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 capture of Jerusalem by Joash (2 Kings xiv. 13, 14), the troublous reign of Manasseh, the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar, have found each its supporters. The wild legends of its preservation at the taking of Jerusalem (2 Macc. ii. and elsewhere) only show that the popular mind was unable to share the view that the ark was an obsolete relic. More poetical is the tradition that the ark was raised to heaven, there to remain till the coming of the Messiah, a thought which embodies the spiritual idea that a heavenly pledge of God’s covenant and faithfulness had superseded the earthly symbol.

A critical examination of the history of the Israelite ark renders it far from certain that the object was originally the peculiar possession of all Israel. Many different traditions have gathered around the story of the Exodus, and the ark was not the only divinely sent guide or forerunner which led the Israelites. Its presence at Shiloh, and its prominence in the life of Joshua, support the view that it was the palladium of the Joseph tribes, but the traditions in question conflict with others. The account of the commencement of the ark’s journey associates it with Moses and his kin (Num. x. 29 sqq.)&mdash;that is, with the south Palestinian clans with which the term “Levites” appears to be closely connected. (See .) A distinct movement direct into Judah is implied by certain old traditions (see ), but this is subordinated to the more comprehensive account of the journey round by the east of the Jordan. (See .) The narratives in 1 Sam. iv.-vi. stand on a plane by themselves, and the gap between them and 2 Sam. vi. has not been satisfactorily fixed. But it is not certain that the two belong to the same cycle of tradition; Kirjath-jearim and Baal-Judah are identified only in later writings, and the behaviour of Saul’s daughter (2 Sam. vi. 15 sqq.) may conceivably imply that the ark was an unknown object to Benjamites. It is of course possible that the ark was originally the sacred shrine of the clans which came direct to Judah, and that the traditions in 1 Sam. iv.-vi., Josh. iii. sqq. are of secondary origin, and are to be associated with its appearance at Shiloh, the fall of which place, although attributed to the time of Samuel, is apparently regarded by Jeremiah (xxvi. 6) as a recent event. Of these two divergent traditions, it would seem that the one which associates it with the kin of Moses and David may be traced farther in those late narratives which connect the ark closely with the Levites and even attribute its workmanship to Bezalel, a Calebite (Ex. xxxi. 2; 1 Chron. ii. 19 sqq.). The tradition in Psalms cxxxii. 6 of the search for the ark at Jaar (Kirjath-jearim) and Ephratah is not clear; but a comparison with 1 Chron. ii. 50 seems to show that it recognized the “Calebite” origin of the ark.

Whether the ark originally contained some symbol of Yahweh or not has been the subject of much discussion. Thus, it has been held that it contained stone fetishes (meteoric stones and the like) from Yahweh’s original abode on Sinai or Horeb. As the palladium of the Joseph tribes, it has even been suggested that the bones of Joseph were treasured in the ark. Others have regarded it as an empty portable throne, or as a receptacle for sacred serpents (analogies in Frazer, Pausanias, iv. pp. 292, 344). That it contained the tables of the law (Deut. x. 2; 1 Kings viii. 9) was the later Israelite view, and the subsequent development is illustrated in Heb. ix. 4. It is enough to decide that the ark represented in some way or other the presence of Yahweh and that the safety of his followers depended upon its security (analogies in Frazer, Paus. x. p. 283). The Semitic world affords many examples of the belief that a man’s religion was part of his political connexion and that the change of nationality involved change of cult. He who leaves his land to enter another, leaves his god and is influenced by the religion of his new home (1 Sam. xxvi. 19; Ruth i. 16 sqq.), but strangers know not “the cult of the God of the land” (2 Kings xvii. 26). No nation willingly changes its god (Jer. ii. 11), and there are means whereby the follower of Yahweh may continue his worship even when outside Yahweh’s land (2 Kings v. 17). When a people migrate they may take with them their god, and if they conceive him to be a spiritual being who cannot be represented by an image, they may desire a symbolical expression of or, rather, a substitute for his presence. Accordingly the conception of the ark must be based in the first instance upon the beliefs of the particular clans or tribes whose sacred object it was.

ARKANSAS, a river of the United States of America, rising in the mountains of central Colorado, near Leadville, in lat. 39° 20′ N., long. 106° 15′ W., and emptying into the Mississippi, at Napoleon, Arkansas, in lat. 33° 40′ N. Its total length is about 2000 m., and its drainage basin (greater than that of the Upper Mississippi) about 185,000 sq. m. It is the greatest western affluent of the Missouri-Mississippi system. It rises in a pocket of lofty peaks at an altitude of 10,400 ft. on a sharply sloping plateau, down which it courses as a mountain torrent, dropping 4625 ft. in 120 m. At Canyon City it passes out of the Rockies through the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas; then turning eastward, and soon a turbid, shallow stream, depositing its mountain detritus, it flows with steadily lessening gradient and velocity in a broad, meandering bed across the prairies and lowlands of eastern Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, shifting its direction sharply to the south-east in central Kansas. The Arkansas ordinarily receives little water from its tributaries save in time of floods. In topography and characteristics and in the difficulties of its regulation the Arkansas is in many ways typical of the rivers in the arid regions of the western states. The gradient below the mountains averages 7·5 ft. per mile between Canyon City and Wichita, Kansas (543 m.), about 1·5 ft. between Wichita and Little Rock (659 m.), and 0·65 of a foot from Little Rock to the mouth (173 m.). The shores are sand, clay or loam throughout some 1300 m., with very rare rock ridges or rapids, and the banks rise low above ordinary water. The waters are constantly rising and falling, and almost never is the discharge at any point uniform. Every year there are, normally, two distinct periods of high water; one an early freshet due mainly to the heavy winter rainfall on the lower river, when the upper river is still frozen hard; the other in the late spring, due to the setting in of rains along the upper courses also, and to the melting of the snow in the mountains. The lowest waters are from August to December. In the summer there are sometimes violent floods due to cloud-bursts. Everywhere along the river there is a never-ending variation of velocity and discharge, and an equally ceaseless transformation of the river’s bed and contour. These changes become revolutionary in times of flood. All these characteristics are accentuated below Little Rock. The depth of water at this point has been known to vary from 27 ft. to only half-a-foot, and the discharge to fall to 1170 cub. ft. per second. There is often no more than 1·5 ft. of water, and far below Little Rock a depth of 3 ft. on crossings is not infrequent. In many places there are different channels for high and low water, the latter being partly filled by each freshet, and recut after each subsidence; and the river meanders tortuously through the alluvial bottom in scores of great bends, loops and cut-offs. It is estimated that the eating and caving of the shore below Little Rock averages 7·64 acres per mile every year (as against 1·99 acres above Little Rock). By way of the White river cut-off the Arkansas finds an additional outlet through the valley of that river in times of high water, and the White, when the current in its natural channel is deadened by the backwaters of the Mississippi, finds an outlet by the same cut-off through the valley