Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/190

 170 AYR AYRSHIRE rod, employing it at first in discovering springs, mines, and hidden treasures, and finally in re- claiming stolen property and in detecting the thief. He acquired a great reputation in this way, and at length in 1692, a vintner and his wife having been murdered at Lyons, he was employed to follow up the murderer, and finally charged the crime upon a hunchback in the jail at Beaucaire, who confessed his complicity and was broken on the wheel. The country rang with these events, and innumerable pam- phlets were written on the subject in 1692 and 1693. Aymar was invited to Paris by the- ! prince de Cond6 to display his skill, but failed completely in everything he attempted, and at length admitted that he was an impostor. The mystery of the hunchback was never entirely cleared up. AYR, the county town of Ayrshire, Scotland, 1 on the frith of Clyde, near the mouth of the river Ayr, 30 m. S.W. of Glasgow ; pop. in 1871. I 17,851. The town is well built, and has com- modious public buildings, a large fish market, and several pleasant squares. The Ayr is here The Brigs of Ayr. crossed by two bridges, celebrated by Burns in one of his best known poems. A good har- bor is formed by the mouth of the river, but the town has little commerce, though it was Robert Bnrns'B Cottage, near Ayr. formerly largely engaged in the importation of wine from France. The principal industries are fishing, rope and sail making, and iron founding. Ship building is also carried on to a small extent. About two miles from Ayr, in what was formerly the parish of Alloway, is the small cottage in which Burns was born in 1759. A monument has been erected to the poet on a hill not far off. AYRER, Jakob, a German poet who flourished at Nuremberg, died in 1605. He is the author of up ward of 60 comedies, tragedies, burlesques, and carnival plays, which were published at Nuremberg in 1618, under the title of Opus The- atrieum. Tieck inserted five of these plays in the first volume of his Deutsches Theater. AYRSHIRE, a county in the S. W. of Scot- land, bounded W. by the frith of Clyde, and landward by the counties of Renfrew, Lanark, Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigtown; area, 1,149 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 200,745. It is hilly on the southern and eastern sides, the principal hills rising to nearly 2,000 feet. It is intersected by several small rivers. About 10 m. off the coast lies the craig of Ailsa, the top of a submarine mountain with basaltic column?