ATKINS 



AIR 



AIKINS, a' kinz, JAMES Cox (1823-1904), a 

 Canadian statesman, for many years one of 

 the leading Conservatives of the Dominion, 

 best known as the author of the Public Lands 

 Act, under the terms of which he then organ- 

 ized the Dominion Lands Bureau. Though he 

 began life as a farmer, he was chosen to the 

 legislature in 1844, when he was only twenty- 

 one years old, and from then until his death 

 was always conspicuous in politics. From 1869 

 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1880 he was Secretary 

 of State under Sir John A. Macdonald, and 

 from 1880 to 1882 was Minister of Inland R- 

 nue. He then served a five-year term as lieu- 

 tenant-governor of Manitoba, and for the re- 

 mainder of his life sat in the Dominion Senate. 

 His son, SIR JAMES ALBERT MANNING AIKINS 

 (1852- ), one of the leading barristers of 

 the Dominion, president of the Canadian Bar 

 Association since 1914. After graduation from 

 Upper Canada College and the University of 

 Toronto, he studied law, was called to the bar 

 in 1878, and was created Queen's Counsel in 

 1884. For thirty years, 1881 to 1911, he was 

 the Winnipeg counsel for the Canadian Pacific 

 Railway, and from 1911 to 1915 represented 

 Brandon in the Dominion House of Commons. 

 After the fall of the Roblin ministry in 1915, 

 Sir James took an active part in reorganizing 

 the Conservative party in Manitoba and was 

 chosen its leader. Though the task was hope- 

 less, he accepted it; he resigned his seat in the 

 Commons and offered himself as member for 

 Brandon in the legislature, but was defeated. 

 Sir James has given largely of his time to 

 educational enterprises ; he is a director 

 Wesley College and of Manitoba Agri- 

 Itural College, is a member of the council of 

 University of Manitoba and has been its 

 bursar since 1887, is a member of the 

 isitors, Royal Military College, 

 i, Ont., and an honorary officer in two 

 He was knighted on January 1, 

 14. 



AILANTHUS, a Urn' thus, a tree whose 

 leaves are second only to those of the mul- 

 in importance as food for silkworms. It 

 native to China and Japan, but because it 

 a handsome tree, \.iln.il.l.- fr .-li.nl.- ami f<>t 



'MtroduoMl 



i ited States. The loaves 

 much like ash leaves, and the flowers, 

 have a most unpleasant odor, arc small 

 greenish. Ailanthus silk is much cheaper 

 more durable than mulberry silk, but is not 

 soft and glossy. 



AINO, i' no, or AINU, i' noo, the name of 

 the hairy, brown, short-statured race which 

 peoples the island of Yezzo, the Kurile Islands 

 and parts of Saghalien, and is perhaps the orig- 

 inal race of Japan itself. The Ainos, who num- 



AINO MAN AND WIFE 



ber about 20,000, are still uncivilized. Their 

 religion, in which a sort of bear-worship fig" 

 ures, in some respects resembles that of the 

 American Indians. They are said to average 

 less than five feet in height. 



AIR, the element in which human beinga 

 and plants and animals live and breathe, is an 

 invisible mixture of gases which can bo 

 weighed, expanded or compressed, transformed 

 into a liquid, or even frozen into a solid. 



Weight. That air has weight was observed 

 by Galileo, about 300 years ago, from the oper- 

 ation of a pump which sucked water in the 

 same manner as an ordinary kitchen or well 

 pump of to-day. When you press the handle 

 of the pump, you pull the air out of the pipe 

 (see AIR PUMP). The water in the cistern or 

 well is weighed down by air and forces the 

 water in the pipe, which is bearing no weight, 

 to rise. Torricelli, a pupil of Galileo, proved 

 that the weight of the air over a square inch 

 of surface equals that of a column of mercury 

 about thirty inches high. At the sea level 

 square inch sustains the weight of about 14.7 

 pounds of air, but at higher points in the at- 

 mosphere the pressure is of course less (see 

 below). It also varies with the state of tin* 

 weather, and Torricelli 'a apparatus has become 

 tin barometer, an instrument which foretells 

 us. See GALILEO; TORRICELLI; BAROMETER 



Weight. \\t know, is a universal property of 

 matter. Therefore, as air has weight, r 

 made up of particles of matter. Under pressure 

 these particles come closer together, so the air 

 at the earths surface is more dense than that 

 higher up. About thirty-three miles above us, 

 scientists say, the particles do not even touch 

 each other. Just how far from the earth there 

 oeascB to be any we do not know. We are 



