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ARAOONITE 223 ARANY Introduced. Aragon early became a Roman pro^nnce; and, on the fall of the empire, passed into the hands of the West Goths, but was conquered by the Moors in the beginning of the 8th century. The rulers of Aragon, after it had been re- covered from the Moors and united with Catalonia (1137) obtained possession of the Balearic Isles in 1213, of Sicily in 1282, of Sardinia in 1326, and of Naples in 1440. By the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon with Isabella, heiress of Cas- tile, in 1469, the two states of Aragon and Castile were united, and formed the foundation of the later Spanish mon- archy. The chief towns are Saragossa, Calatavud, Huesca, and Teruel. Pop. about 120,000. ARAGOXITE. or AEEAGONITE (from Aragox, in Spain, where it was first found) , a mineral with orthorhombic crystals, generally six-sided prisms, ♦hough the rectangular octohedron is considered its regular form. It occurs also globular, reniform, coralloidal, co- lumnar, stalactitic, and incrusting. Its color is white, gray, yellow, green, or violet; it is transparent or translu- cent, and brittle, Dana thus di- vides it: Var. 1. Ordinary: (a) Crystallized in simple or compound crys- tals, or in radiating groups of acicular crystals; (b) Columnar, including Satin- Spar; (c) Massive. 2, Scaly massive, 3, Stalactitic or Stalagmitic, 4. Coral- loidal. 5, Tamo%icite. Mossottite and Oserskite also rank with Aragonite, It occurs in Spain, Austria, Italy, England, America, and elsewhere. AHAGONITE GROUP. Dana's second group of anhydrous carbonates, com- prising aragonite, manganocalcite, with- erite, bromlite, strontianite, and cerussite. ARAGUAY (ar'a-gayV or ARA- GUAYA, or RIO GRANDE, a large river of Brazil, which rises in about 19" S. lat., near the Parana, flowing to about 6" S. lat., where it joins the Tocantins. The united stream, after a course of about 1,300 miles, falls into the delta of the Amazon in S. lat. 1° 40'. ARAKAN YOMA MOUNTAINS, a range of 700 miles long, stretching from the mountains of the Xaga City down- ward along the E. of Chittagong division, Bengal, and Arakan division. Lower Burma, and through the Irawadi division, and terminating in Cape Xegrais; high- est peak. Blue Mountain, 7,100 feet. ARAL LAKE (a'ralX, separated by the plateau of Ust-Urt from the Caspian Sea, is the largest lake in the steppes of Asia. It lies wholly within the limits of Russian Central Asia, embracing an area of about 25,000 square miles. It is fed by the Sir-Darya (the ancient Jaxartes) on the N. E. side and the Anra-Darva (or ancient Oxus) on the S. E. It has no outlet, and is g^enerally shallow, its only deep water being on the W. coart, where it reaches a depth of 225 feet; but it shoals gradually eastward to a mere marshy swamp. Fish, including sturgeon, carp, and herring, are abun- dant, though the water is brackish. The lake IS dotted with multitudes of islands and islets. Owing to the shallowness of its waters, and its frequent exposure to fierce and sudden storms, navigation is difficult. The area it now occupies has been dry land twice within historical times. This was the case during the Grsco-Roman period, and again during the 13th and 14th centuries. ARAXLA, a genus of plants, the typi- cal one of the order araliacex. A. umbel- lifera exudes an aromatic gum. A. imdi- cavlis is used as a substitute for sarsa- parilla. The berries of .4. spinosa, the angelica tree, prickly ash, or toothache tree, of America, infused in wine or spir- its, are used in cases of colic, while a tincture of them is prescribed in tooth- ache. A. racemosa, the spikenard of America, is also regarded as a medicinal plant. ARA3iI.ffiAN (ar-am-a'an), or ARA- MAIC, a Semitic language nearly allied to the Hebrew and Phoenician, anciently spoken in Syria and Palestine and east- ward to the Euphrates and Tigris, being the official language of this region under the Persian domination. In Palestine it supplanted Hebrew, and was the tongue of the Jews in the time of Christ, Parts of Daniel and Ezra are written in Ara- maic, or, as this form of it is often in- correctly named, Chaldee. An important Aramaic dialect is the Syriac, in which there is an extensive Christian literature. ARANJUEZ (ar-an-hu'ath), (probably the Latin Am Jovis) . a town of Spain, on the left bank of the Tagus, 30 miles S. S. E. of Madrid by rail, in a beauti- fully wooded valley. The palace was long a favorite spring resort of the royal faniilv. The famous gardens were laid out bv Philip II. At Aranjuez was con- cluded a treaty between France and Spain in 1772, and it was also the scene of the abdication of Charles IV. in 1808. Pop. about 15,000. ARANY, JANOS (or'ony), a Hunga- rian poet, born at Xagy-Szalonta, March 1. 1817. He was called to Budapest m 1860 as director of the Kisfaludy So- ciety; founded the literary weekly "Kos-