Arthurs Seat

Arthur's Seat, a lion-shaped hill, immediately east of Edinburgh, rising 822 feet. The ascent is easy, and the prospect from the top unrivalled. Arthur's Seat is supposed to derive its name from the British king.

Artois

Artois (Ar-twah'), an old province in the north of France, bounded by Flanders and Picardy, and almost corresponding with the modern dep. of Pas-de-Calais. Its capital was Arras.

Artvin

Artvin, a town of Russian Armenia, on the Charuch, 34 miles S. of Batum; pop. 8000.

Aru

Aru. See Arru.

Arun

Arun, a Sussex river, flowing 37 miles to the English Channel at Littlehampton.

Arundel

Ar'undel, an ancient municipal borough (till 1867 also parliamentary) of Sussex, on the navigable Arun, 5 miles from its mouth, and 10 miles E. of Chichester. Arundel Castle, the seat of the Fitzalans, Earls of Arundel, from 1243 to 1580, and since then of the Howards, comprises a circular Norman keep, 100 feet high, and a modern Gothic edifice dating from 1791. It has stood three great sieges, in 1102, in 1139, and in 1644. There are a cruciform parish church (1387) and a splendid R. C. church (1873). Pop. 3644.

Aruwiml

Aruwiml, an important tributary of the Congo, entering the latter from the north in 1° l0 N. lat., 23° 30' E. long. It was explored for 100 miles by Stanley in 1883, and by it Stanley advanced to the relief of Emin Pasha in 1887.

Arve

Arve (Arv), a Swiss stream rising in the Col de Balme, one of the Savoy Alps, and flowing 62 miles through the Vale of Chamouni and the canton of Geneva to the Rhone.

Arveyron

Arveyron, a small tributary of the Arve, in Savoy, is the outlet of the famous Mer de Glace, in the Vale of Chamouni, from which it issues in a torrent through a beautiful grotto of ice, 40 to 150 feet high.

Asben

Asben. See Air.

Ascension

Ascension, a solitary island nearly in the middle of the South Atlantic, 685 miles NW. of St Helena, in 7o 57' S. lat., and 14° 21' W. long. It is said to have received its name from having been discovered by a Portuguese navigator on Ascension-day, 1501. It is 7 1/2 miles long, 6 broad, and 35 sq. m. in area. First occupied by the English in 1815, in connection with Napoleon's detention on St Helena, it is now used only as a sanatorium, having ceased since 1S87 to be a coaling depot. Like St Helena, it is of volcanic origin, one of the peaks of a submarine ridge which separates the north and south basins of the Atlantic. It rises in the Green Mountain to a height of 2870 feet. Several astronomers and savants have visited Ascension, from Halley in 1677, to Darwin, Sir Wyville Thomson, and Mr Gill. Pop., with Kroomen, about 450. See Mrs Gill's Six Months in Ascension (1879).

Asch

Asch, a town of Bohemia, 14 miles NW. of Eger, with thriving silk, cotton, and woolleu manufactures; pop. 19,209.

Aschaffenburg

Aschaffenburg (Ashaffenboorg'), a Bavarian town of Lower Franconia, on the Main, at the Aschaff s influx, 25 miles SE. of Frankfort, The castle of Johannisburg, a Renaissance pile of 1605-14, overlooks the whole town. Paper is the staple manufacture. Pop. 18,630. The Romans built a fortress at Aschaffenburg, which in 1814 was ceded to Bavaria by Austria. Near it the Prussians defeated the Austrians, July 14, 1866.