maps of good authority shows, that the amount of destruction for the whole circumference in the course of a century does not exceed three feet. The people of Heligoland live chiefly on the rocky part of the island; a few fishermen only inhabiting the flats. The native inhabitants support themselves principally by fishing and piloting. Though the island has been in possession of the English since 1807, there are almost no English residents except the governor and his suite, and the garrison. During the great continental war, however, when Heligoland became the depot of a vast quantity of merchandise, which was thence smuggled into the Continent, the population rose to upwards of 4000, and the commercial interests of the place became very considerable. A lighthouse and batteries have been erected by the English for the protection of the island and shipping. Heligoland was anciently inhabited by the Frisii, and it is believed that the famous temple of the Frisic god Fosete stood on the island. This temple was destroyed in the eighth century, at the time when the inhabitants embraced Christianity. The existing natives speak the language of the old Frieslanders, whose customs, manners, and dress, they have also retained with slight modifications. Pop. about 2300.

Heliodorus, the first and best of the Greek romancers, was born at Emesa in Syria, and flourished under Theodosius at the close of the fourth century. Nothing is known of his personal history, except that he became bishop of Trices in Thessaly, and compelled every married priest in his diocese to put away his wife as soon as he applied for ordination. His famous romance, the *Ethiopic*,—so called, because the scene is laid in *Ethiopia*,—narrates the loves of Theagenes and Chariclea. The work is interesting, both because it exhibits the first germs of the great modern art of novel-writing, and because the story as a story has very considerable merit. The adventures are, perhaps, too numerous; and, besides following in too rapid succession, are occasionally rather improbable; yet both the main plot and the episodes are well managed, the characters are well drawn, and the scenery is well described. The language, too, though somewhat deficient in point and terseness, is natural and pleasing. The *Ethiopic* was not known to modern scholars except by repute, till the sack of Olen in 1526, when a MS. copy from the library of Matthew Corvinus fell into the hands of a German soldier, who carried it off with him into his own country. It passed into the hands of Obsequus, by whom it was printed at Basle in 1538. Other MSS. were discovered, and new and more correct editions followed. The most recent is also the best—that of Corais, Paris, 1804.

Helioimeter (φῶς, sun, and μέτρον, measure), the name given by Bouguer, to a kind of double-image micrometer for measuring the diameters of the stars, and especially those of the sun and moon, or any small apparent distance between the heavenly bodies. Mr Savary of Exeter communicated to the Royal Society, in the year 1743, an account of a double-image micrometer, from which the helioimeter proposed by Bouguer, five years afterwards (1748), does not differ in construction. This instrument is described under the head Micrometer, in which the various improvements it has received are given in detail.

Helionpolis, i.e., the city of the sun, in Ancient Geography, a town in Lower Egypt, on the right bank of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, not far from the point where it diverges from the main stream. See Egypt.

Helionpolis, the classical name of Baalbec in Syria. See Baalbec.

Heliotstat, in Optics, the name given by s'Gravesande to an instrument devised by him for the purpose of fixing, as it were, the solar rays during the whole time of Heliotrope observation—namely, by reflecting them in the same straight line by a mirror, to which a proper motion is given by means of clockwork. The original instrument is described in his *Phys. Elementa Mathematica*; but it has been greatly improved by Malus and others.

Heliotropé (*heliotropium*), amongst the ancients, an instrument or machine for showing when the sun arrived at the tropics and the equinoctial line. This name was also used generally for a sun-dial.