403 



ABIEGE. 



AKKANSAS RIVER. 



494 



176. In the springs that have a temperature above 95, the heat of 

 the water is the same in all seasons ; in the others the water is some- 

 what colder in winter. There are three large bathing establishments. 

 The season lasts from June to October. La-Baatide-de-Serou, on the 

 Arize, 6 miles N.W. of Foix, has a population of 2865, who manufac- 

 ture hats, tiles, bricks, woollen hosiery, and pottery. At Beletta, a 

 email town on the Lers, 18 miles S.E. from Foix, there are iron-works, 

 saw-mills, and marble sawing and polishing yards : population of the 

 commune, 2853. Lartlanet, 16 miles E. from Foix, has a population 

 of 3004, important manufactures of broadcloth and woollen yarn, and 

 saw-mills worked by water-power ; jet is found in the neighbourhood. 

 Taraecon, on the right bank of the Ariege, near where that river is 

 joined by the Vic-Dessos, is a small place, but important for its exten- 

 sive iron-works. Large fairs held here for the sale of cattle and farm 

 produce are much frequented by Spaniards. Vic-Desos, on a email 

 river and in a valley of the same name, 7 miles S.W. from Tarascon, 

 is a village with a population of 1 1 42. It is surrounded with smel ting- 

 furnaces, and the whole valley is studded with iron-works, with the 

 neat residences of the iron masters and their workmen, and with many 

 fine old feudal castles ; the iron-mines of Vio-Dessos have been worked 

 from time immemorial. 



2. In the second arrondissement the chief town is Pamiert, an epis- 

 copal town situated in 43 6' 53" N. lat., 1 36' 16" E. long., at an 

 elevation of 939 feet above the sea level, on the right bank of the 

 Ariege, 11 miles N. from Foix : population about 8000. The town is 

 pretty, and stands in a very beautiful district, rich in corn, fruit, and 

 pasturage. The .nost important building is the cathedral, which is 

 surmounted by an ancient gothic brick tower. The town has a tri- 

 bunal of first instance, a college, a seminary for the education of the 

 clergy, some manufactures of hardware and woollens ; paper, saw, and 

 flour-mills ; and a thriving trade in corn. There is a chalybeate spring 

 in the neighbourhood. Le-Ma-d'Azil, 13 miles W.S.W. from Pamiers, 

 on the Arize, which here forms a fine cascade, hag a population of 

 8002. This town stands in a lovely valley surrounded by fertile hills ; 

 it has manufactures of alum, copperas, and horn-combs ; several large 

 cattle-fairs are held here. There are two of the druidical remains 

 called dolmen near this town. Maitra-en-Faix, 10 miles N. from 

 Pamiers, on the left bank of the Lcrs, has 3390 inhabitants, including 

 the whole commune. The counts of Foix had a castle and resided 

 here ; it was in this castle that Gaston Phoebus entertained Charles VI. 

 in 1 390. Mirepoix, 1 4 miles E. from Pamiers, on the Lers, has a college 

 and a population of 4160. Coarse woollens, box-wood combs, soap, 

 and woollen-yarn are manufactured here ; there are jet and iron mines 

 in the environs ; some coal also ia found. The town, which gave title 

 to a bishop from 1318 to 1801, is well built and clean ; the squares 

 are large and embellished by handsome plantations, and by fountains 

 which are supplied with water by a hydraulic engine. The wide 

 ditches that formerly encircled the town have been filled up and con- 

 verted into boulevards which are bordered with trees. Among the 

 principal buildings are a large hospital, in connection with which there 

 are several schools ; the parish church ; the fine stone bridge of seven 

 arches over the Lers ; and the town-hall. Of the old castle of Mire- 

 poix, which stood on an eminence on the right bank of the Lers. and 

 was one of the finest feudal structures in the south of France, there is 

 little standing except a square tower, which is inhabited. It was 

 taken by Simon de Montfort in 1209, who gave it to Guy de Levis, 

 whose descendants resided in it till 1644, when they removed to the 

 castle of Lagarde, a splendid structure about two miles from Mire- 

 poix, which was in great part demolished in the excesses of the first 

 French revolution. The castle of Mirepoix haa been called Chateau 

 Terride since the 1 6th century, in consequence of the marriage-treaty 

 between Jean de Levis the 13th lord, and Catherine Ursule de Lomagne, 

 baroness de Terride. Sarerdun, 8 miles N. from Pamiers, on the left 

 bank of the Ariege, is the birthplace of Benedict XII. : population, 

 4012. The town, which is old but pretty well built, has some trade 

 in timber, tiles, cattle, and fruits. The hospital of Saverdun was 

 founded in 1289. 



3. In the third arrondissement the chief town is St.-Girom, situated 

 in 4- 51t' N. lat., 1 8' 23" E. long., at an elevation of 1276 feet above 

 the sea level, on the right bank of the Salat, 26 miles W. from Foix. 

 It is a pretty little town, and has a population of 4030. The chief 

 fabric* are linen, coarse woollens, and paper ; the town has also a good 

 trade with Spain in iron, wool, mules, and swine ; it has ten great 

 yearly fairs, at which there are extensive sales of cloth, linen, corn, 

 and beasts. There is a tribunal of first instance and a college in the 

 town. Erce, 13 miles \V.S.\V. from Foix, has a population of 3865. 

 There are here quarries of white marble, tin and iron-mines, and also 

 iron-works, in which the water-power of the little river Erce, on which 

 the town stands, is made available. Sl.-IAzicr is a small but very 

 ancient place, situated on the slope of a hill on the right bank of the 

 Salat, a little below St.-Oiroim : i.,,u]ntion, 1272. This town, which 

 was formerly the seat of a bishop, was first known by the name of 

 Austria Comorannvrum, from its being tl. ,1, - I town of the Consn- 

 ranni or Conmiantni (a tribe mentioned by Pliny), who held the district 

 *ince called from them Couserana ; the town took its present name 



t. Li/,ir, one of ita bishops, who dii-d in 712 ; its prelates how- 

 ever were styled bishops of Austria till the 12th century ; thn episcopal 

 palace, now converted into an hospital, is a remarkably fine building. 



Maeeat, 14 miles E. from St.-Girons, has several furnaces for smelting 

 iron, hydraulic saw-mills, and oil and flour-mills. There are iron and 

 lead-mines, and also marble and slate-quarries near the town. Massat 

 itself has a population of only 1700'; but the commune to which it 

 gives name is studded with populous villages, and has a total popula- 

 tion of above 9000. 



The department forms the bishopric of Pamiers. It is within the 

 jurisdiction of the high court of Toulouse, and belongs to the llth 

 Military Division, of which Perpignan is head-quarters. 



(Dictionnaire de to France; Annitaire pour I' An 1853.) 



ARISH, or EL ARISH, a small town on a slight eminence about 

 half a mile from the shore of the Mediterranean, on the road from 

 Egypt to Syria, in 31 5' N. lat., 33 48' E. long. There are some 

 wells near it, and some clumps of palm-trees between the town and 

 the sea. Thevenot describes the castle in his time as being well built 

 of small stones ; and he says there were so many fine ancient columns 

 at Arish that the inhabitants made their coffee-houses and their wells 

 of them, and the cemeteries. also were filled with such remains. There 

 are still some Roman ruins, and several marble columns at Arish. 

 Arish is the site of the ancient Rhinocolura, which was often consi- 

 dered a kind of frontier town between Egypt and Syria, and in con- 

 nection with Petra in the interior, was an entrepot of some importance 

 (Strabo, 781). It stands on a small inlet of the sea, and near a scanty 

 stream of water. The French took possession of it in February, 1799, 

 in their expedition to Egypt, and kept it for some time. 



It was at Arish that Sir Sydney Smith concluded a convention with 

 the French army, allowing them to return to France with their bag- 

 gage and arms, which was subsequently disavowed by the British 

 Government. 



ARKANSAS RIVER, the largest affluent of the Mississippi next 

 to the Missouri, rises in the Rocky Mountains, but its source is not 

 known. Darby, in his ' Geographical View of the United States,' con- 

 jectures that its source is nearly as far as 42 N. lat., and 111 W. long., 

 but this must only be taken as a guess ; the latitude is certainly in 

 excess, and the longitude thus assigned is probably too much. The 

 Arkansas joins the Mississippi in 33 56' N. lat., 91 10' W. long., 

 with a course, following ite bends, estimated at upwards of 2000 

 miles. 



The sources of the Arkansas and of the great Rio del Nbrte are 

 probably near one another. Captain Bell, who was with Major Long's 

 party, traced the Arkansas into the mountains, till his progress was 

 stopped by the almost perpendicular gneiss rock, through a deep and 

 narrow fissure in which the river pours with great violence. The 

 Arkansas valley near the mountains is bounded by high clifl's of 

 inclined sandstone ; lower down these disappear, and there is a slope 

 of alluvial earth extending on each side for several miles ; and farther 

 down still, horizontal sandstone appears forming high bluffs or preci- 

 pices on each side of the valley. Trees of considerable size here grow 

 along the margin of the river, but their tops are not so high as the 

 level plain on each side, and the descent into this deep-sunk channel 

 is in many places quite impracticable ; at a short distance this narrow 

 valley is not seen at all. 



The Arkansas has a general eastern course as far as the meridian of 

 99 W. ; it has then a winding south-east course to about 35 N. 's,t., 

 95 W. long., from which point it resumes an eastern winding course to 

 about the meridian of 92 30', from which its course is about south-east 

 to its junction with the Mississippi. From its sources to about the 

 meridian of 96, the Arkansas flows through the great plains which 

 stretch eastward from the base of the Rocky Mountains. Though the 

 term ' plain ' is more applicable to this region than any other name, 

 it is not strictly a plain ; it is an undulating surface, presenting here 

 and there detached table-lands at a small elevation above it, with 

 some knobs and small ridges, the whole cut up into numerous exten- 

 sive parterres by the beds of streams, to the action of which a great 

 part of the present irregular form of the country is considered to be 

 due, by those who have explored it. The Arkansas valley, for more 

 than 100 miles from the place where it leaves the mountains, contains 

 a considerable quantity of timber, chiefly cotton- wood ; but farther 

 east the timber almost disappears, and the wide-spreading prospect is 

 nothing but a prairie. The river-valley widens in its eastern course, 

 and the bluffs become less elevated ; the bottoms are only a few 

 feet above the level of the river, which in some parts is spread out 

 a mile in breadth, and contains numerous islands. At some seasons 

 the river is said almost to disappear. About the meridian of 97 the 

 Arkansas crosses the line marked in Major Long's map as the western 

 ry of the limestone and coal strata connected with the Ozark 

 Mountains ; and about a degree or a degree and a half east of this, 

 it enters and traverses the hilly region of the Ozarks, in which it con- 

 tinues to the neighbourhood of Little-Rock, nearly 200 miles above its 

 confluence with the Mississippi, when it enters the low alluvial country. 



This river is joined by numerous large tributaries. Running into 

 it on the right bank are the Negracka or Red Fork, and the Nesuke- 

 tonfca or Grand Saline, which join the Arkansas west of the meridian 

 of \>~ ; both (if them probably come from the Rocky Mountains. 



Near the meridian of 95" the Arkansas is joined on the right bank 

 by the Great Canadian, which rises in the Rocky Mountains, probably 

 three degrees at least south of the sources of the Arkansas, and is 

 computed to run 1000 miles before it joins the main stream. Its 



