ARGYLL, DUKE OF. 



ARKANSAS. 



of Argyll, and succeeded his father on April 

 26, 1847. He sits in the House of Lords as 

 Baron Sundridge and Hamilton, in the peer- 

 age of England. He held the office of Lord 

 Privy Seal also in the Earl of Aberdeen's Cabi- 

 net from 1852 to 1855, and on the break-up of 

 that Ministry he retained the office under Lord 

 Palmerston's premiership. He afterward be- 

 came Postmaster-General in the same Cabinet, 

 but resumed the Privy Seal in 1859, exchanging 

 again to the postmastership on Lord Elgin be- 

 ing sent to China in the following year. He 

 retired in 1866. In the last Liberal Cabinet of 

 Mr. Gladstone, the Duke of Argyll held (from 

 1868 to 1874) the position of Secretary of State 

 for India. He has been a frequent speaker in 

 the House of Peers on such subjects as Jewish 

 Emancipation, the Scottish Marriage Bill, the 

 Corrupt Practices at Elections Bill, the Sugar 

 Duties, Foreign Affairs, the Ecclesiastical Ti- 

 tles Bill, the Scottish Law of Entail, the Re- 

 peal of the Paper Duties, etc. During the ad- 

 ministration of Lord John Russell he generally 

 supported the Government, but he identified 

 himself with the Liberal Conservatives. He 

 showed a special interest in all questions affect- 

 ing Scottish interests brought before the House 

 of Lords, especially in the affairs of the Church 

 of Scotland. Even before he had succeeded his 

 father, he took, as Marquis of Lome, an active 

 part in the controversy in the Presbyterian 

 Church of Scotland relating to patronage, and 

 was regarded as the chief support of Dr. Chal- 

 mers. The first pamphlets published by him, 

 and entitled " A Letter to the Peers, from a 

 Peer's Son " (1842), and " On the Duty and Ne- 

 cessity of Immediate Interposition in Behalf of 

 the Church of Scotland," related to this ques- 

 tion. Though an admiring friend of Dr. Chal- 

 mers, he condemned the Free-Church move- 

 ment then in agitation among certain members 

 of the General Assembly. The fullest expose 

 of his views on church matters is given in his 

 work, " Presbytery Examined " (1848), which 

 traces and critically reviews the history of the 

 Presbyterian Church of Scotland since the Ref- 

 ormation. He was elected Chancellor of the 

 University of St. Andrews in 1851, and Rec- 

 tor of the Glasgow University in 1854. In ad- 

 dition to the works already mentioned, he pub- 

 lishcd in 1866 " The Reign of Law," which had 

 a very large circulation; in 1869, "Primeval 

 Man : an Examination of some Recent Specula- 

 tions " ; and in 1870 a small work on the " His- 

 tory and Antiquities of lona," of which island 

 he is proprietor. He is Hereditary Master of 

 the Queen's Household in Scotland and Keep- 

 er of the Great Seal of Scotland, Lord-Lieuten- 

 ant and Hereditary Sheriff of Argyllshire, and 

 a Trustee of the British Museum. He was mar- 

 ried to Lady Elizabeth, daughter of the second 

 Duke of Sutherland. His wife died in 1878. 

 Of his children, five sons and seven daughters 

 were living in 1880. The eldest son, the Mar- 

 quis of Lome, married, in 1871, the Princess 

 Louisa, fourth daughter of Queen Victoria. 



ARKANSAS. The correct pronunciation 

 of the name of this State has been a subject 

 of investigation by a joint committee of the 

 Eclectic and the Arkansas Historical Society. 

 According to the results of their research, it 

 appears that the name was taken from that of 

 a tribe of Indians inhabiting the country upon 

 the northern bank of the river of the same 

 name. The early French explorers caught 

 from them the sounds of the name, and en- 

 deavored to represent them by French modes 

 of spelling. In other words, it belongs to the 

 class of Gallicized Indian names, which, to- 

 gether with those of purely French origin, 

 make so important a part of the nomenclature 

 of the rivers, mountains, and prairies of the 

 territory purchased from the French under 

 the name of Louisiana. In the old diaries, 

 notes, reports, and rude maps of the early 

 French, the name is differently spelled. Each, 

 having no guide, made his own phonetic effort 

 to represent sounds heard upon the lips of 

 the natives. In one point all agree, that the 

 sounds represented by the letters and syllables 

 can, in the French language, be nothing differ- 

 ent from that pronunciation which afterward 

 became common, namely, the pronunciation of 

 those syllables with the final s silent, and the 

 broad sound of a in each. This French pro- 

 nunciation passed afterward to the Ameri- 

 cans, prior to and with their purchase of the 

 territory, and was used by all the people, as 

 well as by statesmen in official transactions. 

 This is illustrated by the American spelling, 

 which for a while was adopted, to indicate ap- 

 proximately the French sounds. The English 

 not having the final silent #, the letters aw 

 were introduced temporarily to avoid corrup- 

 tion in pronunciation. They nearly, but not 

 quite, represent the broad sound of a in the 

 French, with the silent s. This became the 

 spelling of Congress. It caught the pronun- 

 ciation and transported it into the English 

 at a critical period, when it might have been 

 lost or corrupted, as many French names of 

 less importance have been, to the point of en- 

 tire disguise. When the pronunciation had 

 become familiar, and the danger was thought 

 to be past, the better taste of the more culti- 

 vated people, among whom was Governor Iz- 

 zard, of the State, insisted upon a restoration 

 of the original orthography, which was easily 

 effected, and now universally adopted. But 

 for uniformity, however, it would still be par- 

 donable to use the orthography of Congress, 

 in the act establishing the Territory. 



Through these changes in spelling the pro- 

 nunciation remained unaltered, and was re- 

 tained by all the people until a quite recent 

 period, and is still used by a very large ma- 

 jority of the people of all classes. The origin 

 of the other pronunciation, which is used by 

 a small class of educated people and has ob- 

 tained recognition, to some extent, among 

 lexicographers, although quite recent, eludes 

 all investigation. By it the accent is cast on 



