Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/703

 ARCHYTAS OF TARENTUM ARCTIC DISCOVERY 667 tie of Marathon (490) the polemarch ceased to exercise such authority, his duties being in aftertimes confined to attending to the affairs of the alien residents of Athens, to the man- agement of the funeral games in honor of Athe- nians who had fallen in battle for their country, and the superintendence of other similar rites. Each of these three archons was allowed two assistants, whose appointment had to be sanc- tioned by the senate. The rest of the archons were styled thesmothetea (deapoOtTat, lawgivers), though this name was also sometimes applied to the whole body. At the expiration of their year of office, the archons were obliged to submit to an examination as to the manner in which they had performed their duties, and, if such examination proved satisfactory, were ad- mitted members of the court of the Areopagus. ARCHYTAS OF TARENTUM, an Italian Greek philosopher, mathematician, general, and states- man, in the early part of the 4th century B. C. He is said to have been seven times general of the Tarentine forces, and to have always been victorious. He evinced no less capacity in po- litical affairs. He was very intimate with Plato, was the first who applied mathematical prin- ciples to practical mechanics, and constructed various machines and automatons. He was accidentally drowned while crossing the Adri- atic. A collection of the works ascribed to Archytas will be found in Orelli's Opuscula Grascorum. ARCIS-SUR-AUBE, a town of France, in Cham- pagne, department of Aube, 16 m. N. by E. of Troyes ; pop. in 1866, 2,820. It contains cotton and spinning manufactories and manufacto- ries of cotton hosiery, and is an entrepot for iron and for the wooden wares made in the Vosges. Near this town, March 20 and 21, 1814, Napoleon fought the allied army under Schwartzenberg, before whose overwhelming numbers he was compelled to retreat on the sec- ond day, though rather successful on the first. ARCOLE, a village of Venetia, on the Alpone, a small affluent of the Adige, 15 m. E. S. E. of Verona; pop. about 1,600. It is famous for the victory gained there by Napoleon in his first Italian campaign, over the Austrians, Nov. 15-17, 1796. ARCOS DE LA FRONTERA (anc. Arcolriga), a town of Spain, in the province and 29 m. N. E. of Cadiz, situated on the Guadalete ; pop. 11,500. The town is in a very strong position, and portions of its ancient walls and towers remain. ARCOT. I. A district of the Carnatic, in the presidency of Madras, British India, divided into two collectorates, North and South Arcot, and lying between lat. 11 and 14 N. and Ion. 78 and 80 E. ; area, 12,459 sq. m., of which North Arcot contains 7,526, and South Arcot 4,933 ; pop. 2,638,174. The surface is low in the eastern part, but rises into hills in the western. The principal rivers are the Palaur, the Punnair, and the Coleroon. The climate is exceedingly hot and dry, and in the summer the beds of many of the streams are bare. This has led to the construction of huge tanks or artificial lakes, of which there are many in North Arcot ; one at Caverypauk is 8 in. long and 3 m. wide. The soil when well irrigated produces good crops, principally of grain and cotton. Arcot was ceded to the British in 1801, on condition that they should pay the claims of the creditors of its former ruler, Azim ul-Omrah, nabob of the Carnatic. The committee appointed to in- vestigate these claims found them immense, and a large sum from the annual revenue of the district was set apart for. their payment. The finances of Arcot, especially under the mal- administration of Hastings in India, while the province was partially conquered, but before its cession, had long before formed a subject of discussion in the English parliament, and con- cerning them Edmund Burke made one of his most famous speeches, Feb. 28, 1785. II. The principal town and capital of the preceding dis- trict, on the S. bank of the Palaur, 65 m. W. by S. of Madras; pop. about 60,000. It is sur- rounded by a wall ; and the town itself is of comparatively modern construction, though a fortress, now partially destroyed, has existed for centuries. In 1751 Clive withstood here a remarkable siege of 50 days. ARCTIC DISCOVERY. Until within a recent period it was believed that Columbus and Cabot were the actual first discoverers of the American continent. Careful researches on the part of northern antiquaries, however, would seem to prove that portions of the American coast some maintain as far south as what is now Long Island were known to the seamen or sea kings of Norway as early as the 9th and 10th centuries. Newfoundland and Greenland were the regions best known to these rovers. In 1000 a Norwegian, with a crew of Ice- landers, landed on the coast of Massachusetts, which he named Vinland. This party erected monuments on an island in Baffin bay, where they were discovered in 1824. They estab- lished colonies on the Greenland coast, which flourished for some years, making great gains by the fisheries, which they pursued as far as Lancaster sound, and even to Barrow strait. Greenland and Spitzbergen were for several centuries prosperous colonies. Iceland, then at the height of its prosperity, found here a fair field for the enterprise of its inhabitants, who not only followed commerce and the fisheries, but propagated their faith in the new land, and built up numerous churches and convents, whose ruins are still found along the Greenland coasts. The Icelanders and Northmen, then, were the first arctic explorers. As the Green- land and Spitzbergen colonies perished, and the most important Icelandic expedition was lost and never heard from, while Iceland itself and the countries of the north were distracted by internal troubles, no trace- of the dis- coveries made by these people was communi- cated to the rest of Europe. In 1380 two Ve- netian navigators, Zeni by name, voyaged to