The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 34

ARCTU'RUS, star of the first magnitude and the chief in the N.

constellation Bootes.

ARDeCHE, an affluent of the Rhone, source in the Cevennes; gives name to a department traversed by the Cevennes Mountains.

ARDEN, a large forest at one time in England, E. of the Severn.

ARDEN, ENOCH, hero of a poem by Tennyson, who finds, on his return from the sea, after long absence, his wife, who believed him dead, married happily to another; does not disclose himself, and dies broken-hearted.

ARDENNES, a forest, a tract of rugged woodland on the confines of France and Belgium; also department of France (325), on the borders of Belgium.

AR'DOCH, a place in Perths.h.i.+re, 7 m. from Crieff, with the remains of a Roman camp, the most complete in Britain.

ARENDS, LEOPOLD, a Russian of literary ability, inventor of a system of stenography extensively used on the Continent (1817-1882).

AREOPAGITICA, a prose work of Milton's, described by Prof.

Saintsbury as "a magnificent search for the Dead Truth."

AREOP'AGUS, the hill of Ares in Athens, which gave name to the celebrated council held there, a tribunal of 31 members, charged with judgment in criminal offences, and whose sentences were uniformly the awards of strictest justice.

AREQUI'PA (35), a city in Peru, founded by Pizarro in 1536, in a fruitful valley of the Andes, 8000 ft. above the sea, 30 m. inland; is much subject to earthquakes, and was almost destroyed by one in 1868.

A'ReS, the Greek G.o.d of war in its sanguinary aspects; was the son of Zeus and Hera; identified by the Romans with Mars, was fond of war for its own sake, and had for sister Eris, the G.o.ddess of strife, who used to pander to his pa.s.sion.

ARETae'US, a Greek physician of 1st century; wrote a treatise on diseases, their causes, symptoms, and cures, still extant.

ARETHU'SA, a celebrated fountain in the island of Ortygia, near Syracuse, transformed from a Nereid pursued thither from Elis, in Greece, by the river-G.o.d Alphaeus, so that the waters of the river henceforth mingled with those of the fountain.

ARETI'NO, PIETRO, called the "Scourge of Princes," a licentious satirical writer, born at Arezzo, in Tuscany, alternately attached to people and repelled from them by his wit, moved from one centre of attraction to another; settled in Venice, where he died after an uncontrollable fit of laughter which seized him at the story of the adventure of a sister (1492-1557).

AREZZO (44), an ancient Tuscan city, 38 m. SE. of Florence, and eventually subject to it; the birthplace of Maecenas, Michael Angelo, Petrarch, Guido, and Vasari.

AR'GALI, a sheep of Siberia, as large as a moderately-sized ox, with enormous grooved curving horns, strong-limbed, sure-footed, and swift.

ARGAN', the hypochondriac rich patient in Moliere's "Le Malade Imaginaire."

ARGAND, a Swiss physician and chemist, born at Geneva; inventor of the argand lamp, which, as invented by him, introduced a circular wick (1755-1803).

ARGELAN'DER, a distinguished astronomer, born at Memel, professor at Bonn; he fixed the position of 22,000 stars, and recorded observations to prove that the solar system was moving through s.p.a.ce (1799-1874).

AR'GENS, MARQUIS D', a French soldier who turned to letters, author of sceptical writings, of which the best known is ent.i.tled "Lettres Juives" (1704-1771).

ARGENSON, RENe-LOUIS, MARQUIS D', French statesman, who left "Memoirs" of value as affecting the early and middle part of Louis XV.'s reign (1694-1757).

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC, or ARGENTINA (4,000), a confederation like that of the United States of 14 states and 9 territories, occupying the eastern slopes of the Andes and the vast level plain extending from them to the Atlantic, bounded on the N. by Bolivia and Paraguay; its area ten times that of Great Britain and Ireland; while the population includes 600,000 foreigners, Italians, French, Spaniards, English, and Germans.

AR'GO, the fifty-oared s.h.i.+p of the ARGONAUTS (q. v.).

AR'GOLIS, the north-eastern peninsula of the Morea of Greece, and one of the 13 provinces of Greece, is 12 m. long by 5 m. broad.

AR'GON, a new element lately discovered to exist in a gaseous form in the nitrogen of the air.

ARGONAUTICA, the t.i.tle of a poem on the Argonautic expedition by Apollonius of Rhodes.

AR'GONAUTS, the Greek heroes, sailors in the _Argo_, who, under the command of Jason, sailed for Colchis in quest of the golden fleece, which was guarded by a dragon that never slept, a perilous venture, but it proved successful with the a.s.sistance of Medea, the daughter of the king, whom, with the fleece, Jason in the end brought away with him to be his wife.

ARGONNE', FOREST OF, "a long strip of rocky mountain and wild wood"

in the NE. of France, within the borders of which the Duke of Brunswick was outwitted by Dumouriez in 1792.

AR'GOS (9), the capital of Argolis, played for long a prominent part in the history of Greece, but paled before the power of Sparta.

AR'GUS, surnamed the "All-seeing," a fabulous creature with a hundred eyes, of which one half was always awake, appointed by Hera to watch over Io, but Hermes killed him after lulling him to sleep by the sound of his flute, whereupon Hera transferred his eyes to the tail of the peac.o.c.k, her favourite bird. Also the dog of Ulysses, immortalised by Homer; he was the only creature that recognised Ulysses under his rags on his return to Ithaca after twenty years' absence, under such excitement, however, that immediately after he dropped down dead.

ARGUS, a pheasant, a beautiful Oriental game-bird, so called from the eye-like markings on its plumage.

ARGYLL (74), a large county in the W. of Scotland, consisting of deeply indented mainland and islands, and abounding in mountains, moorlands, and lochs, with scenery often picturesque as well as wild and savage.