dèche. This stream is perhaps about sixty miles long, but is not navigable for more than about ten miles. The river passes under the natural bridge of Arc, about eighteen or twenty miles above its outfal. This natural bridge consists of a very hard greyish limestone rock, forming an arch through which the river flows. It has been used as a passage over the river ever since the Roman conquest. The road way is elevated nearly 200 French, or 212 English feet above the surface of the water. The arch has an elevation of ninety French, or between ninety-five and ninety-six English feet, and the breadth near the base is about 163 French, or 173 English feet. The length of this tunnel or arch is not given by our authorities. Geographers have spoken of it as originally a work of nature, but perfected by the hand of man. The writer of the article Ardèche in the Encyclopédie Méthodique (Géog. Physique), is of opinion that the river has worn this passage through the rocks round which it once took its course; having first effected a small opening, and gradually enlarged it. On the other hand, Malte Brun (Géographie Universelle) affirms that the arch does not exhibit any marks of the rock having been worn away by the stream; and denies, not only that the river originally formed, but even that it has at all enlarged the opening. He considers it a natural cavern formed by the decay of the rock on the bank of the river: and observes, that a tendency to decay is one of the characteristics of the kind of limestone which composes the mass. (Encyc. Méthodique; Malte Brun.) ARDEE (or ATHERDEE), a market town, in the barony of Ardee, county of Louth, Ireland, forty-three miles N. by W. of Dublin, on the Lifford and Derry road. It is pleasantly situated on the river Dee, which is a small stream uniting its waters with those of the Lagan, and flowing into the Irish sea. The town had in 1821 a population of 3588 persons, and the rest of the parish contained 1773. The living is a vicarage, which has been united from time immemorial with those of Shenlis, Smermore, and Stackallen, and from a later period with the rectory and vicarage of Killdemock. The united parishes are in the diocese and province of Armagh. There are in the town two schools on Erasmus Smith's foundation, one containing eighty-four boys, and the other eighty girls, on the Lancasterian system; there is also a dispensary. Ardee returned two members to the Irish Parliament, but lost its franchise with the Union; it has four fairs in the year. It gives the title of baron to the Brabazon family, earls of Meath. Ardee was antiently a walled town, and defended also by a strong castle, erected by Roger de Pippard, lord of Atherdee, about the close of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century. There were two monastic establishments here; an hospital for Crouched Friars, following the rule of St. Augustin, founded in 1207 by the above-mentioned Roger de Pippard, and a Carmelite friary, the church of which, filled with men, women, and children, was burned by the Scots and Irish under Edward Bruce in 1313. Near the town is a remarkable mound called Castle Guard, of ninety feet perpendicular height, 600 feet in circuit at the base, and 140 feet at the summit. It is tastefully planted, and is surrounded by a deep and wide trench, or, according to other accounts, a double ditch and vallum (i. e. embankment). The remains of two structures, one seemingly a castle or tower, and the other a kind of parapet, are on the summit. These mounds, which the Irish call raths, and attribute to the Danes, are more numerous in the county of Louth than in any other county. (Carlisle's Top. Dict. of Ireland; Traveler's New Guide through Ireland, &c.; Beaufort's Mem. of a Map of Ireland, &c.) 53° 30′ N. lat., 6° 30′ W. long. from Greenwich. ARDEN, the woodland district of the county of Warwick. This name, which, from its occurrence in the northern part of France and elsewhere [see ARDENNES], we may suppose was a common Celtic designation for a forest, was given to this most extensive of the antient British forests. It is said to have reached from the banks of the Avon to the Trent on the north, and to the Severn on the west; and to have been bounded on the east by an imaginary line from Burton upon Trent to High Cross, the point of intersection of Watling Street and the Foss-way on the border of Warwickshire and Leicestershire. Drayton, in his Poly-olbion,' (the 13th song,) says, That mighty Arden held, even in her height of pride; Upon the division of England into shires, this immense wild was divided between different counties, and only that part which was included in Warwickshire retained its name: though perhaps Dean,' the name of a forest on the borders of Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire, may be a relic of it. Although there is no longer a continuous forest in this district, yet it is still the best wooded part of the county, affording plenty of timber, consisting of almost all kinds of forest trees, but especially oaks. Several places preserve the name, as Henley in Arden Hampton in Arden, &c. (Drayton's Poly-olbion, with Sel den's illustrations; Beauties of England and Wales; Marshal's Review of the Agricultural Reports of the Midland Counties.) ARDENNES, a mountainous, or rather hilly region on the northern frontier of France, between the rivers Meuse and Moselle, situated partly in France, in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, in the Rhenish provinces of Prussia, and in Belgium. The name of the region is antient; the Arduenna Silva is mentioned by Julius Cæsar (Bell. Gall. 1. v. vi.) by Strabo (Geogr. 1. iv.), and by Tacitus (Ann. 1. iii. 42) Ardennes is the name of one of the northern departments in the modern subdivision of France, and is a part of the antient provinces of Picardy and Champagne. The Ardennes, or, as the region is sometimes called, the Forest of Ardennes, extends from the hills of Thiérache in Picardy, on the left of the Meuse, to those of the Hautes Fagnes and the banks of the river Roer, in the form of a half moon; and the hilly parts of the Duchy of Luxembourg, as well as the mountainous district called the Eifel, which extends to the Rhine, and contains numerous extinct volcanos, belong to the same system. The mean elevation of the Ardennes, according to Dumont (Mémoire sur la Constitution Physique de la Province de Liège, Bruxelles, 1832), is about 470 metres, or 1540 English feet, above the level of the sea; its highest point, La Baraque Michel, is 680 metres, or 2230 feet. The mountain Schneifel, in the environs of Prum, according to Steininger, is 2132 feet. Omalius d'Halloy, in his Mémoires Geologiques, observes, that the Ardennes afford a proof that the direction of streams is not always a sure indication of the general slope of a country; that the_table-land of Langres, in the department of the Haute Marne, which forms the water-shed of rivers which flow into the North Sea, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean, has, on that account, been considered as one of the most elevated parts of France, and that it has been supposed that, from that point, there is a slope to the north, west, and south; that the table-land of Langres is only 1495 feet above the level of the sea, whereas the river Meuse, which rises at the foot of it, traverses, between Mezières and Givet, 136 miles to the north, a table-land which has an elevation of more than 1640 feet. The Ardennes, although a high region, cannot be called mountainous; there are extensive tracts where only very low hills or gentle undulations are observed. But in those parts which are traversed by the more considerable rivers, such as the Meuse, the Semoy, the Ourte, the Sure, the Warge, and the Roer, the surface is broken into a multitude of valleys, and extremely deep and often very narrow gorges, with steep sloping or precipitous sides, 650 feet high. These great water-courses form, as it were, principal trunks from which a number of secondary valleys branch off, furrowing the whole surface of the neighbouring country. Thus the Ardennes contain both hilly and flat districts; but these last are lofty table-lands, having the same general elevation above the sea, and being composed of the same materials. The prevailing rocks of the Ardennes are clay-slate, grauwacke-slate, grauwacke, conglomerate, quartz-rock, and quartzose sandstones in various modifications of colour and internal structure, with now and then, but very rarely, some thin beds of limestone and of calcareous conglomerates. These rocks are in strata generally bearing N.E. and S. W., often highly inclined, sometimes vertical, but seldom, if ever, horizontal. They maintain a considerable uniformity both of composition and stratification throughout large tracts. The slaty rocks are abundant, and afford, in some places, excellent roofing slates; there are extensive quarries of these along the banks of the Meuse, and they are carried to great distances from the facility of the river-navigation. Excellent whetstones, both for coarse and fine cutlery, are largely exported. The Ardennes have hitherto proved but poor in metallic substances except iron; but the lead-mines of Longvilly and the antimony-mines of Goesdorf were productive. Near Lierneux, an oxide of manganese is worked in a mine open to the day. On the borders of the region towards the west there are some rich iron mines. The celebrated mineral waters of Spa issue from these slaty rocks. The country of the Ardennes is in general sterile; and even in the best part of it, which constitutes the French department of Ardennes, there is only about a third of the land in cultivation. There are vast heaths and extensive marshes which can only be approached in the three driest months of the year. These heaths are called Fagnes, and the most elevated part of the region on the south-east is called Les Hautes Fagnes. There are extensive forests of oak and beech; more rarely, of alder, ash, and birch. Pines and firs occur but seldom. The people of Belgium, living on the borders of the Ardennes, call them the Neur-Paï, that is, NoirPays, 'black country,' because it contains no limestone, and because the only grains cultivated are rye and dwarf oats. Around the villages there are patches of land which have been brought into cultivation by means of a process of paring and burning, called essartage: it consists in taking off the turf and burning it on the ground, and by this process the soil is rendered capable of yielding three successive crops; the first year, rye, generally of a very good quality; the second year, oats; and the third year, potatoes; but after these crops have been got off the land, it must lie fallow for six, twelve, or even twenty years. Meadows and regularly cultivated lands occur only in the valleys. The rearing of cattle, sheep, and horses, is carried on to a great extent. The mutton is celebrated for its excellence, but the wool is not in such high repute. A great deal of ewe-milk cheese is made. The oxen, sheep, and horses are of a small breed. The hardy and valuable Ardennes ponies and little horses appear to be indigenous. They were as highly esteemed in antient times as they are in the present day; for at the time of the invasion of Gaul by the Romans, the cavalry of the Treviri, in which this particular breed was employed, was esteemed the best in Gaul. ARDENNES, a department in the north of France, on the frontier. It is bounded on the N. and N.E. by the kingdom of Belgium, E. by the department of Meuse, W. by that of Aisne, and S. by that of Maine. Its length is about sixty-five miles N. and S., and its breadth sixty miles from E. to W. Its superficial extent is 1955 English square miles, and the population about 282,000, being about 144 to a square mile. This department is traversed by ridges which may be regarded as remote branches of the Vosges, and which separate the waters of the basin of the Meuse from those of the Seine. The streams which flow from the N.E. slopes of these ridges fall into the Meuse; the Bar (which is navigable for several miles) just below Donchery, the Vence, and the Sormonne, near Mezieres, and the Faux and the Viroin, a considerable way farther down. The Meuse itself traverses the department in a direction S.E. and N.W, nearly parallel to and not very far from the Belgian frontier; it then turns more towards the N., and waters a portion of the French territory which projects into the kingdom of Belgium. It receives the abovementioned streams on its left bank: on the right it receives the Semoy, which has the greater part of its course in the Belgian territory. The Aisne forms an are in the southern part of the department, flowing in a direction which may be described as, on the whole, E.S.E. and W.N.W.; it receives the Vaux on its left bank from the range of heights above alluded to; and falling into the Oise, far beyor.d the limits of the department, ultimately joins the Seine. Its navigation begins at Château Portien, a little before it leaves this department. Some of the other feeders of the Oise rise just on the eastern border of Ardennes. The elevations in this department appear from their steep declivities and rugged summits to be more lofty than they really are. They afford excellent slates, equal in quality to those of Angers, though not so deep in colour. (Encyc. Method.; Géog. Physique, Art. ARDOISES.) Slate and stone are quarried to a considerable extent. Coal, iron, and some lead, are also worked: the great quantity of wood which the department produces, furnishes fuel for considerable iron works. These heights were once covered with an immense forest. Cæsar (Comment. de B. G. lib. v.) describes it as spreading in vast extent through the middle of the country of the Treviri (people of the diocese of Trèves, now included in the Prussian Grand Duchy of the Lower Rhine), from the river Rhine to the beginning of the territory of the Remi' (the people about the present town of Rheims). In another place (Comment. de B. G. lib. vi.), he speaks of it as 'the largest forest in all Gallia,' and says, that it stretches from the banks of the Rhine and the country of the Treviri, to the lands of the Nervii' (who dwelt in the present country of Flanders), and extends above 500 miles in length*.* But this measure is so great that some error in the text has been suspected. In some documents of the German empire of the dates 1001, 1003, A.D., the name Arduenna is applied to a canton of Westphalia bordering on the diocese of Paderborn. If the word signified a forest [see ARDEN], it accounts for the fact that the Roman goddess of forests, Diana, appears sometimes with the epithet Arduenna: and Montfaucon shows that a superstitious belief in this goddess existed in the Ardennes till the thirteenth century. Strabo speaks of it as a large forest, consisting of not very lofty trees. (Geog. lib. iv.) Though now much reduced, it renders the department which bears its name one of the best wooded in France. It occupies a considerable extent on the banks of the Meuse below Charleville, and encompasses the plain in which the town of Rocroy stands. The timber which it furnishes, besides supplying the forges or manufactories, forms one of the chief articles of commerce. The agricultural produce of the department is not sufficient to supply the wants of the inhabitants. Their timber, slates, metals, and woven fabrics are exchanged for the corn and wine of more fertile districts. The southern parts contain the most pasturage and corn land. The chief manufactures carried on in this department are of cloth and woollen stuffs, at Sedan and Rethel; cutlery, hardwares, nails, and fire-arms, at Charleville; leather, which is in good repute; hosiery, hats, serges, &c. The chief towns are Mézières, the capital (population 4000), Rethel (population 6000), Rocroy (population 3500 or 4000), Sedan (population 13,000), and Vouziers (population under 2000); all which are seats of sub-prefects: Charleville (population 8000), which is separated from Mézières only by the Meuse; and Charlemont, with Givet, Notre Dame, and Givet St. Hilaire, which form one town with a population of about 4000. Several of these being on the frontier are fortified,-Mézières, Rocroy, Sedan, and Charlemont with the Givets. For a further account of these towns, see CHARLEVILLE, CHarlemont, Meʼzie`res, RETHEL, ROCROY, SEDAN. This department is included in the archbishopric of Rheims, and is under the jurisdiction of the Cour Royale (Assize Court) of Metz. It sends three members to the Chamber of Deputies. (Malte Brun; Balbi; Encyc. Méthodique; Diction. Géog. de la France, &c.) ARDESHIR. [See SASSANIDE] ARDFERT, called antiently ARDART, ARDFEARTBRENN, or ARDBREINN, a decayed city of Ireland, in the barony of Clanmaurice, county of Kerry; 184 English miles S.W. by W. from Dublin, and about four N.N.W. of Tralee. Although now much reduced, its former importance and its episcopal rank entitle it to notice. The see of Ardfert was erected in the fifth century, and was so early united with that of Aghadoe that they now form but one diocese, comprehending the county of Kerry and part of Cork, and containing eighty-eight parishes, and fortynine benefices. In 1663, the united sees were added to that of Limerick, but without incorporation. The chapter of Ardfert consists of five dignitaries, viz., dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, and archdeacon, but no prebendaries; only the archdeacon of Aghadoe has a stall. The five dignitaries above-mentioned have the cure of souls in the parish of Ardfert, and contribute each one-fifth to the curate's salary. The parish church serves as the cathedral, and is the relic of a very extensive edifice, the rest of which was demolished in the wars of 1641. The ruins of the nave and choir are twenty-six yards long and ten broad. There are the remains of an aisle on the south side, and there was probably one on the north side, which was rebuilt not long before the demolition of the church in 1641. Towards the west end or the cathedral, there are two detached chapels, said to have belonged to the dignitaries of the cathedral, one of them bearing marks of remote antiquity. Opposite the west door was formerly one of the an As the Roman mile was about 11-12ths of our mile, the distance will be about 453 English miles-which is impossible: for it is little more than 300 Roman miles from the Rhine at Strasburg to the coast of Flanders. And Strab expressly says, the forest was not of the extent which some writers assign to it, mentioning 4000 stadia as the exaggerated dimensious, which are equal to Casar's measurement. Eight stadia are equivalent to one Roman mile. tient round towers (see ANTRIM town) nearly a hundred feet high, and built mostly of a dark kind of marble; but this fell in the year 1770 or 1771. The area of the cathedral is crowded with tombs, on one of which is the effigy of a bishop rudely sculptured in relief. Ardfert was once the capital of Kerry, and haa a university of high repute. The bishops were antiently called bishops of Kerry. St. Brendan, or Brandon, to whom the cathedral was dedicated, erected a sumptuous abbey here in the sixth century, but it was burned, as well as the town, in 1089. The town suffered a similar fate again in 1151 and 1179, on which last occasion the abbey was entirely destroyed. Within the demesne formerly belonging to the earls of Glandore and barons of Ardfert (titles now extinct) are the remains of an antient monastery, forming a most picturesque addition to the grounds. These remains, according to Sir R. C. Hoare, who visited them in July, 1806, consist of the tower, nave, and a great part of the cloisters, which are in tolerable preservation. The architecture of the building does not bespeak a very antient date. There is some difference of opinion as to its origin; Smith (Nat. and Civ. Hist. of Kerry) ascribes its foundation to Thomas, Lord of Kerry, in 1253, in which he is followed by Archdale (Monast. Hibern.); others ascribe it to a baron of Kerry, in 1389. It is thought to occupy the site of the former monastery founded by St. Brendan, and was destroyed when the town was burnt in the years 1089 and 1179. There are three fairs in the year. The population amounted, in 1821, to 629 in the town, or 2481 in the whole parish. It was a parliamentary borough before the Union, and sent two members to the Irish House of Commons; it is still governed by a portreeve and twelve burgesses. In 1821, there was an Hibernian Society school of forty boys and twenty-one girls. 52° 19′ N. lat., long. 9° 39 W. from Greenwich. Ardfert is so near the sea, that single trees, or even rows, are destroyed by the wind; yet there are fine plantations in the grounds of the late Earl of Glandore. ARDGLASS, a town in Ireland, in the barony of Lecale, county of Down, a short distance E. by N. of the town of Killough, which is 100 miles N. by E. of Dublin. It lies upon the east side of the tongue of land which separates the bay of Killough from that of Ardglass; the road between the two towns leads round the head of the first-named of these bays, a distance of about five miles, but this may be very much shortened by crossing the sands when the tide permits. and 20 broad in the clear-(250 feet long and 24 broad, according to Seward, Topog. Hibern., which are probably the exterior dimensions,)-is situated close by the harbour, and washed by the sea on the north end and the east side. On that side there are only spike-holes; but on the west side, or front, are sixteen arched stone doors, alternating with fifteen square windows; there are also three towers, two connected with the building, the third, now a little detached, but which probably at first constituted one extremity, as the remaining two towers occupy the centre and the other end of the building. The whole building has been divided into small apartments in two ranges, one over the other, with a staircase in the centre. The lower rooms are about seven feet high; the upper, six and a half; there is a small water-closet in each of the latter, the drain running down through the wall into the sea. The towers have each three rooms, ten feet square, with broad-flagged floors supported without any timbers. The building is surmounted with a battlement, at least on the side next the sea. This singular erection is termed by the inhabitants the 'new works, although they have no tradition as to its use, which, however, its construction seems sufficiently to point out. It appears to have been intended for the secure deposit and sale of the goods of some merchants who came from beyond sea. About ten feet from the south tower of this building is a square tower, forty feet by thirty, (we know not whether these are the inside or the outside dimensions, but we believe them to be the latter,) consisting of two stories, and called Horn Tower, from the quantity of horns of oxen and deer found about it. It is thought to have been the merchants' dining-hall and kitchen, from the fire-places and other marks about it. There are at Ardglass three castles, called King's Castle, Cowed (or Coud) Castle, and Jordan's Castle. The last, though not so large as King's Castle, is a finer building than any of the rest. In the great rebellion of Tyrone (in the reign of Elizabeth) it was defended by Simon Jordan, the owner, for three years, until the garrison was relieved by the Lord Deputy, Mountjoy. The parish of Ardglass is in the union (i.e. united parishes) of Ballyphilip, in the diocese of Down, and ecclesiastical province of Armagh; but it has been erected into a perpetual curacy, and a new church built. The old church of Ardholl was the parish church, but was desecrated by the dreadful massacre of the whole congregation at the Christmas midnight mass by the septs (clans) of the M'Cartanes. (Antient and Present State of the County of Down ; Seward's Topogr. Hibernica; Parliamentary Papers.) ARDNAMURCHAN. [See ARGYLESHIRE.] Ardglass lies on a small rocky bay or creek about 150 ARDOCH, a village in Scotland, in the district of Strathfathoms wide, and extending, at high water, 500 fathoms allan, county of Perth, where there are the remains of a perinland, with three or four sandy coves along its shores, di-manent Roman station, supposed to be in the most perfect vided from each other by rocky ledges. The outer of these preservation of any in the island, and the traces of three ledges on the west side has been built up so as to form a temporary Roman camps. The station is on the right of kind of pier, at the extremity of which is a light-house; the great military road from Stirling through Crieff to the and as there are always three or four fathoms water at the north Highlands, and close upon the little river Knaick or entrance, it may be run for at night, even at low water. Knaig, a feeder of the Allan, which falls into the Forth. The harbour is, however, far from secure when the south- This station is supposed, by General Roy, to be the east wind, the most violent on this coast, sets in. (Report Lindum of Richard of Cirencester; and to have been of the Commissioners of Irish Fisheries for 1822.) It is founded by Agricola in one of his northern campaigns, perinhabited chiefly by fishermen. The population of the haps in the fourth. It was on a road carried by the Rowhole parish was only 976 in the year 1821, the inhabitants mans from the wall erected by them between the Firths of of the town not being discriminated. It is the centre Forth and Clyde into Strathmore beyond the Tay, and of one of the districts or stations into which the Irish which crosses the river Knaig immediately below the stafisheries are divided. In the year ending the 5th of April, tion. The accompanying plan, from General Roy's Military 1830, there were employed within the district 208 sailing Antiquities of the Romans in Britain, will show the great and 300 row-boats; 2441 fishermen, and probably about pains taken to strengthen it. Its form, according to the 300 other persons, as fish-curers, net-makers, coopers, sail-general practice of the Romans, is rectangular; its dimenmakers, and other artificers connected with the fisheries, sions are about 500 feet by 430 within the entrenchments; and depending on them for support. In 1822 there were and its four sides nearly face the four cardinal points. two packets to the Isle of Man. The harbour has been On the north and east sides, where the works are most perwithin a very few years substantially repaired by W. Ogilvy, fect, there are five ditches and six ramparts. From the Esq., and government have lately made a grant towards nature of the ground the direction of the outer rampart the erection of a pier. There is in the town a school on the varies, but the aggregate breadth of the works on the east foundation of Erasmus Smith, the school-house for which side, where intersected by the line A B, is about 180 feet, was built by Mr. Ogilvy: it contained in 1826 about 120 and that of the works on the north side, where intersected pupils, half of whom were boys and half girls. by the line C D, is more than 270 feet. The prætorium, or general's quarter, is near the centre, but not in it; it is a rectangle, and almost a square, having its greater side about 70 feet, but its sides are not parallel to those of the station. On the south side of the latter the works have been much defaced by the process of cultivation, and Ardglass was once a corporate town of considerable importance, both as a seat of commerce and a military post. In the time of Queen Elizabeth it was, next to Newry and Down, the principal place in the county. Some authorities make it the second town for trade in all Ulster, Carrickfergus being the first. Several remains attest its former strength and greatness. A range of buildings 234 feet long written about A.D. 1338, the MS. of which was discovered in Denmark in 1757. A monk of Westminster, author of a History and Map of Roman Britain, on the west by the modern military road from Stirling towards Inverness. Three of the gates remain. The entrance at the prætorian gate crosses the entrenchments, not at right angles, but obliquely. There is a road out of the camp on the south side; but whether it coincides with the remaining (decuman) gate is not clear from the plans. The Roman stations and camps had usually four gates: the Prætorian, in front of the prætorium or general's quarters; the Decuman, at the back of the same; and the right and left principal gates. From an inscription on a sepulchral stone dug up at this place, it appears that a body of Spanish auxiliary troops lay in garrison here. The west side of the camp is protected by the river Knaig, the banks of which, as the section shows, are very steep. The level of the camp is sixty feet above the river. The prætorium, which has from time immemorial been called Chapel Hill, has been at some time enclosed with a stone wall, and has the foundations of a house ten yards by seven. The whole station has been of late years enclosed with a high stone wall in order to preserve it. There is said to be on one side of the prætorium a subterraneous passage, supposed to extend under the bed of the river, but the entrance having been closed about 1720, to prevent hares, when pursued, from taking refuge there, it is not known where the passage is. Search has been made for it. but in vain. Previous to its being closed, a man who had been condemned in the baron court of some neighbouring lord, consented, upon condition of pardon, to explore it; but after bringing out some Roman spears, helmets, and bits of bridles and other things, he descended again and was killed by the foul air. The articles brought out were carried off by the duke of Argyle's soldiers after the battle of Shereffmuir in 1715, and were never recovered. The camps are a little way north of the station on the way to Crieff, and are of different magnitudes. The largest of them has a mean length of 2800 feet, and a mean breadth of 1950, and was calculated to hold between 25,000 and 26,000 men. The military road enters the camp by the south gate, and has levelled half of the small work which covered it, leaving the other half of it standing. On the east rampart of this camp is a small redoubt, on a gentle eminence; the only thing of the kind in the temporary camps of Agricola in these parts. The area of this camp is marsby, and some parts of it appear to have been always so. D The second camp is smaller, and its ramparts obliquely intersect those of the last. The north end and part of the east and west sides remain entire. Its length is 1910 feet, and its breadth 1340, and it would contain about 14,000 men, according to the Roman method of encamping. The area is drier than that of the great camp. These camps Roy supposes to have been formed and occupied by Agrícola in his sixth campaign; the smaller one after the larger, when he had divided his forces. The part of the rampart of the first included within the second was not levelled. The lower parts of both, where they approach the river Knaig, are now demolished. The third camp is immediately adjacent to the station, and was probably an addition to it. Its mean length is 1060 feet, and its mean breadth 900, so that it would contain about 4000 men. It was stronger than the great camp, and was formed subsequently to it, the works of the great camp having been defaced by its rampart, and the part included within it has been levelled either by the Romans or others since their time. In this part of Scotland are the remains of two other Roman stations, but neither of them are so perfect as that at Ardoch. One of them, at Strageath or Strathgeth, on the river Earn, about six miles and a half N.N.E. of Ardoch, is thought to be the Hierna of Richard of Cirencester; and between this and Ardoch, about two miles and a half from the latter, is a small post called Kaim's Castle, supposed to have been a look-out for both stations, the remains of which are very perfect. The other station, of which only slight vestiges remain, is in the neighbourhood of West Dealgin Ross, near the junction of the rivers Ruagh Huil and Earn, about eight miles and a quarter N.N.W. from Ardoch, and eight and a half W.N.W. from Strageath. Near it are the remains of a small temporary camp, whereof great part of the intrenchments and the four gates (which are covered in a manner singularly curious) remain entire. This station General Roy supposes to be the Victoria of Richard of Cirencester, and the camp that of the ninth legion, which was attacked by the Caledonians in the sixth campaign of Agricola. About half a mile S.W. of Ardoch, at the Grinnan Hill of Keir, is a circular Roman work. (Roy's Military Antiquities of the Romans in North Britain; Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland.) About a mile west of Ardoch was a cairn of extraordinary dimensions, viz., 182 feet in length, 30 feet in sloping height, and 45 feet in breadth at the base. (Gordon's Itinerarium Septentrionale.) The stones have been now mostly carried away to form enclosures for the neighbouring farms; but a large stone coffin, in which was a skeleton seven feet long, has been preserved, together with a few large stones around it. (Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland) ARDROSSAN, a sea-port and parish in the district of Cunningham, the most northern division of Ayrshire in Scotland. The harbour of Ardrossan was begun in 1806. The port had previously considerable natural advantages, being sheltered by a large island (Horse Island) off the coast. The works were carried on under the auspices of the late earl of Eglinton, who bestowed upon them much trouble and expense. The harbour was to form one outlet of a canal intended to connect the Clyde with this part of the coast, and the projectors seem to have hoped to render Ardrossan the port of Glasgow. The harbour has been for many years in a state to receive shipping, and is considered as one of the safest and most capacious and accessible on the west coast of Scotland. A circular pier of 900 yards* was finished in 1811; but the progress of the wet dock and other works was suspended by Lord Eglinton's death in 1820. The canal (begun in 1807) has never been finished. It has been carried from Glasgow past Paisley to the village of Johnston, a distance of eleven miles, at an expense of 90,000l. A rail-road has been commenced from Ardrossan to the canal, which will thus complete the communication, though not in the manner first designed. Baths have been constructed at Ardrossan, which render it somewhat attraccive as a watering-place. There are some ruins of an old castle, the remains of which indicate it to have been of considerable extent. It was in a great degree demolished by Cromwell, who used the stones of it for the erection of the fort of Ayr. This is the statement in the Ency. Britannica, last edition; but we give 200 yards as the intended length of this pier. suspect some error. Two statements of the plans of Mr. Telford, the engineer, The parish has a medium length of six miles. I's greatest breadth is about five miles, and its least not more than three. The kirk is close to the town of Saltcoats, part of which is in this parish. [See SALTCOATS.] The population in 1831 was 3494. Ardrossan is in the presbytery of Irvine, and the synod of Glasgow and Ayr. It gives the title of haron to the family of Montgomery, earls of Eglintoun. (Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, &c.) ARDSTRAW, an extensive parish in Ireland, in the county of Tyrone. [See NEWTON STEWART.] ARE, the modern French measure of surface, forming part of the new decimal system adopted in that country after the revolution; it is obtained as follows:-the metre or measure of length, being the forty-millionth part of the whole meridian, as determined by the survey, is 3'2809167 English feet; and the are is a square, the side of which is 10 metres long. The following denominations are also used :— Decare Hectare Chilare Myriare Deciare. Centiare Milliare The are is or or is 10 ares. 39 1000 10,000 The hectare is generally used in describing a quantity of land. It is 2:4711695 English acres, or 404 hectares make 1000 acres, which disagrees with the first result by less than 1 part out of 50,000. 6 A'REA. This term is a Latin word, and means the same thing as superficies or quantity of surface, but is applied exclusively to plane figures. Thus we say, the surface of a sphere, the area of a triangle,' and the surface of a cube is six times the area of one of its faces. The word is also applied to signify any large open space, or the ground upon which a building is erected; whence, in modern built houses, the portion of the site which is not built upon commonly called the area. is Returning to the mathematical meaning of the term, the measuring unit of every area is the square described upon the measuring unit of length: thus, we talk of the square inches, square feet, square yards, or square miles, which an area contains. And two figures which are similar, as it is called in geometry, that is, which are perfect copies one of the other on different scales, have their areas proportional to the squares of their linear dimensions. That is, suppose a plan of the front of a house to be drawn so that a length of 500 feet would be represented in the picture by one of 3 feet. Then the area in the real front is to the area of the front in the picture in the proportion of 500 times 500 to 3 times 3, or of 250,000 to 9. Similarly, if the real height were 20 times as great as the height in the picture, or in the proportion of 20 to 1, the real area would be to that of the picture as 20 times 20 to once one, or as 400 to 1, that is, the first would be 400 times as great as the second. Any figure which is entirely bounded by straight lines may be divided into triangles, as in the adjoining diagram. The area of every triangle may be measured separately by either of the following rules; n which the word in italics may mean inches, yards, miles, or any other unit, provided only that it stands for the same throughout. 1. Measure a side, A B, of the triangle ABC, and the perpendicular CD which is let fall upon it from the opposite vertex, both in units. Half the product of A B and C D is the number of square units in the triangle A B C. Thus, if A B be 30 yards, and CD 16 yards, the triangle contains 240 square yards. 2. Measure the three sides, A C, C B, BA, in units; take the half sum of the three, from it subtract each of the sides, multiply the four results together, and extract the square |