The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 33

ARANDA, COUNT OF, an eminent Spanish statesman, banished the Jesuits, suppressed brigandage, and curtailed the power of the Inquisition, was Prime Minister of Charles IV., and was succeeded by G.o.doy (1719-1798).

ARANJU'EZ (8), a town 28 m. SE. of Madrid, long the spring resort of the Spanish Court.

AR'ANY, JANOS, a popular Hungarian poet of peasant origin, attained to eminence as a man of letters (1819-1882).

AR'ARAT, a mountain in Armenia on which Noah's ark is said to have rested, 17,000 ft. high, is within Russian territory, and borders on both Turkey and Persia.

ARA'TUS, native of Sicyon, in Greece, promoter of the Achaean League, in which he was thwarted by Philip of Macedon, was poisoned, it is said, by his order (271-213 B.C.); also a Greek poet, author of two didactic poems, born in Cilicia, quoted by St Paul in Acts xvii. 28.

ARAUCA'NIA (88), the country of the Araucos, in Chile, S. of Concepcion and N. of Valdivia, the Araucos being an Indian race long resistant but now subject to Chilian authority, and interesting as the only one that has proved itself able to govern itself and hold its own in the presence of the white man.

ARAUCA'RIA, tall conifer trees, natives of and confined to the southern hemisphere.

ARBE'LA, a town near Mosul, where Alexander the Great finally defeated Darius, 331 B.C.

ARBROATH (22), a thriving seaport and manufacturing town on the Forfars.h.i.+re coast, 17 m. N. of Dundee, with the picturesque ruins of an extensive old abbey, of which Cardinal Beaton was the last abbot. It is the "Fairport" of the "Antiquary."

ARBUTHNOT, JOHN, a physician and eminent literary man of the age of Queen Anne and her two successors, born in Kincardines.h.i.+re, the friend of Swift and Pope and other lights of the time, much esteemed by them for his wit and kind-heartedness, joint-author with Swift, it is thought, of the "Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus" and the "History of John Bull"

(1667-1735).

AR'CACHON (7), a popular watering-place, with a fine beach and a mild climate, favourable for invalids suffering from pulmonary complaints, 34 m. SW. of Bordeaux.

ARCA'DIA, a mountain-girt pastoral tableland in the heart of the Morea, 50 m. long by 40 broad, conceived by the poets as a land of shepherds and shepherdesses, and rustic simplicity and bliss, and was the seat of the wors.h.i.+p of Artemis and Pan.

ARCA'DIUS, the first emperor of the East, born in Spain, a weak, luxurious prince, leaving the government in other hands (377-405).

ARCESILA'US, a Greek philosopher, a member of the Platonic School and founder of the New Academy, who held in opposition to the Stoics that perception was not knowledge, denied that we had any accurate criterion of truth, and denounced all dogmatism in opinion.

ARCHaeOLOGY, the study or the science of the monuments of antiquity, as distinct from palaeontology, which has to do with extinct organisms or fossil remains.

ARCHANGEL (19), the oldest seaport of Russia, on the Dvina, near its mouth, on the White Sea, is accessible to navigation from July to October, is connected with the interior by river and ca.n.a.l, and has a large trade in flax, timber, tallow, and tar.

ARCHANGELS, of these, according to the Koran, there are four: Gabriel, the angel who reveals; Michael, the angel who fights; Azrael, the angel of death; Azrafil, the angel of the resurrection.

ARCHELA'US, king of Macedonia, and patron of art and literature, with whom Euripides found refuge in his exile, _d_. 400 B.C.; a general of Mithridates, conquered by Sulla twice over; also the Ethnarch of Judea, son of Herod, deposed by Augustus, died at Vienne.

ARCHER, JAMES, portrait-painter, born in Edinburgh, 1824.

ARCHER, WM., dramatic critic, born in Perth, 1856.

AR'CHES, COURT OF, an ecclesiastical court of appeal connected with the archbishopric of Canterbury, the judge of which is called the dean.

AR'CHIL, a purple dye obtained from lichens.

ARCHIL'OCHUS, a celebrated lyric poet of Greece; of a satiric and often bitter vein, the inventor of iambic verse (714-676 B.C.).

ARCHIMA'GO, a sorcerer in Spenser's "Faerie Queene," who in the disguise of a reverend hermit, and by the help of Duessa or Deceit, seduces the Red-Cross Knight from Una or Truth.

ARCHIME'DES OF SYRACUSE, the greatest mathematician of antiquity, a man of superlative inventive power, well skilled in all the mechanical arts and sciences of the day. When Syracuse was taken by the Romans, he was unconscious of the fact, and slain, while busy on some problem, by a Roman soldier, notwithstanding the order of the Roman general that his life should be spared. He is credited with the boast: "Give me a fulcrum, and I will move the world." He discovered how to determine the specific weight of bodies while he was taking a bath, and was so excited over the discovery that, it is said, he darted off stark naked on the instant through the streets, shouting "_Eureka! Eureka!_ I have found it! I have found it!" (287-212 B.C.).

ARCHIMED'ES SCREW, in its original form a hollow spiral placed slantingly to raise water by revolving it.

ARCHIPEL'AGO, originally the aegean Sea, now the name of any similar sea interspersed with islands, or the group of islands included in it.

ARCHITRAVE, the lowest part of an entablature, resting immediately on the capital.

AR'CHON, a chief magistrate of Athens, of which there were nine at a time, each over a separate department; the tenure of office was first for life, then for ten years, and finally for one.

ARCHY'TAS OF TARENTUM, famous as a statesman, a soldier, a geometrician, a philosopher, and a man; a Pythagorean in philosophy, and influential in that capacity over the minds of Plato, his contemporary, and Aristotle; was drowned in the Adriatic Sea, 4th century B.C.; his body lay unburied on the sh.o.r.e till a sailor humanely cast a handful of sand on it, otherwise he would have had to wander on this side the Styx for a hundred years, such the virtue of a little dust, _munera pulveris_, as Horace calls it.

ARCIS'-SUR-AUBE (3), a town 17 m. N. of Troyes, in France, birthplace of Danton; scene of a defeat of Napoleon, March 1814.

AR'COT, the name of two districts, N. and S., in the Presidency of Madras; also chief town (11) in the district, 65 m. SW. of Madras; captured by Clive in 1787; once the capital of the Carnatic.

ARCTIC OCEAN, a circular ocean round the N. Pole, its diameter 40, with low, flat sh.o.r.es, covered with ice-fields, including numerous islands; the Gulf Stream penetrates it, and a current flows out of it into the Atlantic.