AYLMER 



521 



AYR 



1903 he was one of the commissioners appointed 

 to settle the Alaska boundary dispute, and to- 

 gether with Sir Louis A. Jette refused to sign 

 the award. In 1910 he prepared the case for 

 the British colonies in the Atlantic fisheries 

 arbitration by The Hague Tribunal. Mean- 

 while, in 1905 he was elected to the Dominion 

 House of Commons, was at once appointed 

 Postmaster-General in Laurier's Ministry, and 

 was Minister of Justice from 1906 to 1911, 

 \\hen he retired from public life. He received 

 the honor of knighthood in the same year. 



AYLMER, QUE., a town in Wright County, 

 ciirht miles west of Hull, with which it is con- 

 d by the Canadian Pacific Railway and 

 by an electric railway. It is located on the 

 north shore of Lake Deschenes, an expansion 

 of the Ottawa River. Aylmer is of little im- 

 portance industrially, greenhouses and saw 

 mills being the most important establishments; 

 it is rather a residential suburb of Hull and 

 Ottawa, which lies across the river from Hull, 

 and is also popular as a summer resort. Two- 

 thirds of the people are French-Canadian. 

 Population in 1911, 3,109; in 1916, estimated, 

 3,500. A.M. 



AYLMER WEST, ONT., a town in Elgin 

 County, twelve miles east of Saint Thomas, 

 and 110 miles east of Detroit, on the Grand 

 Trunk, Wabash and Michigan Central rail- 

 ways. The Catfish River, which is not navi- 

 gable, flows through the town. Aylmer West 

 lies in a rich farming and dairying region, and 

 among its chief industries are canneries and 

 condensed milk factories which utilize farm 

 products. There are also several saw and 

 planing mills, a shoe factory, pump and scale 

 works and other manufacturing interests. The 

 development of the town will be greatly stim- 

 ulated by the use of hydro-electric power, 

 which the provincial hydro-electric power com- 

 mission is planning to install. The local Do- 

 minion post office, erected in 1912 at a cost of 

 $50,000, is a noteworthy building. 



Aylmer West was founded in 1809 and was 

 incorporated as a town in 1887. Population 

 in 1911, 2,102, mostly native Canadians; in 

 1916, estimated, 2,500. WJ.M. 



AYR, air, a seaport, summer resort and 

 county town of Ayrshire, Scotland, famed for 

 its associations with the poet Robert Burns, 

 whose birthplace, the village of Alloway, lies 

 two and one-half miles to the south. The old 

 town of Ayr lies at the mouth and on the south 

 bank of the River Ayr and on a beautiful bay 

 of the Firth of Clyde, the shining, sandy 



beaches of which are an attraction to thousands 

 of visitors each summer. About forty miles to 

 the northeast is the city of Glasgow. Three 

 bridges span the river, the Victoria Bridge, 

 built in 1898, and the "Twa Brigs" that Burns 

 made famous in his poetry. 



BURNS' MEMORIAL 



Ayr itself is rich in historical associations. 

 In the twelfth century it was made the royal 

 residence of the Scottish kings, and during the 

 wars for independence was the scene of many 

 fights between the English and the followers 

 of William Wallace. When Cromwell invaded 

 Scotland he built a fort in Ayr that covered 

 ten or twelve acres, using for a storehouse the 

 famous old Saint John's Church, where in 1315 

 the Scottish Parliament met to confirm the 

 succession of Edward Bruce to the throne. 



South of the town is a famous race-course, 

 and three miles north is Prestwick, a well- 

 known summer resort and the headquarters of 

 a popular Scottish golf club. Alloway, how- 

 ever, outshines all of the outlying towns in 

 point of interest. The "auld clay biggm." 

 the cottage where Burns was bora, a picture 

 of which accompanies the article on the poet, 

 has been bought by the Ayr Burns's Monument 

 trustees, and visitors may view therein many 

 articles of furniture once used by the Burns 

 family. Near-by is the "auld haunted kirk," 

 now without a roof and deprived of all of its 



