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 appears. Conall died in 574, and Columba was mainly instrumental in establishing his first cousin, Aidan, founder of the Dalriad kingdom and ancestor of the royal house of Scotland, in power. In the 8th century Argyll, with the Western Islands and Man, fell under the power of the Norsemen until, in the 12th century, Somerled (or Somhairle), a descendant of Colla-Uais, airdrigh of Ireland (327–331), succeeded in ousting them and established his authority, not only as thane of Argyll, but also in Kintyre and the Western Islands. Somerled died in 1164 and his descendants maintained themselves in Argyll and the islands, between the conflicting claims of the kings of Scotland, Norway and Man, until the end of the 15th century.

Up to 1222 Argyll had formed an independent Celtic princedom; but in that year it was reduced by Alexander II., the Scottish king, to a sheriffdom, and was henceforth regarded as an integral part of Scotland. Among the various clans in Argyll, the Campbells of Loch Awe, a branch of the clan McArthur, now began to come to the fore, though the mainland was still chiefly in the possession of the MacDougals. The position of the lords of the house of Somerled was now curious, since they were feudatories of the king of Norway for the isles and of the king of Scotland for Argyll. Their policy in the wars between the two powers was a masterly neutrality. Thus, during the expedition of Alexander II. to the Western Isles in 1249, Ewan (Eoghan), lord of Argyll, refused to fight against the Norwegians; in 1263 the same Ewan refused to join Haakon of Norway in attacking Alexander III. Forty years later the clansmen of Argyll, mainly MacDougals, were warring on the side of Edward of England against Robert Bruce, by whom they were badly beaten on Loch Awe in 1309. The clansmen of the house of Somerled in the isles, on the other hand, the MacDonalds, remained loyal to Scotland in spite of the persuasions of John of Argyll, appointed admiral of Edward II.’s western fleet; and, under their chief Angus Og, they contributed much to the victory of Bannockburn. The alliance of John, earl of Ross and lord of the Isles, with Edward IV. of England in 1461 led to the breaking of the power of the house of Somerled, and in 1478 John was forced to resign Ross to the crown and, two years later, his lordships of Knapdale and Kintyre as well. In Argyll itself the Campbells had already made the first step to supremacy through the marriage of Colin, grandson of Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochow, first Lord Campbell, with Isabel Stewart, eldest of the three co-heiresses of John, third lord of Lorne. He acquired the greater part of the lands of the other sisters by purchase, and the lordship of Lorne from Walter their uncle, the heir in tail male, by an exchange for lands in Perthshire. In 1457 he was created, by James II., earl of Argyll. He died on the 10th of May 1493. From him dates the greatness of the house of the (q.v.), whose history belongs to that of Scotland. The house of Somerled survives in two main branches—that of Macdonald of the Isles, Alexander Macdonald (d. 1795) having been raised to the peerage in 1776, and that of the Macdonnells, earls of Antrim in Ireland. The principal clans in Argyll, besides those already mentioned, were the Macleans, the Stewarts of Appin, the Macquarries and the Macdonalds of Glencoe, and the Macfarlanes of Glencroe. The Campbells are still very numerous in the county.

Argyllshire men have made few contributions to English literature. For long the natives spoke Gaelic only and their bards sang in Gaelic (see : Literature: Scottish). Near Inistrynich on the north-eastern shore of Loch Awe stands the monumental cairn erected in honour of Duncan Ban McIntyre (1724–1812), the most popular of modern Gaelic bards. But the romantic beauty of the country has made it a favourite setting for the themes of many poets and story-tellers, from “Ossian” and Sir Walter Scott to Robert Louis Stevenson, while not a few men distinguished in affairs or in learning have been natives of the county.

The antiquities comprise monoliths, circles of standing stones, crannogs and cairns. In almost all the burying-grounds—as at Campbeltown, Keil, Soroby, Kilchousland, Kilmun—there are specimens of sculptured crosses and slabs. Besides the famous ecclesiastical remains at (q.v.), there are ruins of a Cistercian priory in Oronsay, and of a church founded in the 12th century by Somerled, thane of Argyll, at Saddell. Among castles may be mentioned Dunstaffnage, Ardtornish, Skipness, Kilchurn (beloved of painters), Ardchonnel, Dunolly, Stalker, Dunderaw and Carrick.

.—The (Eighth) Duke of Argyll, Commercial Principles Applied to the Hire of Land (London, 1877); Crofts and Farms in the Hebrides (Edinburgh, 1883); Iona (Edinburgh, 1889); Scotland as it Was and Is (Edinburgh, 1887), House of Argyll (Glasgow, 1871); A. Brown, Memorials of Argyllshire (Greenock, 1889); Harvie-Brown and Buckley, Vertebrate Fauna of Argyll and the Inner Hebrides (Edinburgh, 1892); D. Clerk, “On the Agriculture of the County of Argyll” (Trans. of H. and A. Soc., 1878); T. Gray, Week at Oban (Edinburgh, 1881); Stewart, Collection of Views of Campbeltown. For antiquities see The Sculptured Stones of Scotland, vol. ii., published by the Spalding Club, and Capt. T. P. White’s Archaeological Sketches in Kintyre and ''Proc. Antiq. Soc. of Scotland'', vols. iv., v., viii.

ARGYRODITE, a mineral which is of interest as being that in which the element germanium was discovered by C. Winkler in 1886. It is a silver sulpho-germanate, Ag8GeS6, and crystallizes in the cubic system. The crystals have the form of the octahedron or rhombic dodecahedron, and are frequently twinned. The botryoidal crusts of small indistinct crystals first found in a silver mine at Freiberg in Saxony were originally thought to be monoclinic, but were afterwards proved to be identical with the more distinctly developed crystals recently found in Bolivia. The colour is iron-black with a purplish tinge, and the lustre metallic. There is no cleavage; hardness 2½, specific gravity 6.2. It is of interest to note that the Freiberg mineral was long ago imperfectly described by A. Breithaupt under the name Plusinglanz, and that the Bolivian crystals were incorrectly described in 1849 as crystallized brongniardite. The name argyrodite is from the Greek , rich in silver.

Isomorphous with argyrodite is the corresponding tin compound Ag8SnS6, also found in Bolivia as cubic crystals, and known by the name canfieldite. Other Bolivian crystals are intermediate in composition between argyrodite and canfieldite. ARGYROKASTRO, or (Turkish, Ergeri; Albanian Ergir Castri), a town of southern Albania, Turkey, in the vilayet of Iannina. Pop. (1900) about 11,000. Argyrokastro is finely situated 1060 ft. above sea-level, on the eastern slopes of the Acroceraunian mountains, and near the left bank of the river Dhrynos, a left-hand tributary of the Viossa. It is the capital of a sanjak bearing the same name, and was formerly important as the headquarters of the local Moslem aristocracy, partly owing to the mountainous and easily defensible nature of the district. It contains the ruins of an imposing castellated fort. A fine kind of snuff, known as fuli, is manufactured here. Argyrokastro has been variously identified with the ancient Hadrianopolis and Antigonea. In the 18th century it is said to have contained 20,000 inhabitants, but it was almost depopulated by plague in 1814. Albanian Moslems constitute the greater part of the population. ARGYROPULUS, or, JOHN (c. 1416–1486), Greek humanist, one of the earliest promoters of the revival of learning in the West, was born in Constantinople, and became a teacher there, Constantine Lascaris being his pupil. He then appears to have crossed over to Italy, and taught in Padua in 1434, being subsequently made rector of the university. About 1441 he returned to Constantinople, but after its capture by the Turks, again took refuge in Italy. About 1456 he was invited to Florence by Cosimo de’ Medici, and was there appointed professor of Greek in the university. In 1471, on the outbreak of the plague, he removed to Rome, where he continued to act as a teacher of Greek till his death. Among his scholars were Angelus Politianus and Johann Reuchlin. His principal works were translations of the following portions of Aristotle,— Categoriae, De Interpretatione, Analytica Posteriora, Physica, De Caelo, De Anima, Metaphysica, Ethica Nicomachea, Politica;