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ARGON (from the Or. &-, privative, and tpyov, work; hence meaning " inert "). a gaseous constituent of atmospheric air. For more than a hundred years before 1894 it had been supposed that the composition of the atmosphere was thoroughly known. Beyond variable ...

ARGONNE, a rocky forest-clad plateau in the north-east of France, extending along the borders of Lorraine and Champagne, and forming part of the departments of Ardennes, Meuse and Marne. The Argonne stretches from S.S.E. to N.N.W., a distance of 63 m. with an ...

ARAGON, or ARRAGON (in Span. Aragon), a captaincygeneral, and formerly a kingdom of Spain; bounded on the N. by the Pyrenees, which separate it from France, on the E. by Catalonia and Valencia, S. by Valencia, and W. by the two Castiles and Navarre. Pop. (1900

ARAGO, DOMINIQUE FRANCOIS JEAN (1786-1853), French physicist, was born on the 26th of February 1786, at Estagel, a small village near Perpignan, in the department of the eastern Pyrenees. He was the eldest of four brothers. Jean (17881836) emigrated to America

ARGOL, the commercial name of crude tartar (q.t.). It is a semi-crystalline deposit which forms on wine vats, and is generally grey or red in colour.

ARGOS, the name of several ancient Greek cities or districts, but specially appropriated in historic times to the chief town in eastern Peloponnese, whence the peninsula of Argolis derives its name. The Argeia, or territory of Argos proper, consisted of a shel

ARLON, the chief town of the Belgian province of Luxemburg, situated on a hill about 1240 ft. above the sea. Pop. (1004) 10,894. It is a very ancient town, and in the time of the Romans was called Orolaunum, being a station on the Antoninian way connecting Rei

ARSON (from Lat. ardere, to burn), a crime which has been described as the malicious and voluntary burning of the house of another (3 Co. Inst. 66). At common law in England it is an offence of the degree of felony. In the Roman civil law arson was punishable

BARON (c. 1562-1639), son of Sir Mathew Arundell of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, a member of the ancient family of Arundells of Lanhernc in Cornwall, and of Margaret, daughter of Sir Henry Willoughby, was born about 1562. In 1579 he was personally recommended

ARGENTON, a town of western France, in the department of Indre, on the Creuse, 19 m. S.S.W. of Ch&teauroux on the Orleans railway. Pop. (1006) 3638. The river is crossed by two bridges, and its banks arc bordered by picturesque old houses. There are numerous t

ARCHON (apxuv, ruler), the title of the highest magistrate in many ancient Greek states. It is only in Athens that we have any detailed knowledge of the office, and even in this one case the evidence presents problems of the first importance which are incapabl

ARGOSY (a corruption, by transposition of letters, of the name of the seaport Ragusa), the term originally for a carrack or merchant ship from Ragusa and other Adriatic ports, now used poetically of any vessel carrying rich merchandise. In English writings of

ARGUIN, an island (identified by some writers with Hanno's Cerne), off the west coast of Africa, a little south of Cape Blanco, in 20° 25' N., 16° 37' W. It is some 4 m. long by i\ broad, produces gum-arabic, and is the seat of a lucrative turtle-fishery. Off

... or which he is known — A rgonauiica, an epic in four books on the legend of the Argonauts. When he read it at Alexandria, it was rejected through the influence of Callimachus and his party. Disgusted with his failure, Apollonius withdrew to Rhodes, where he wa ...

... of astronomy by the shores of the Euphrates. Records dating from the reign of Sargon of Akkad (3800 B.C.) imply that even then the varying aspects of the sky had been long under expert observation. Thus early, there is reason to suppose, the stargroups with w ...

... amount ; this gas, afterwards investigated by Rayleigh and Ramsay, is now named argon (q.v.). The constancy of composition shown by repeated analyses of atmospheric air led to the view that it was a chemical compound of nitrogen and oxygen; but there was no ex ...

... eolithic times, but it was already a fortified city when Elam was conquered by Sargon of Akkad (3800 B.C.) and Susa became the seat of a Babylonian viceroy. From this time onward for many centuries it continued under Semitic suzerainty, its high-priests, also ...

... ais to hide his free-thinking under a disguise of revolting and unintelligible jargon. It was only in the Empire that such liberty of speech as Erasmus used \v;is practicable, and in the Empire Erasmus passed for a moderate man. Upon the strength of an establi ...

... with his parents in a golden palace in the depths of the sea. The story of the Argonauts places his home on the coast of Libya. When the Argo was driven ashore on the Lesser Syrtes the crew carried the vessel to Lake Tritonis, whence Triton, the local deity, ...