617 



ARGEII. 



ARGO. 



518 



BO as to uncover the hole and to allow the passage of the oil iuto the 

 cistern. Within the perpendicular tube of the burner there is placed 

 a smaller tube, and both are closed at bottom and open at the top ; the 

 space between these contains oil and the wick, stretched over a short 

 tube which rises a little above the other tubes. The outer surface of 

 the inner tube has a spiral groove formed round it ; and a tooth in the 

 ring or gallery entering this groove, when it is turned round, causes the 

 tube and wick attached to it to ascend or descend, so as to regulate the 

 flaine. On account of the nature of the reservoir which contains the 

 oil, a constant supply will be kept up at the proper level, both in the 

 cistern and in the wick-tubes. 



It has been mentioned that various forms are given to the Argand 

 lamps. In those employed for the purpose of giving a general and 

 diffused light, the reservoir of oil is circular, and surrounds the cistern 

 and wick, and is nearly on a level with the latter; a ground-glass 

 shade, which in the smaller lamps is frequently globular, and in larger 

 ones rather flat, rests upon a groove. 



The chemical Argand lamp is a very useful instrument comprising 

 a reservoir of oil ; an opening at which the oil is poured into it ; a 

 short copper chimney ; a pinion by which motion is given to a rack, so 

 as to raise or depress the wick ; apertures to supply air ; and a dish, 

 in which the lamp stands, to retain any oil which drops from the 

 reservoir. 



It will be seen, from the above description, that in the Argand lamp 

 the wick, and consequently the flame also, is in the form of a hollow 

 cylinder, through the interior of which a current of air is made to 

 ascend, ill order to afford a free supply of air to the interior as well as 

 to the exterior of the flame ; and thereby to ensure more perfect com- 

 bustion and greater brilliancy of light than could be obtained either by 

 the use of a single large wick, or by a series of small wicks arranged in 

 a straight line. These objects are more perfectly attained by the ad- 

 dition of a glass chimney, which confines the air immediately sur- 

 rounding the flame, and produces an upward current, which causes it 

 to rise high above the wick. The principle is also extensively applied 

 to gas-burners. 



Mr. Hemmenway took out an American patent in 1841, for a means 

 of avoiding the necessity of removing the oU-chamber when an Argand 

 lain]) is to be replenished with oil. The fountain or reservoir its to be 

 supplied with oil by a short pipe at the top, which is hermetically 

 closed by a leather valve and screw cap ; and between the bottom of 

 this reservoir and the pipe that conducts the oil to the burner is an 

 air chamber, which is supplied with air by a tube passing up through 

 the oil reservoir. This air is made one of the means of filling the 

 vessel with oil. 



Messrs. Bedington and Docker registered an improvement in 1849, 

 whereby an Argand lamp is enabled to maintain a clear light for a 

 greater number of hours than under ordinary circumstances. The 

 central air-tube, instead of terminating, as in the usual Argand lamps, 

 nearly on a level with the top edge of the perforated air-cone, is carried 

 about half an inch higher, and has apertures made near its upper end. 

 The outer case is also prolonged at top to a similar extent, and is 

 similarly perforated near the top. By this arrangement currents of air 

 are directed through the apertures into the wick, just below the point 

 of inflammation, and thus the oil ia prevented from becoming thick- 

 ened or carbonised at that spot, a result so likely to occur in the 

 ordinary form of Argand. 



In 1 858 a new burner was patented, to produce steady flame and 

 complete combustion without a glass chimney. A central ring of 

 orifices is surrounded by an additional ring of lesser orifices, equi- 

 distant from the central row and from each other. The object is, that 

 the outer row of jets may obviate flickering and smoking. 



Many other improvements have from time to time been introduced 

 in the Argand lamp ; and our manufacturers, within the last few years, 

 have shown how much external beauty as well as practical conve- 

 nience may be imparted to these contrivances. 



The name of Argand having become associated with the means of 

 producing a bright light by a judicious arrangement of air-holes, it has 

 been applied not only to lamps, but also to candles and furnaces. 

 During more than forty years, attention has from time to time been 

 directed to the possibili ty of producing Argand candles that is, candles 

 constructed on the Argand principle. As, in the Argaud lamp, air is 

 supplied mthin the circle of the flame, so it has been thought that if 

 air could ascend through the wick of a candle, the flame produced 

 would be more brilliant. Many varieties have been tried, and some of 

 them patented ; but none of them have yet become permanently and 

 commercially successful. 



The designation Argand Furnacejias been lately given to an arrange- 

 ment in which a stream of air is made to mingle with the inflammable 

 gage in the furnace, but is previously divided into a number of minute 

 streamlets by pawing through small apertures. The principle has been 

 known and partially acted on for a considerable time, but it was 

 brought into a practical form a few years ago by Mr. Williams. 



Otner contrivances, partaking more or less of the principle of the 

 Argand lamp, are described under LIGHTS, ARTIFICIAL. 



AKGEII, a name sometimes applied by Homer to the whole body of 

 Greeks assembled at Troy; it is derived, probably, from the inha- 

 bitants of Argos, who had even in those early times raised their city to 

 considerable celebrity. Homer, indeed, employs the word Argos not 



only to designate the name of a town, but also the whole Pelopon- 

 nesus : Agamemnon is styled the sovereign of all Argos and the islands 

 (See Strabo, viii. 369.) The capital of Agamemnon's kingdom of Argos, 

 which certainly did not comprise all the Peloponnesus, was Mycenfe. 

 Homer often qualifies it with some epithet, as Achaiicum ('Iliad,' 

 ix. 141), when Argos of the Peloponnesus is meant, and Pelasgicum 

 when the Thessalian city or district of that name is intended. Strabo 

 (viii. 372) tells us that in later times the word Argos in the Thessalian 

 and Macedonian dialects signified a plain or field, and we may therefore 

 perhaps consider it as having the same root with ager in the Latin 

 language. What connection this has with the several cities named 

 Argos, the geographer does not think proper to inform us, though he 

 may perhaps intend us to infer that they were so called from being 

 situated in a plain. Pausanias (viii. 7) mentions a plain (called the 

 irfSiov apybv) close to the mountain Artemisium, but we doubt if this 

 has any reference to the use of the word Argos, of which we are here 

 speaking. The early inhabitants of the Peloponnesian Argos and of 

 the district around it were, we have good reason to believe, Pelasgi. 

 (Strabo, viii. 371 ; Eurip. ' Orest.,' 931 ; ^Eschyl. ' Suppl.,' 268.) The 

 arrival of Danaiis from Egypt, according to tradition, caused their 

 name to be changed to Dana'i, a term that occurs in the ' Iliad,' but the 

 mass of the population no doubt still remained the same. Eighty years 

 after the Trojan war, or B.C. 1104, the invasion of the Peloponnesus by 

 the Heraclidse took place, and Argos, like most of the other cities of 

 southern Greece, was obliged to submit to the Dorians. Still this was 

 only a change of dynasty, and all the older Achaean inhabitants were 

 not compelled to leave their country. From this time the names 

 Argos and Argeii lost their more extensive signification ; but the city 

 Argos itself continued an important place under this new race. [Aii- 

 GOLIS, ARGOS, and Acsxi, in the GEOG. DIVISION.] 



ARGE'NTEUS CODEX, or Silver Book, the name given to a very 

 curious manuscript, or rather fragment of a manuscript, containing the 

 greater part of the Four Gospels in the Moeso-Gothic language, pre- 

 served in the library at Upsala, in Sweden. It is believed to be a relic 

 of the Gothic Bible, all or the greater part of which was translated by 

 Ulphilas, bishop of those Goths who were settled in Moesia and Thrace, 

 and who lived under the emperor Valens about A.D. 360. This curious 

 fragment was discovered in the library of the abbey of Werden, in 

 Westphalia. The leaves are of vellum, some purple, but the greater 

 part of a violet colour ; all the letters being of silver, except the 

 initials, which are of gold. These letters, which are all capitals, 

 appear not to have been written with the pen, but stamped or im- 

 printed on the vellum with hot metal types, in the same manner as 

 book-binders at present letter the backs of books. This copy is judged 

 to be nearly as ancient as the time of Ulphilas, or at least not later 

 than a century or two after. 



Michaelis and one or two other learned men have opposed the 

 current opinion, that the Silver Book contains part of Ulphilas's 

 Gothic version, and have offered arguments to prove that it is rather a 

 venerable fragment of some very ancient Francic Bible : but they have 

 been confuted by Knittel and others. The letters used in the Gothic 

 Gospels, being twenty-five in number, are formed, with slight variations, 

 from the capitals of the Greek and Latin alphabets, and are believed to 

 have been really the invention or application of Ulphilas. See the notes 

 to Bishop Percy's ' Translation of Mallet's Northern Antiquities,' vol. i. 

 p. 366. 



Palimpsest fragments of this Gothic version of the Scriptures, though 

 not in the silver character, have been since found in other places. 

 Knittel printed a fragment, containing part of the Epistle to the 

 Romans, which was discovered in the library at Wolfenbuttel : it was 

 reprinted in 1763, by Professor Ihre; and again in the Appendix to 

 Lye's Saxon Dictionary. In 1819, some further fragments were pub- 

 lished by Angelo Mai and Car. Oct. Castillonei, in 4to, at Milan, con- 

 taining small portions of Esdras and Nehemiah, parts of the 25th, 

 26th, and 27th chapters of St. Matthew, of St. Paul's Epistles to the 

 Philippians, Titus, and Philemon, and of a homily and calendar; 

 these were discovered in separate leaves in the Ambrosian library at 

 Milan. 



The Gothic Gospels of the Silver Book were first printed in types 

 approaching to a fac-simile, by Junius, in 1665 ; again in common 

 type at Stockholm, in 1671 ; by Mr. Lye at Oxford, in 4to, 1750, 

 with a Gothic grammar prefixed; by Zahn, 4to, Weissenfels, 1805; 

 by Massmann, 4to, Munich, 1834 ; by Gabelentz and Lobe (with a 

 glossary and grammar, and the palimpsest fragments of Mai), 3 vols. 

 4to, Leips. 1836-47 ; and by Uppstrom, 4to, Upsala, 1854. 



A ' Dissertation on the Argenteus Codex,' by Ericus Sotberg, printed 

 at Stockholm, in 1752, contains two of its pages in fac-simile. Knittel 

 and Mai have also engraved some of the palimpsest fragments which 

 they respectively published. 



ARGO, the ship, a southern constellation, the greater part of which, 

 containing all the more important stars, is not visible in this country. 

 It has one star of the first magnitude, CANOFDS (which see). The part 

 of it which is visible in our latitude may be found in and above a Una 

 drawn through Orion's belt, and continued beyond Sirius. The star 

 Cor Hydrse is just above the end of the mast, and the direction of the 

 mast is that of a line passing through Regains and Cor Hydras. The 

 latter comes on the meridian at six in the evening in the middle of 

 May. 



