Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 25 - A-AUS.pdf/682

This page needs to be proofread.

628

ARITHMETIC — ARIZONA an allusion to the charges of Thyestean banquets and north of Williams and Flagstaff, by a series of extinct other immoralities, which the early apologists constantly volcanic cones, reaching in San Francisco Mountain an rebut. “ But the Christians offer up prayers for them, altitude of nearly 13,000 feet, from which in late that they may turn from their error; and when one of Tertiary time great floods of lava flowed, chiefly to the them turns, he is ashamed before the Christians of the southward and westward, forming a protecting covering deeds that were done by him, and he confesses to God to the foundation of nearly horizontal sedimentary rocks saying: ‘ In ignorance I did these things ’; and he through which, on the north side, the Colorado carved cleanses his heart, and his sins are forgiven him, because the Great Canon. Southward and westward from the he did them in ignorance in former time, when he was central mass of mountains the surface slopes away to the blaspheming the true knowledge of the Christians.” Gulf of California in a series of wide valleys, separated These last words point to the use in the composition by isolated mountain ranges, preserving a general paralof this Apology of a lost apocryphal work of very early lelism in a north-west and south-east direction. Of the date, The Preaching of Peter. This book is known approximate total area of 113,000 square miles, about to us chiefly by quotations in Clement of Alexandria : it 39,000 are below the altitude of 3000 feet; about was widely circulated, and at one time claimed a place 27,000 are from 3000 to 5000 feet, and 47,000 are over within the Canon. It was used by the Gnostic Heracleon 5000 feet. The central mountain ranges are largely and probably by the unknown writer of the epistle to formed of granitic, porphyritic, and other plutonic rocks Diognetus. From the fragments which survive we see in great variety, including volcanic outflows and tufas. that it contained: (1) a description of the nature of There are areas of Archaean gneiss and pre-Cambrian God, which closely corresponds with Arist. L, followed slates flanked by Palaeozoic formations, especially by the H (2) a warning not to worship according to the Devonian and Carboniferous. Great beds of Palaeozoic Greeks, with an exposure of various forms of idolatry; conglomerate and breccias give evidence of continental (3) a warning not to worship according to the Jews— areas, shallow oceans, and beaches in the earlier ages, with although they alone think they know the true God— currents of great volume and power. Well-marked for they worship angels and are superstitious about moons horizons of the Devonian occur in the Santa Catalina and and sabbaths, and feasts, comp. Arist. xiv.; (4) a descrip- the Santa Ritas. Carboniferous limestones and sandtion of the Christians as being “ a third. race,” and stones are widely distributed in the southern isolated ■ worshipping God in “a new way” through Christ; (5) a mountain ranges and are uplifted, flexed, and faulted. proof of Christianity from Jewish prophecy; (6) a promise Beds of graphitic coal with much ash and of little or no of forgiveness to Jews and Gentiles who should turn to value for fuel have been found, and show the far westChrist, because they had sinned “in ignorance” in the ward extension of the flora of the Coal Measures. Sandformer time. Now all these points, except the proof from stones of the Permian underlie a part of the lava of San Jewish prophecy, are taken up and worked out by I rancisco Mountain, and Mesozoic beds crop in many Aristides with a frequent use of the actual language of places towards the south and west. Fossil bones and The Preaching of Peter. A criterion is thus given us for teeth of both the mammoth and the mastodon, and of a the reconstruction of the Apology, where the Greek which giant species of Pos, show that some at least of the large we have has been abbreviated, and we are enabled to extinct mammals roamed over the Pleistocene plains and claim with certainty some passages of the Syriac which valleys. might otherwise be suspected as interpolations. Shut in on all sides from the ocean by mountain The style of the Apology is exceedingly simple. It is ranges and wide areas of land, Arizona is without rain curiously misdescribed by Jerome, who never can have for the greater part of the year. The air is clear, and seen it, as “ Apologeticum pro Christianis contextum the rays of the unclouded sun have great power. At philosophorum sententiis.” Its merits are its recognition night the radiation is unobstructed and the temperature of the helplessness of the old heathenism to satisfy human falls rapidly. Owing to the extreme dryness of the air aspiration after the divine, and the impressive simplicity the evaporation from all moist surfaces is rapid, and the with which it presents the unfailing argument of the high temperatures shown by the dry-bulb thermometer lives of Christians. are less oppressive than much lower temperatures in a The student may consult The Apology of Aristides, Syriac text humid atmosphere. There is a short season of rain in translation (J. E,. Harris), with an appendix containing the spring, and one in midsummer, and the accumulation the Greek text, Texts and Studies, i. 1 (1891), and a critical of snow on the mountains in winter gives rise to springs, discussion by R. Seeberg in Zahn’s Forschungen, v. 2 (1893) ; also, brief discussions by Harnack, Altchristl. Litteratur, i. 96 ff., rivulets, and forest growth. CJn onologie, i. 27Iff., where references to other writers may be The native plants, especially upon the lower levels, f0Und are characteristic of arid and semi-desert regions. They - _ (J. A. R.) are Sonoran rather than Californian in aspect and groupArithmetic. See Number. ing. Altitude, with its increasing moisture conditions and Arizona.—A territory of the United States, lying lower temperature, is a greater factor in the geographic on o the south-western border, between 37° and from distribution than latitude. Thorny shrubs, cactacese, and 32 '8 to o3 '5 N. lat., and 109° and from 114°'8 to 114° yuccas abound on the plains, together with the mezquite V. long. ; and bounded on the N. by Utah, on the E. and paloverde, wherever their deeply-extended roots can by Ngav Mexico, on the S. by Mexico, and on the W. reach moisture or water. The Larrea Mexicana, the everby California and Nevada. It is traversed from the green shrub with aromatic glossy leaves and bright yellow north-west to the south-east, a distance of about 450 flowers, is rarely absent and thrives under the most adverse miles, by mountain ranges of the Great Basin system conditions. Of Cacti there are no less than seventy-five which form the main axis of elevation. On the north- species. The giant columnar cactus (Cereus gigantem), east side, the great Colorado Plateau, with an average sometimes 40 feet high, is a striking object. Along the elevation of from 6000 to 8000 feet, stretches away into streams the cottonwood, sycamore, ash, willow, and Utah and New Mexico. The southern margin of this walnut give verdure and shade. At an elevation of plateau, marked by a line of cliffs, divides the head about 4000 feet oak trees appear in canons and on the waters of the Colorado Chiquito from those of the Gila. foot hills, giving the country the aspect of an artificial The plateau is dominated in its middle southern portion, park. In the Huachuca Mountains there are eleven