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nabobs. The people are, in the main, Mohammedans. Arcot was taken by Clive in 1751, in the wars with the French, and finally became a British city in 1801. Population, 12,000.

Arctic Circle, one of the smaller circles of the globe, is twenty-three and a half degrees from the North Pole.

Arctic Exploration. See Polar Exploration.

Arctic Ocean is that part of the ocean within the Arctic Circle. The main rivers flowing into it are the Mackenzie and Black in America, the Obi, Yenesei and Lena in Asia. Its largest islands are Spitzbergen, Wongatz and Nova Zembla in Europe, those of New Siberia in Asia and the Polar archipelago in America. An expanse of ice of nearly 4,000,000 square miles extends during an eight-months' winter round the pole, and even in summer the temperature is still at the freezing point. From this region come the icebergs which in spring and summer drift into the Atlantic. In the last three hundred years many voyages have been made to make discoveries in this region or to find a passage through it, but we know almost nothing about it. Besides the great dangers of ice, the sailor, often blinded by fogs and snow, has to face without guide or sea-room, storms, tides and currents of unknown waters. The highest point ever reached was by Lieutenant Peary, who in 1906 reached a point 206 miles distant from the north pole. See Polar Exploration.

Ardmore, Oklahoma, a city on the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe and Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf railroads. About 20 miles north of the Red River. It is the seat of Hargrove College. Its commercial activities embrace cotton, coal and asphalt. Population (1910), 8,618.

Areop'agus (ā-rē-ŏp'a-gŭs), the hill of Ares or Mars in ancient Athens, near the Acropolis. It was the seat of the court called by the same name, which was the most famous court in Greece. It dates back to the earliest days of Athens, and plays an important part in its history. At first it was a criminal court, but Solon gave it so much power that it reached everything in the state. Pericles took away most of its power; but its fame lived on, even as late as the era of the Emperor Theodosius. Its members were the men who had been archons, or highest officers, in Athens, and they served for life. Here Paul made his address to the Athenians, as given in Acts.

Arequipa (ä'rá-kē'pă). A department in the South American republic of Peru. It lies in the southern part of the republic, between Lake Titicaca and the Pacific. Its area is 21, 947 square miles, with a population of 229, 007. Its capital is the city of Arequipa which lies in a fertile valley near the volcano of-

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC

Misti (sometimes called Arequipa), which rises to a height of 20,260 feet. Notable buildings are the cathedral, public library, hospital, astronomical and meteorological observatories. The meteorological station is 16,280 feet above sea level, the highest in the world. Its exports include (besides minerals) cotton, coffee, hides, rice, cocaine, wool and sugar. The province, being on the Andean range, is mountainous. A railway connects it with Mollendo, its port on the Pacific, while a line connects it eastward with Puno on Lake Titicaca. Population, 35,000.

Argentine Republic is, next to Brazil, the largest of the political divisions of South America, and with Chile on the west occupies the southern part of the continent. It has an area of 1,135,840 square miles, a little more than one seventh of the area of the continent and one third that of Brazil. It extends from the 27th to the 57 th parallel of latitude, a distance as great as from Hudson Bay to the southern limit of Florida. The northern half has an average width of about eight hundred miles and the southern part narrows to about two hundred miles. It could be divided into twenty-two states each the size of New York. Its population is 6,-489,023.

Surface. In the northern part of Argentine is the basin of the Parana River. Here are large tracts of prairie or pampas, producing wheat and pasturage, with rich cultivated districts near the Parana and Paraguay Rivers and sugar lands and timber tracts further north. In the central section are the great pampas or plains, extending from the mountain range on the west to the Atlantic on the east. The soil is very rich, from three to six feet in depth, and here are the great wheat fields and cattle ranges for which the republic is famous. In the southern section are wide sandy plains, once the bed of an ocean which extended to the Andes. South of the Strait of Magellan is the island of Terra del Fuego, a part of which belongs to Argentine. The republic may be characterized as a country of vast plains, yet in its western border rises the great Andean mountain range, which here shows its loftiest peaks, including Aconcagua 22,860 feet, the highest mountain in America; Mercedario 22,315 feet; Tupangato 20,280 feet; San Juan 20,020 feet.

Rivers. The Plata River, on which Buenos Ayres, the capital of the republic, is situated, receives the waters of 10,000 miles of waterways, the second largest river system in the world, and discharges into the Atlantic Ocean a volume of water nearly double that discharged by the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. The Plata is formed by the junction of the Parana and Uruguay Rivers. It is 200