ARIZONA 



363 



ARKANSAS 



ARIZONA, UNIVERSITY OF, the only institu- 

 tion of college rank in Arizona, a coeduca- 

 tional university at Tucson under the control 

 of a board of regents, which includes the gov- 

 ernor, the superintendent of public instruction 

 and eight members appointed by the governor. 

 It was founded by act of the territorial 1 

 hit ure of 1885 and was opened in 1891. The 

 school of mines is one of the university's 

 strongest dt partments, Arizona being one of 

 tin- great mining states; but considerable at- 

 n to agriculture, particularly irri- 

 >n and cattle-raising. The agricultural 

 experiment station carries on its work not only 

 at Tucson, but at Yuma, Phoenix and other 

 points. The students number about 500, the 

 instructors, forty-five; the library contains 

 about 25,000 volumes. The income of the uni- 

 versity amounts to about $450,000 annually, 

 derived chiefly from Federal and state appro- 

 priations. The university has also received 

 several large private bequests and fifty-seven 

 sections of rich timber land from the United 

 government. 



ARK. In the Bible, three objects are referred 

 to by this term, all of which are vessels for 

 the safe-keeping of some precious object. 

 (1) The floating vessel built by Noah in which 

 he and his family and various animals were 

 rved during the Deluge (Gen. VI). Meas- 

 ured by the common standards of to-day, the 

 ark was 450 feet long, seventy-five feet wide 

 and forty-five feet high. (2) The cradle of 

 bulrushes in which Moses was placed by his 

 mother (Exod. II). (3) Ark of the Covenant. 

 This was the sacred chest which the Lord 

 directed Moses to make to contain the tables 

 of the law which he had received on Mount 

 Sinai. It was four and one-half feet long, 

 and one-fourth feet wide and two and one- 

 fourth feet high. It was covered within and 

 without with gold and was carried by staves 

 inserted in rings on the corners. This Ark of 

 the Covenant was the most sacred possession of 

 the Israelites. It was placed in the Holy of 

 Holies in the Tabernacle and later in a similar 

 position in Solomon's Temple (see Exodus 

 XXV, 10-22; XXVII, 1-9). 



RKANSAS, ahr' kansaw, one of the 

 south-central states of the American Union, 

 ;ly known as THE BEAR STATE. It lies 

 wholly to the west of the Mississippi River, 

 which separates it on the east from Tennessee 

 and Mississippi. On the south it is bounded 

 by Louisiana, on the west by Texas and Okla- 

 homa, on the north by Missouri. It is essen- 

 tially a Southern state in its spirit and ideals 

 as well as in its climate, much more so than is 

 Texas, which extends far south of it. Its state 

 flower is the apple blossom, a most appropriate 

 choice considering the prominence of the apple 

 in ita agricultural development. 



Size. In size Arkansas ranks twenty-sixth 

 among the states of the Union and in popula- 

 tion twenty-fifth. Its area of 53.335 square 

 miles is but slightly smaller than that of Illi- 

 nois, while its population of 1,574,449 is con- 

 siderably less than that of Chicago. The 

 Mississippi River cute off one corner and makes 

 the eastern boundary irregular, hut the state 

 is approximately a square, with north and 



south and e'ast and west dimensions of about 

 250 miles. The water surface is 810 square 

 miles, and this is practically all river, for 

 Arkansas has no lakes except the little "cut- 

 offs" or "ox-bows" in its river l>a>in<. 

 are formed by changes in the course of the 

 rivers, which have a tendency to shorten and 

 straighten their courses by cutting across a 

 hend in.-tead of flowing around it. thus 1- 

 the old bend, with its ends closed by silt, as an 

 "ox-bow." 



Population. Of the population of 1,574,449 

 in 1910, about 443,000 arc colored. The n 

 are very unevenly distributed, almost all of 

 thriii livmn in the cotton-growing section of 

 the south. The average density of popul.it ion 

 is about thirty to the square mile, which is 

 approximately that of the United States as a 

 whole. 



Few foreigners live within the limits of the 

 state, Mt of the popu- 



lation being native born. Especially note- 

 worthy is the large percentage of the people 



